Battle Born Clothing is a custom screen printing and embroidery shop in Yerington, Nevada, serving Reno, Carson City, Sparks, and all of Northern Nevada with nationwide shipping. We run M&R 8-color screen printing presses — the same equipment used by some of the largest print houses in the country — because when it comes to putting ink on fabric, there are no shortcuts worth taking.

If you've ever pulled a favorite shirt out of the dryer and watched the design crack apart like sun-baked desert mud, you already know the frustration. That cracking isn't just disappointing — it's a sign that someone cut corners during the printing process. Bad ink, bad curing, or both.

We don't do that here. Let us walk you through exactly how we produce prints that hold up to real life — not just the first wash, but the fiftieth.

Why We Print on M&R Presses (And Why It Matters to You)

M&R is the world's largest manufacturer of screen printing equipment — Made in the USA out of Glen Ellyn, Illinois. They've been building presses for over 30 years and their gear is in professional shops on every continent. We didn't pick them because they're flashy — we picked them because when you run an M&R press, every variable that affects print quality is under your control.

Our M&R Gauntlet GT-8 Revolver features 8 independent printheads — each with its own controls for print single, double front, and rear stroke options. That means each color station can be dialed in individually — the underbase gets a different stroke than your top highlight, and each layer is exactly as thick as it needs to be. Not thicker, not thinner. Because ink deposit thickness is one of the biggest factors in whether a print cures evenly or cracks over time.

The micro-registration system aligns each screen within thousandths of an inch. That's how we nail tight multi-color designs where even slight misalignment would turn a sharp logo into a blurry mess. And M&R's Revolver Print Program lets us sequence printheads with flash cure stations in between, so we can run complex designs with underbases and multiple flashes without losing a single print position.

For context: many small shops run 4-color or 6-color manual presses. Those are fine for simple one- or two-color jobs. But when a customer wants a full-color photorealistic print, a complex logo with tight registration, or specialty effects like puff ink or metallic overlays, you need the headroom that 8 colors provide. It's the difference between "good enough" and professional.

6 Steps to a Print That Won't Crack, Fade, or Peel

Every print we run follows the same core process. It's not glamorous, and there are no shortcuts. But it's what separates a print that lasts from a print that falls apart. Here's exactly what happens from file to finished garment.

Premium Ink Selection: Why We Stock the Best Brands in the Industry

Ink is where the science meets the art. The brand of ink you use, the type of ink you choose, and how you handle it on press and in the dryer — that's what determines whether your print lasts five washes or fifty. We don't cut corners here. Battle Born stocks premium inks from the most trusted names in the screen printing industry, and we match the right ink type to every job based on the garment, the design, and what the customer needs.

Our Plastisol Ink Arsenal

Rutland has been developing screen printing inks since 1962 and is now a globally recognized brand under Avient Specialty Inks. Their plastisol formulations are what internationally recognized athletic and fashion apparel brands choose for their products — and for good reason. Rutland's M3 Finished Ink Mixing System is a Pantone®-certified color matching system that lets us mix thousands of accurate color simulations. Their NPT High Opacity series delivers short body, low wet tack formulas that print clean on both manual and automatic presses with zero build-up. Every Rutland ink we stock is non-phthalate compliant, and their low-bleed whites like the Premier LB and Super Poly Plus are purpose-built for polyester and poly-blend fabrics where dye migration would ruin lesser inks.

Wilflex (also under Avient) is the other heavyweight in our plastisol lineup. Their Epic Rio system is a low-cure, non-phthalate finished ink mixing system with 18 inter-mixable colors engineered for peak press performance. What sets Epic Rio apart is its opacity — it's the most opaque color system in the entire Wilflex line, which means we get to color faster even when pushing ink through fine mesh screens (110–305 count). That translates to less ink waste, thinner deposits, and softer hand feel without sacrificing vibrancy. Wilflex inks are formulated specifically for high-speed wet-on-wet printing, which is exactly how we run multi-color jobs on the Gauntlet GT-8.

International Coatings rounds out our plastisol selection with over 69 years of formulation expertise. Their 700 Series Direct Print line gives us high-pigment (HP) colors for dark fabrics and standard colors for lights, plus their 720 Softhand Clear Base that we mix in to soften the hand feel on fashion-forward prints. IC's Ultimate Black (717) is a non-phthalate, high-pigment, fast-flashing workhorse that we reach for constantly. Their 7600 Series low-cure inks are built for ultra high-speed wet-on-wet automatic printing — exactly the kind of production we run. And for specialty jobs like nylon jackets and athletic gear, their All-Pro 900 Series is recognized industry-wide as the best nylon ink available.

Water-Based & Discharge Inks: The Premium Print Experience

Plastisol is our workhorse — reliable, durable, and versatile. But when a customer wants that ultra-soft, retail-quality feel where you can barely tell there's a print on the shirt? That's when we reach for water-based and discharge inks from CCI and Matsui.

Matsui is a Japanese ink manufacturer and one of the world's leading producers of PVC-free, water-based screen printing inks. Their 301 ECO-Series is specifically designed for high-speed automatic presses like our Gauntlet GT-8, and every product is free of PVC, phthalates, heavy metals, azo compounds, nonylphenol, and formaldehyde. Matsui's Neo Pigments are 13 concentrated, eco-friendly pigments that can be blended into their various bases to create the entire Pantone® color range using their CMS color matching software. The inks are OEKO-TEX® Standard 100 certified (the highest safety standard — safe enough for baby clothing) and print through mesh counts up to 300+, producing the finest detail with minimum ink usage. Matsui's discharge bases — particularly their 301 DM Discharge Base and Brite Discharge Base — produce what may be the softest prints achievable in textile screen printing today.

