# do I need a pre treatment machine



## pete219 (Feb 8, 2008)

I've been looking at the versacamm and the kiosk as a possible addition to my shop. I found out alot of stuff I didn't know about both of these machines. My question is /// if I decide to get the dtg machine, do I have to get a pre-treatment machine also? Can I pre-treat the shirt with-out pay a extra 1200 bucks?


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## splathead (Dec 4, 2005)

You don't have to have one, but it makes pretreatment easier if you do.

You could just use a spray bottle. Or an electric Wagner type paint gun.


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## vinyl signs (Dec 26, 2007)

As long as you have a separate area/room to do the pretreatment in you can use a wagner spray gun.


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## WholesalePrint (Sep 23, 2008)

The control of a pretreat machine is priceless


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## bornover (Apr 10, 2008)

You absolutely do not need one to produce DTG prints. An electric or air spray gun works very well. Heck, even a pump up spray bottle works (that is how it was done in the very beginning of DTG pretreatments). Obviously an automatic pretreatment machine has its advantages, but I think shops need to look at it from a cost and profitability standpoint since they are not cheap machines and not absolutely necessary.

You have the DTG machine and its cost, either a lease or outright purchase. You have to make a certain number of profitable shirts on it before you make up your lease or purchase costs. If you add a pretreatment machine into the equation, you add more cost to make up. I think you need to look at it from that standpoint and ask yourself how long till you are actually making real money with the equipment? 

If you are going to print 10 to 20 shirts a day on the DTG, you might not want the costly pretreatment machine. But when you hit 40 to 50 prints or more a day, then it starts to make sense in my opinion.


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## WholesalePrint (Sep 23, 2008)

or you print non to day and 250 the next aa pretreat would be nice. I was a firm beliver that pretreat machine were unnecesary but not I save at least 35% compared to the just spraying randomly. For example we had to print a web address on a shirt that only was 1.3in tall by 13inwide an I was able to pretreat accurately a 2inx14 strip and had no extra spray or misses. It was definitely a plus.


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## bornover (Apr 10, 2008)

WholesalePrint said:


> or you print non to day and 250 the next aa pretreat would be nice. I was a firm beliver that pretreat machine were unnecesary but not I save at least 35% compared to the just spraying randomly. For example we had to print a web address on a shirt that only was 1.3in tall by 13inwide an I was able to pretreat accurately a 2inx14 strip and had no extra spray or misses. It was definitely a plus.


On average, how many garments do you print DTG a day? 

How many prints (above production costs and profitable) each month does it take to make the lease payment, or, how many prints did it take until you started making money above your purchase cost for the pretreat machine?


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## WholesalePrint (Sep 23, 2008)

Twice:

We bought it outright. We do not look at as a matter of return investment even if you add up what your wasting I'm pretty sure eventually it will pay of itself. We look at as how much it allows us to keep the shop going without taking to long with one particular service we offer. As for daily shirts somedays its none others are like friday 250 pieces. If we had to average we usually do batches of 12-24 at a time per order. When you have 12-24 piece orders the Pretreater comes in handy. We were able to finish all 250 pieces pretreated/printed within approximately 4.5hours with no fuss.


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## bornover (Apr 10, 2008)

WholesalePrint said:


> Twice:
> 
> We bought it outright. We do not look at as a matter of return investment even if you add up what your wasting I'm pretty sure eventually it will pay of itself. We look at as how much it allows us to keep the shop going without taking to long with one particular service we offer. As for daily shirts somedays its none others are like friday 250 pieces. If we had to average we usually do batches of 12-24 at a time per order. When you have 12-24 piece orders the Pretreater comes in handy. We were able to finish all 250 pieces pretreated/printed within approximately 4.5hours with no fuss.


Are you looking at DTG printing services more as a loss leader to get people in the door that you want to up sell, or get into other services you offer that are profitable? Don't get me wrong, I am not hassling you about this. I am just trying to understand, from a business standpoint, your investment and payoff for that investment (in your view).


