Troop T-shirt Logo Rule Question

[SagerScout]

Would some wise scouter (yes, I'm hoping for you, Bob White) please let me know what the rules for utilizing the fleur-de-lis on a troop tshirt would be?

 

I'm thinking of doing a troop t-shirt for casual camp outings and wear-around use, using my trusty color printer and t-shirt transfers. (you'd be surprised at how good they can come out!)

 

We're too small and broke to go to a screenprinter, I think. Short runs are always expensive. I was thinking of having the boys do a design but I don't want to infringe on the BSA trademark in any way.

 

I noticed you can buy a sew-on fleur-de-lis - we could work with that if we can't reproduce the design another way.

 

Guidance please? I haven't brought this up with the PLC yet, wanted to find out the rules first. How do other troops get their cool t-shirts?

[Bob White]

There are no restrictions I am aware of for using the Fleur-de-lis on a t-shirt. There is a lot of great scout logos and clip-art on the Internet that yopu can use also. Consider making your own logo and printing on your inkjet printer onto an iron-on material and making your own shirts.

 

We contacted a t-shirt company once and they put our art work onto t-shirts in a single color for $5 a shirt including the shirt. How did we do it so cheap? We let them use overstock and left over shirts from other jobs. We had a Rainbow effect, but all the logos were identical and we got them for a song.

 

Bob

[Mike Long]

As a former master screenprinter I've completly researched the copyright issues on this one.

 

You may use any scout branding (logos, slogans, whatever) on anything that your troop produces to be used as troop gear. Just just the logo properly. (OA stuff for OA member only ect.) In a nutshell you can use the BSA logos for your shirts, hats or whatever. You just can't commercially sell items with the BSA logo on them. Not to say that you can't charge the scouts for costs incurred in making troop articles, you can.

 

As far as printing shirts you might want to consider screenprinting them yourself. I learned screenprinting in highschool and printed my troop's shirts at a troop meeting. It made for a pretty cool activity and everyone got to take part.

 

Do a little searching on the web and you can find several cheap kits that will work fine.

 

Basicly all you need is:

A screen- build a frame out of 1x2s and stretch screen mesh over it (the mesh you will need to get somewhere that supplies printers) and staple it down. You might want to see if you could buy an old screen from a sympathetic printer.

 

A squeege- Back in the day I've printed with window squeegees. Sloppy but they work.

 

Waterbased textile ink- Speedball is a good brand.

 

A stencil- There are many ways to make one and I'd be here all day explaining the different types. Once again search the web first and ask me questions. Your best bet is laquer stencil.

 

A piece of plywood about the size of a shirt

 

shirts

 

masking tape

 

Process-

Make a stencil and adhere it to your screen and use the masking tape to cover the areas of the screen that you don't want to print, especially the sides of the screen. Ink will try to push out at the edges and make a mess. Be sure the tape is applied smoothly.

 

Load the screen with ink.

 

Test print on paper or an old shirt. Put ink in the screen and load your squeegee. Pull the squeegee across the screen using firm pressure and a steady draw. DO NOT STOP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PRINT. That will cause smearing. If the print gets blurry or smears wipe the back of the screen to clean it and test print until clean. Keep a mister of water handy and if the ink strats to dry in the screen lightly mist the screen and test print again.

 

When you get a clean print put a shirt on your board line up the screen to put your image where you want it and print.

 

CAREFULLY remove the shirt from the board place shirt on a clothes hanger and hang to dry.

 

When the ink is dry place a piece of newspaper over the print and iron with a med/hot iron throughly.

 

When done printing hose out the screen with water and carefully scrub out the excess ink. If you get the screen nice and clea you can use it again and again.

 

 

I'd be glad to help if you go this route (check out my profile to get our troop site, my email is there)

[SagerScout]

Thank you both for your replies. I'll bring both suggested methods of reproduction before the troop and see what they think. Screenprinting sounds very cool but kinda hard, but several scouts in this troop have an interest in textile arts so it might be the winner of the vote -

 

I was surprised at the loose control of the art, GS are much stricter, but I'm happy about it!

 

Thanks again.

[Mike Long]

Screenprinting WILL be a mess the first few times you try it but honestly it isn't all that hard to do.

 

Here is one of the kits I was talking about

http://www.dharmatrading.com/html/eng/2164-AA.shtml

 

Most of the other screenprinting resources I found online were for commercial printers and would be a real pain to wade through.

[SagerScout]

Thanks for the link, that gives me some more info for the troop to factor into their decision.

julia

[k9gold-scout]

Out troop has a screen with the troop logo; we have used it on tents, t-shirts and hats ( lowest prices we have found were at the $.99 Store). We hve gone to www.classb.com for scout designs and their low price.

[SagerScout]

Wow, what a cool site! Thanks very much. I have to recommend that everyone click on this link!

 

Julia