After a long dry season of posts here on blog.kanojo.de i proudly announce yet another garage-tinkering-tutorial: How to print t-shirts yourself. While this may not sound special or new at all, the technique we've chosen required a lot of fine tuning to yield *PROFESSIONAL* (and by that i mean really really REALLY good) results. So i considered it worth sharing.

While i must admit that i make a equipment-assumption that may not be the case for most, you can work your way around it. What i'm talking about is that recently a cutting plotter moved into this household. A cutting-plotter is almost like a normal plotter - except that it doesn't paint or print the paths (read: vector-files) you give it, but cuts. For those who don't know what a plotter is - imagine a printer that is able to print on a infinitely long roll of paper and doesn't print per line, but prints a arbitrary path (e.g. a sphere, bezier curve, etc.) at a time.

This allows to scrounge off so-called "flex film/foil" from professional shirt shops (they always seem to have some oddments to give away) or buy it really kinda cheap on ebay. This can then be cut using that cutting plotter given a nice vector-file you did before (inkscape is great once you learn how to use it by the way!). The trick with cutting plotters is that the foil you use comes on another foil, the "medium". This medium is not cut, but only the "useable" film on top of it. So after cutting you need to take away the excess outset and inset foil.

And this is the point where i like to stress that you can, in fact, do this even without having a cutting machine like this handy! If you have some patience (and we had before we had that machine) you could just print out your motif, trace it to the foil and then cut it by hand using a scalpel or hobby knife. Just be careful only to cut the useable film, not the medium foil!

But it's only after this that the real work begins - everything before was done by machine (or, by hand, in that case that was the most work ). The film needs to be pressed on using quite some force, a defined (short!) time and a defined temperature. For this purpose professionals use "transfer-presses", machines likeseen here on the right...

So, what do we do at home? We hack! After some datasheet reading and one Shirt full of little bits and pieces to try around we've found out how to properly do it. What you'll need is found in (almost) any household:

• a hard, smooth piece of wood
• a regular electric iron
• baking paper
• a stopwatch
• a frind who's doing body-building also comes in handy

Make sure the iron is set to around 170°C (thats ~338°F). The press time is roughly 8 seconds *per point on the film*. As you have to move the iron around you need to guess how long each point was pressed on around 8-12 seconds... but for the pics! And the further explaination of course - it'll be under the pics as always...

finished getting rid of in and outsets. You mag now recognize the famous mahjongg-player akagi

The iron and wooden board...

Now first lay out the shirt as flatly as you can

then iron it where you want to put the motif, just enough to be kinda smooth

This is the setup for fixating the foil on the shirt - you align the film/medium nicely, the baking paper over it (so you can move around nicely without moving the foil) and a stopwatch to time how long you've been pressing...

ready, steady....

GO! Press as hard as you can (or as your bodybuilder buddy to press even harder than you can) while slowly moving the iron around. Moving it has to be done to make shure the film gets fixated evenly!

press more ...

... and even more - until ever point on the foil got hot and was pressed on for about 9-12 seconds

For pictures this size (~14x14cm) this usually takes around 15-20 seconds

Now the film is fixated on the fabric, but the medium also sticks to it quite hard ... the trick here is TO WAIT UNTIL ITS *COMPLETELY* COLD.

You can, by the way, already see whether it worked by looking out for a silky~ gloss on the surface of the film

Then, after its COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY COLD start pulling it off at a angle as sharp as possible - and SLOWLY. Even if the worst case should happen and small parts peel off with the medium you could use your hobby knife to pull them back and fixate them later...

After finishing removing the medium - you can already see the film "burned into" the fabric.

But not enough yet! You need to burn it in a little more - fortuneatly this is possible when using baking paper again... i like to fixate every point for around 1:30min - which seems to be the point where "well fixated film" turns to "burned film"

Everything finished, not yet finally fixated...

closeups from after fixation - you can see the film burned nicely into the fabric

Here it seems i fin-fixated a little too much, the film started to melt and the black fabric comes through a little. Lucky me it isn't too bad!

The final result

With this technique you can achieve a almost professional result from everyday home-use items (except for the cutting plotter maybe...). Some professionals may cry out because of this tutorial - but it really works. Washable too, the first test-shirt didn't break down yet...

I hope you had fun with this tutorial and are now put up to try it yourself. Really, even with hand-cutting easy motifs aren't too bad to make... As always, feel free to ask!

Also look out for our post with tons of vectors for T-Shirt printing .

Please read on for a more detailed howto on how to sew one...