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## WholesalePrint (Sep 23, 2008)

We figure it like this , your gonna have to pretreat regardless so make its (1) easier (2) more cost effective (3) more efficient so it doesnt affect other profits. So essentially you only truly see your profit if it can build up. If It takes to long to complete orders its harder to see your profit. And yes we make money and save money due to control over pretreat laydown.


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## raise (Apr 11, 2008)

When we purchased our SpeedTreater from Equipment Zone I wasn't looking for ROI from material savings, I was looking at labor.

Applying pretreatment by hand for Dupont ink can be a bit of an artform. The Brother product is much more forgiving in practice but it still has to go on fairly evenly, fairly consistent in quantity and where you want it to go.

I still waste some material with the SpeedTreater but when having to train someone how to pretreat means showing them how to lay a shirt flat and press a button, my investment seems pretty sound. Even when I have to work solo, the SpeedTreater is literally 10ft away from the printer and print area so I can pretreat shirts on one heat press and load the printer and cure finished shirts on the second press. I load the SpeedTreater, hit spray. I load the printer, hit print. Much simpler than having to get in and out of a spray booth and pay attention to what I'm spraying.

An automatic pretreater is all about ease of use and labor savings in my experience.


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## WholesalePrint (Sep 23, 2008)

> An automatic pretreater is all about ease of use and labor savings in my experience.


YES! I agree and though I'm not sure about Harry's but we have flexibility with the digital screen mini monitor. Have to play with it to understand.


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## bornover (Apr 10, 2008)

I don't know, unless you have the volume to make it worth the investment, it still does not make a lot of sense to me. It seems to be a loss leader type of deal at low volumes. Spending thousands of dollars to save 10 seconds of production time, and maybe a little bit of pretreatment formula per garment at low volumes does not make a production floor profitable. It takes me a total of 20 seconds to load a garment on my home made station (that cost me about $75) and pretreat it with my spray gun and unload it. Then it is all the same from there for all of us.


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## sunnydayz (Jun 22, 2007)

pete219 said:


> I've been looking at the versacamm and the kiosk as a possible addition to my shop. I found out alot of stuff I didn't know about both of these machines. My question is /// if I decide to get the dtg machine, do I have to get a pre-treatment machine also? Can I pre-treat the shirt with-out pay a extra 1200 bucks?



Where did you see a pretreat machine for $1200? They are normally around $4000. Are you talking about the pretreatment machine, or the heat press for curing the ink? if you are just talking about the pretreatment machine, then no you dont need one, but it could be nice. If you are talking about the heat press for curing then you absolutely need one


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## zhenjie (Aug 27, 2006)

bornover said:


> I don't know, unless you have the volume to make it worth the investment, it still does not make a lot of sense to me. It seems to be a loss leader type of deal at low volumes. Spending thousands of dollars to save 10 seconds of production time, and maybe a little bit of pretreatment formula per garment at low volumes does not make a production floor profitable. It takes me a total of 20 seconds to load a garment on my home made station (that cost me about $75) and pretreat it with my spray gun and unload it. Then it is all the same from there for all of us.


For those who buy the automatic pretreatment machines I don't think its just a matter of cost savings or profitability. Those who can invest I'm guessing will know whether or not they are making a profit. 

My primary motivation to buy a speedtreater was not to save money, but rather the headaches that come with Pretreatment by hand and the Wagner spray gun. When you just press a button and it does it for you, its priceless! I'm happy to increase my bottom line because I get less stress, less wastage and more time in the day to do other things.

It's certainly not for the mums and dads DTG printer who prints a few t-shirts a week. But if your a serious DTG shop its definitely worth considering.


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## raise (Apr 11, 2008)

While you can get good results with the Wagner (we had one before our machine) it is not a skill that is instant.

If I bring in a temp or hire someone new, I can have them pretreating and curing shirts immediately.

There is also a space issue.

The spray out booth can't be anywhere near the printer since the overspray can contaminate the printer/printheads. The pretreatment units can be in the same room and in some setups, right next to the printer and heat press since the units are fully enclosed.