CCI (Chromaline/CCI) complements our Matsui lineup with their D-Base Discharge Ink and D-Flo Fluorescent Discharge series. CCI's discharge base delivers ultra-soft prints with extended open time on the screen — meaning fewer interruptions during long production runs. Their formulas are PVC and phthalate-free, low-odor, and clean up with water. For jobs that need to pop under UV light — event merchandise, nightlife apparel, concert tees — CCI's D-Flo fluorescent discharge inks glow under blacklight while still delivering that barely-there hand feel.

Plastisol vs. Water-Based vs. Discharge: Understanding the Difference

This is probably the most important decision in any custom print job, and most customers don't even know to ask about it. Here's the breakdown — what each ink type actually does, how it behaves on the garment, and when we recommend each one.

Plastisol: The Industry Workhorse

Plastisol ink is essentially liquid PVC plastic suspended in a plasticizer. It sits on top of the fabric rather than soaking into it, which is why plastisol prints have a slight texture you can feel with your fingertips. When cured properly at 300–330°F, the plastic particles fuse together and bond to the garment, creating an incredibly durable layer that can withstand 50+ washes.

The biggest advantage of plastisol is its forgiveness. It doesn't dry in the screen during long runs (because it requires heat to cure, not air), so we can leave ink on the screens between jobs without it hardening. It's available in virtually unlimited colors, works on any fabric color including black, and produces the most opaque, vibrant prints of any ink type. It's also the most cost-effective for bulk orders because of its ease of use and speed on press.

The trade-off is hand feel. Even with soft-hand additives (like International Coatings' 720 Softhand Clear Base or Wilflex's Finesse extender), plastisol will always have some texture compared to water-based prints. For workwear, team uniforms, promotional tees, and bold graphic designs, that trade-off is more than worth it.

Water-Based: The Soft-Hand Standard

Water-based inks use water as their primary solvent to carry pigment into the fabric. Unlike plastisol, water-based ink actually penetrates and dyes the fibers rather than sitting on top. Once the water evaporates during curing, the pigment is left behind bonded to the fabric itself. The result? A print that feels almost identical to the shirt — you see the design, but you barely feel it.

This is the ink of choice for retail fashion brands, high-end merchandise, and any application where the hand feel is as important as the visual. Matsui's 301 ECO-Series water-based inks are breathable, lightweight, and eco-friendly — no PVC, no phthalates, no heavy metals. Because the pigment becomes part of the fabric, a properly printed water-based design can actually outlast plastisol over the long run. The garment will wear out before the print does.

The downsides: water-based inks dry faster on the screen, which means they require more attention during printing. They need forced-air conveyor dryers for proper curing (our Workhorse 5208 handles this perfectly). And they work best on light-colored garments — for dark shirts, you need either an underbase or discharge inks.

Water-Based Discharge: The Best of All Worlds

This is the premium. The pinnacle. If water-based ink is the soft-hand standard, then water-based discharge ink is the gold standard of screen printing.

Discharge ink works through a chemical reaction. When you add a discharge activator (like CCI's D-Powder or Matsui's discharge activator at 3–6% by weight), the ink doesn't just sit on the fabric or soak into it — it actually removes the existing dye from the garment and replaces it with the new pigment color. The fabric's dye is chemically stripped, and the new color takes its place at the fiber level.

The result is stunning. You get vibrant, full-color prints on dark garments with virtually zero hand feel. The print becomes the fabric. There's no layer sitting on top, no texture, no weight. Pick up a discharge-printed black tee and run your fingers across the design — you'll feel nothing but cotton. It looks like the color was woven into the shirt, not printed on it.

This is the same technique used by premium fashion brands and high-end streetwear labels. When you buy a $60 vintage-wash tee from a boutique brand and wonder why the print feels like it's part of the shirt — that's discharge printing.

Matsui's 301 DM Discharge Base combined with their Neo Pigments produces what the industry considers some of the softest discharge prints achievable in screen printing. CCI's D-Base Discharge Ink offers extended open time and low-odor formulas that keep our shop running clean during long discharge runs.

When you reach out for a quote, we'll help you choose the right ink type based on your garment, your design complexity, your budget, and how you want the finished product to feel. Most of our competitors only offer plastisol because it's the easiest to work with. We offer all three because the right ink for the job isn't always the easiest one — it's the one that gives you the best result.

Screen Printing vs. DTF vs. DTG: Durability Compared

We get asked this a lot: "why screen printing when DTF and DTG exist?" Fair question. All three methods have their place, but when durability and longevity are the priority — especially for workwear, team uniforms, and gear that sees real use — screen printing is still king.

DTF uses an adhesive film layer bonded to the garment with a heat press. It's great for full-color, low-quantity jobs and we offer it too. DTG sprays ink directly onto the fabric — soft feel, but it doesn't hold up to industrial use the way screen printing does. For Nevada mining crews, construction teams, off-road clubs, and anyone who puts their gear through hell, screen printing on quality blanks is the move.

The Blank Matters as Much as the Print

You can nail the ink, the cure, and the registration — but if you're printing on cheap, thin blanks, the garment falls apart before the print does. That's why we stock and print on brands that are built for the real world.

Carhartt jackets, vests, and beanies for mining and construction crews who need gear that survives the job site. Richardson 112 trucker caps for every custom hat order — the industry standard for fit, structure, and durability. Comfort Colors for retail and lifestyle brands that want that soft, garment-dyed hand feel. Gildan and Next Level for high-value custom tees that don't sacrifice quality. New Era, Flexfit, Yupoong, and Outdoor Cap for headwear that holds its shape.

The garment is the foundation. The print is only as durable as the fabric it sits on. We'll always recommend the right blank for your job — not just the cheapest option.