So, first is what you will need:

• 1 Pcs: 34x40cm of white fluffy cloth
• 1 Pcs: 34x40cm of green (or bamboo-ish brown) fluffly cloth
• 2 Pcs: 34x9.5cm of the same white fluffy stuff
• 2 Pcs: 34x9.5cm of the same green (or bamboo) stuff
• 2 Pcs: 40x9.5cm ... white?
• 2 Pcs: 40x9.5cm ... green/bamboo
• 2 Pcs: 34x40cm of very stiff textile interfacing
• 2 Pcs: 40x17cm of very stiff textile interfacing
• 2 Pcs: 34x17cm of very stiff textile interfacing
• 1 Pcs: ~30x35cm red felt
• 1 Pcs: ~30x35cm double-sided-glue textile interfacing
• A sewing machine
• A good fabric-scissor

As always i will post the progress pictures from making the tile here, sub-texted with instructions what to do:

I'm quite pleased with the final result - especially the sides are as stiff as they should making the whole tile "box-y" enough to look good. A little drawback is that the thick textile interface make a "crumbling" / bending-cardboard-like noise when you rest your head on the tile, so it's not a ideal pillow to sleep on.

As always - if you want detailed help, better measurements or more more detailed explaination somewhere, please mail in or leave a comment! Hope you enjoyed this one!

So, the first part was some design ... we tried to preserve the look and feel of the original design - which was done on many many sheets of scrap paper and ... well, this is somehow alike, but i think the general ideas are made clear:

If you feel like having any question on the plan - or anything is unclear, please do not resist to leave a comment or contact us, we'd like to see mahjongg players all over the world, so we'll gladly help you with your table

Also this project took advantage of our previous build of these mahjongg-counting-sticks!

Now, we took our team of 4 to 5 desperate and eager-to-tinker mahjongg-players and started:

glueing the the border on the baseplate, remember to put some wood or cardboard under those clamps, else you will get nasty pressure marks

after grinding with 60, 120, 240 paper its as smooth as a babies bu... well, the smooth part of a baby

this applies to all the steps ... CHECK THE FIT, RECHECK IT, THEN CHECK AGAIN!

meanwhile, after checking you can start with the point-stick cabinets... make marks for glueing to be sure to do it right...

the seperator for the 3 compartments of the stick cabinet...

for getting the fabric on the base-plates we've chosen not to glue everything but only have a small line of glue (regular wood-glue) along the edges. we achieve this by masking everything but that line with tape, smearing the glue on it, then removing the tape. the lines of glue go only there where the decorative cover goes afterwards....

this is what the drying glue looks like - wouldn't be nice to have that everywhere, no?

using a saw as well as a fine file to get the decorative cover to 45* at the edges (and the right length of course...)

isn't that a nice 45*?

meanwhile the other part of the team tested a way to fasten the point stick cabinets on the table ... this was done using two sizes of regular wood drills

again the glue and masking-tape for getting the fabric on

yay, smearing action!

after removing the masking tape - a nice line of glue

okay, now we get to make the middle-part of the table that will be used to smash discarded tiles against - as well as holding the wind- and riichi-markers. for this purpose i used a dremel (proxxon in this case - smaller and more quiet) to attack a regular thick piece of wood. DO SOME TESTS BEFOREHANDS, YOU WILL NOT GET THIS RIGHT THE FIRST TIME!

the pattern/model for the depressions for the markers

and a first test-piece. as you see you need to develop some technique

... but the general principle seems to work out!

While i was torturing mr dremel the other part of the team made some progress on the stick cabinets...

More Chaos! Now we were cutting the leftover of the fabric mat to fit underneath the decorative covers...

meanwhile i've worked out a technique for dremeling the holes for the point sticks.... you need those tools

then - holding the small drill at a sharper angle - drill out the remains between the holes of the perforation

first perforate the hole, careful not to drill beyond the mark...

then with the large drill/mill take off the rest in the middle of the ring you just made. here you also see the next try for a riichi-stick hole....

aaand, the first glued beta of the stick cabinets...

after two test-pieces i started working on the final version of the middle part - first riichi stick hole drilled and sanded...

looks okay, no?

we also tried around with the corners - this is the idea of holding it on a belt sander and changing the angle rapidly... with a bit of practice it comes out nicely!

okay corner, no?

again working on the stick cabinets - we decided to mask the parts near the glue when glueing to prevent stains...