Again, saving 10 seconds might not seem like much at 5-10 shirts a day but is DTG just a hobby or a business? Even when we were smaller, knowing we could knock out the pretreatment made it easier to chase more business since we could offer faster turn around without a lot of added cost due to waste or mis-applied shirts.


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## zhenjie (Aug 27, 2006)

raise said:


> Even when we were smaller, knowing we could knock out the pretreatment made it easier to chase more business since we could offer faster turn around without a lot of added cost due to waste or mis-applied shirts.


Same here. Knowing now that I can consistently pump out 50-150 black t-shirts a day means I've been able to take on larger orders and trade clients.

Another thing I've noticed is that its improved moral here. Everyone hated using the Wagner to spray pretreatment, especially when you find out you did it wrong through a wasted t-shirt. Since we've eliminated that everyone is much much happier. Can't put a price on happiness


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## bornover (Apr 10, 2008)

OK, you guys have made some good points about the benefits of the pretreatment machines that are intangibles as well as the tangible production benefits. But still, those points really only apply to shops that have employees and/or have production numbers that benefit from having a pretreatment machine. You guy have also exaggerated some things as well.



WholesalePrint said:


> We were able to finish all 250 pieces pretreated/printed within approximately 4.5hours with no fuss.


That is an average of one shirt pretreated, dry pretreatment, printed, cured, all in 1.08 minuets. You definitely did not do a normal full chest print on one DTG machine with one person, so your shop is big enough to use a pretreatment machine. If you did a teeny tiny print, then that was just a little misleading.

zhenjie, the high end numbers you mention are also large enough to have the investment on a pretreatment machine make sense from many standpoints.

Some other exaggerations are; that you can't have the pretreatment station near the DTG. Not true, mine is 6 feet away from my DTG. I control the over spray inside a ventilated box.

You also talk like the spray gun method leads to tons of shirts messed up because of bad applications of pretreatment. I have not killed a shirt because of that since the first week I started DTG printing.

Remember, Pete is asking if he needs one to start off. I say no he does not and it would not be a smart business decision to buy one if he does not have the production volume to support the need (both from the intangible and tangible points discussed already). It will take too long to recoup the investment until those aspects are in play. If making shirts is a hobby and you just want the very best equipment, or, you are willing to pay for the luxury and ease of a pretreatment machine at the expense of profitability, then that is a personal choice. But not a smart business decision.

I am all for getting one if you have multiple employees and decent production going on in the shop. Believe me, I would like one, but until I have a consistent need in the DTG printing aspect of my business, I am not going to add such a great cost that puts me farther behind having DTG printing becoming and/or staying profitable. It is a loss leader situation if a company believes they need to offer DTG printing (to compete in the market), but the cost of the equipment and the production numbers for DTG printing do not match up making that aspect of a business profitable.


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## WholesalePrint (Sep 23, 2008)

No exaggeration, 10x12 image as well. I physically kept track I may be off by a half hour but it was done. I locked a guy In a room for 2hours and some change for a couple days and didnt allow any interruptions.


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## zhenjie (Aug 27, 2006)

bornover said:


> Remember, Pete is asking if he needs one to start off. I say no he does not and it would not be a smart business decision to buy one if he does not have the production volume to support the need (both from the intangible and tangible points discussed already). It will take too long to recoup the investment until those aspects are in play.


Totally agree with you there. Not required for a start-up DTG, but I think any serious DTG printer should consider it once they are stable and steady.


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## bornover (Apr 10, 2008)

WholesalePrint said:


> No exaggeration, 10x12 image as well. I physically kept track I may be off by a half hour but it was done. I locked a guy In a room for 2hours and some change for a couple days and didnt allow any interruptions.


Yeah, uh huh, and a big fat guy dressed in red with white furry trim breaks into my house every Christmas and doesn't steal stuff, he actually leaves me goodies.

No, seriously WP, obviously it was a light colored garment with no white underbase, but still, the DTG had to be loaded and unloaded and print a 10 x 12 in under a minute for your time frame to work. What machine do you have?