and with this tools you get a perfect riichi stick hole - first use the conical mill at a sharp angle sliding through the whole shape - then, using the sphere, make it smooth and wider. you need to switch sides to get a good results on both sides, as rotation direction dictates the side where more wood is taken off...

glueing the front bar of the cabinets...

aaand, ladies and gentleman - the finished middle part. its so lovely and smooth after some fine sanding!

okay, back to the base plates where the glue is dry now. put them together and screw on the hinge...

looks okay...

yeah, thats it, nice one!

the gap is smaller than we expected, but quite what we anticipated. fine working pays off after all!

this is a almost perfect fit for the decorative covers, we achieved this by filing then down the last 10th of millimeters. the glueing was hard too as no small drop of glue should touch the fabric

as for mounting the middle part on the table, we decided to use friggin strong magnets, looted from supermagnete.de, a german shop. drill a hole with a tight fit, we used regular UHU glue for fastening

some test bores on reference wood

looks like this...

and here the marks for the mounts...

quality wood drills, hell yeah - notice the little needle at the front. you don't really want to poke this through the wood into your fabric, yet you want to have the magnets as near to to the top as possible.... sub-millimeter-work again!

working...?

... worked! press the magnets in for a test, this image also shows that you should handle them with care, as parts of them come off quite easily

and ... it WORKS!

final holes with magnets glued in...

OUCH! i didn't look at the direction of the magnets ... luckily i only flipped one on both parts, so there is one position in which it fits

speaking of which - nice fit ....

when the box is closed it will house the tiles, stick cabinets and stuff, so you don't want a gap (as produces by the hinge) when closed. we achieve this - as well as protecting the table it will stand on - by using some felt along the edges (each sides only head or side)

for fastening this we use "fixo gum", a kind of glue that will stick nicely, but come off if you really want it - handy if we want to upgrade to a nicer stand sometime...

As for some final pictures - with tiles, cool lighting and all - i promise to add them soon . I hope you enjoyed the idea of this table, and - maybe - build yourself a similar mahjongg table too. We're also always eager to hear suggestions on the design!

Brought to you by Hatchune Miku and Churuya.

It took us a while to get the idea what material to use as a base to start off from. We first thought to get round wooden sticks from the DIY market and grind them to half width, but that would've taken too long. Later on i found a flat-ish chopstick at my home, nice bamboo wood, cheap. So we went to a asia store and got a truckload of those:

(note the club mate to the right, its german hacker fuel )

So the basic idea is, take on or two of those chopsticks at a time, grind them down on a belt sander first on the more yellow-ish ugly side (the side that was the outside of the bamboo stick) first, then the inside. You also need to round the quite sharp corners a bit.

Note the round corners and smooth texture in the last picture.

From there on you can start postprocessing the sticks. You'll need a dremel or alike and these tools for it:

The result of the grinding action could look like this, presented by cute Miku-Chan:

So, first its best to try around on a not so well sanded stick if you're starting with the holes for the color.

So, take your measure and mark 8cm on the sanded chopsticks. They should be long enough for 2 Mahjong Counting Sticks each.

Now ... the pattern for the holes - how do i do that? you may ask. Well, i decided to leave that up to you, a rough guide can be found in my TeXed version of the rules. But really, think of a nice pattern roughly following the guidelines yourself .

Anyways, also mark those points (here: 1000 points, riichi stick) on your stick... and drill. First with the small drill, then make the ones that need to be larger ... larger with the round sander tool for the dremel.

Then, paint them with acrylic color, be a bit patient as the color easily splills over the edge of the hole, which looks ... not so nice. You may also want to hand sand the sticks with a 300 or 400 paper in order to get rid of the residues from the drilling action.

After painting you may want to hand-sand 'em again, this time to remove leftover dried paint. The finished results look like this:

If you're playing mahjong and still miss some nice counting sticks, no need to buy crappy plastic ones or pay tons of shipping, just go to a asia store, fetch some chopsticks and make them yourself! With a few friends thats more fun anyways.

I hope you enjoyed this small tutorial-ish thingy .

Okay, so after almost two days of fighting with XeLaTeX to get nice unicode support and fighting defoma for getting a nice font its finally done!

You can fetch the PDF here, the booklet printing (just print it, fold the whole stack in the middle (short-edge oriented) and staple it together) version as postscript is available here.

Also note that there might be a few mistakes due to the hardcore TeX action in the typesetting, feel free to report those to me to get 'em fixed. For errors in the original document please contact the original author or me.

I hope you're having your fun playing with those rule sheets, i hope they came out nicely . For a nice, short yaku overview just surf up here.