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## zhenjie (Aug 27, 2006)

250 shirts, in 5 hours is not unachievable with a GT-782 + Speedtreater. You'd be working pretty damn hard though!


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## WholesalePrint (Sep 23, 2008)

We have gt782, and Yup hard but was rush order and there was no highlight white necesary


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## bornover (Apr 10, 2008)

WholesalePrint said:


> We have gt782, and Yup hard but was rush order and there was no highlight white necesary


Ah ha! I caught you! You are a big time operation with machines that, what, cost like a million dollars (at least it seems like that from my little operation's point of view). I know what you are doing, I figured out your dastardly plan. You want Pete to invest in expensive equipment so he is unprofitable and never grows up to compete with your killer operation! 

Nice equipment WP. But now you have become spoiled and jaded and can't relate anymore to us peasant operations. 

I'm just going to take my little T-Jet 2 home and pout.


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## WholesalePrint (Sep 23, 2008)

Lol you got me . Maybe I shouldn't tell you we have 541 as well lol


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## bornover (Apr 10, 2008)

WholesalePrint said:


> Lol you got me . Maybe I shouldn't tell you we have 541 as well lol


Dude... I just clicked your url on your signature line for the first time. I want my company to grow up and be like yours. Man you own some nice equipment.  Look for a pm from me.


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## mrbigjack50 (Jun 9, 2008)

Boys like to have big toys even if we dont really need it duh...
I got prob close to quad mill. in machines I prob dont really need to have so robust/fast but fun having them
It like when someone buys a Geo or a Corvette does same thing, drives but one is more sexy


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## raise (Apr 11, 2008)

bornover said:


> Yeah, uh huh, and a big fat guy dressed in red with white furry trim breaks into my house every Christmas and doesn't steal stuff, he actually leaves me goodies.
> 
> No, seriously WP, obviously it was a light colored garment with no white underbase, but still, the DTG had to be loaded and unloaded and print a 10 x 12 in under a minute for your time frame to work. What machine do you have?


We time it at 45-50 secs per shirt. It is possible with 1 heat press but the pretreatment cools the press too much so to really keep things rolling you need 2 presses.


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## pete219 (Feb 8, 2008)

bornover said:


> On average, how many garments do you print DTG a day?
> 
> I usually get between 15 and 50 orders per day
> 
> ...


if I get the machine, I'm goingto buy it out- right! Hopefully this will make life easier and I can take on new customers with the added production.


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## bornover (Apr 10, 2008)

If you buy one Pete, be aggressive and go after DTG business and make that machine make you profit and be a valuable asset. Good luck with your endeavor, and I have learned good luck in business usually is the result of hard work and a well executed business plan.


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## SeedyMedia (Sep 10, 2013)

Could I ask? Roughly how many t-shirts do you get out of a 1 litre bottle of pre treatment fluid? I didnt realise how expensive the stuff was. If it depends on the make then I would be using resolute inks. Cheers.


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## Resolute DTG (Jun 27, 2010)

SeedyMedia said:


> Could I ask? Roughly how many t-shirts do you get out of a 1 litre bottle of pre treatment fluid? I didnt realise how expensive the stuff was. If it depends on the make then I would be using resolute inks. Cheers.


It depends on area and quality of the t shirt. In our tests it varies from 50 to 100. The cheaper the fabric you tend to find the more pre treatment it needs to get a good print.

5 litre bottles are much better value 

Regards

Colin


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## SeedyMedia (Sep 10, 2013)

Thanks Colin.


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## Resolute DTG (Jun 27, 2010)

SeedyMedia said:


> Thanks Colin.


No problem, we get these figures from weighing a shirt pre spraying and after to determine exactly how many grams of pre treat are used.

Simple division and you have a pretty accurate figure of how many shirts per litre for that area & density of pre treat.

The new Treat machine has a touch screen memory function so you can save levels and areas of pre treatment and recall this for a specific job later down the line. This way you can calculate pre treat costs into your quote accurately.

Regards

Colin


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