# thinking of switching to heat press from screenprinting.



## astorian (Nov 30, 2010)

hello good folks, ive been screenprinting shirts steady over a year from my home for local businesses, and our sunday market here. I have the 4 color silver press semi pro package from ryonet. Im sure many of you know the hassle of running a business out of a house, using shower for washout, having poor ventilation, not having seperate dark room having to cover/uncover windows ect. ect. ect. With all the great things i hear about plastisol x-fers, and all the great research people like rodney and many others have done, im really considering selling my equip. and buying a heat press.. i understand it may be more costly for smaller orders-12 to 100 pieces, but i think in my situation it would be worth it.. Anyone agree? the screenptg process is a nightmare with a home-bedroom facility.


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## treadhead (Jul 26, 2006)

I feel your pain...lol.

I too screenprint out of my home (garage) but do have a washout booth which makes it easier. The wife would never let me use the bathroom...LOL.

I have looked at this exact issue for a long time from every direction I can think of and have basically come to the conclusion that for orders of around 36 shirts or less...you will be cheaper doing direct screenprinting. The more colors you have and more flashing you have to do on a design will more favor using plastisol transfers. So...for a 4 color job on a dark shirt you may end up better off with transfers at maybe 24 shirts instead of 36 if that makes sense.

The basic problem I run into is the cost of the transfers at lower volumes. So you might want to consider keeping the screen press for the smaller jobs which seems counter-intuitive I know. Especially if you do alot of smaller orders now on the press unless you think the market will bear higher prices on those orders or you can live with lower margins. The situation, of course, is different for everybody.

Good luck!


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## brice (Mar 10, 2010)

Do you want to hand cash to a transfer seller or pay yourself to print the transfers? Let's use an example:

1 color transfer: 36 prints. Average of $2.30 per unit.

Would I rather pay those transfer providers that $2.30 or do it myself? The cost of emulsion and ink is certainly far less than that AND the only issue is labor. If it's my labor, that's money in my pocket. 

I use transfers in certain situations like an event. It helps lower my cost because I don't waste apparel on speculation. I also use transfers when the number of colors exceeds my press (4/4). 

The way I look at it, I can take that $2.30 and mark it up 50-100% and inflate my price to the client. 

I know this may be short sided as this doesn't really evaluate my time as cost...


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## HTW (Aug 25, 2010)

You are on the right track with your idea. Heat press works great for small run projects like sports jerseys and family reunion type things. That is another question you want to ask before you get rid of the screen press. 

Stick with the screen press, but add a new dimension to your business with a heat press and a plotter.

Do your research because there is endless amounts of heat presses and plotters on the market. 

Again if you ever get work that calls for more than your 4 color press, there are a ton of options out there to help with that.

Good Luck Silace!


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## astorian (Nov 30, 2010)

thanks for the input guys. I would be 100% for just screenprinting, even doing my own x-fers, however the main reason I'm considering the big crossover to heatpress only is simply because the facility is no bueno for this kind of operation... Now if I had more space and money to get a decent light table, washout sink, 2 station press, screen storage, seperate dark room, the list goes on and on, i would just stick to what I'm doing. I haven't really counted, but I can whip out shirts like a mad man but the process up to that point is too time and space consuming at this point. However I do thank you guys for the advise, and I do agree price wise but if you saw my setup you would shake your head.


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## lben (Jun 3, 2008)

Right now I'm staring at the price sheet for plastisol transfers. If you only want say 10 transfers you will have to pay for each transfer: 1 color - $8.95; up to 6 color $42.74. That's each transfer! So if you have a customer who wants a 6 color design on 10 shirts you would have to charge that customer close to $50 for each shirt! I say stick with the screen printing and find a better living arrangement. I do my printing in my basement. I use my utility sink for a washout tub. I have a small room that I do it all in and have put black felt over the window in that room. I keep the coated screens that haven't been burned yet in the closet to protect them from light. Yes it's a hassle, but I can't afford those transfers.


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## selanac (Jan 8, 2007)

The transfers you're referring too are custom Transfers. You can buy a good quality laser or inkjet printer, and print on blank transfers. 

You do have a problem with the transfer where there's no ink or white showing, but you can cut around the transfer. You can also buy a good cutter/plotter for about $500 or less to contour cut the transfer for you. The cutter has to have a Laser point or Optic Eye. Either way they still run about $500 for a 24" cutter/plotter. Scissors work well too. 

However, like someone mentioned, keep the press and add to your current setup, don't get rid of something you might use later. 

Lots of customers want screen printing, and not transfers.


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## astorian (Nov 30, 2010)

thanks loretta. well those prices seem discouraging.. Which companys list is that ? Do you happen to know if those prices are pretty universal throughout the transfer makers world? I know i hate getting such small orders like 6-8 shirts to print, its hard to charge customers so much per unit, and they just dont understand what it takes to get the final product.. especially when you have a joke of a facility to work in like me.. ugh.


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## brice (Mar 10, 2010)

The average price in the industry (I used prices from Transfer Express, Versatrans, FM Expressions, Ace, First Edition, and ProWorld - The Big Dogs) for a 6 color transfer at 10, if you can get the vendor to sell you 10, is $37.29. 1 color transfer is $7.70 at 10.


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## lben (Jun 3, 2008)

astorian said:


> thanks loretta. well those prices seem discouraging.. Which companys list is that ? Do you happen to know if those prices are pretty universal throughout the transfer makers world? I know i hate getting such small orders like 6-8 shirts to print, its hard to charge customers so much per unit, and they just dont understand what it takes to get the final product.. especially when you have a joke of a facility to work in like me.. ugh.


These are plastisol transfers from one of the vendors on the left of this screen. And yes they are custom transfers, but still. For a small order the price is insane. They used to have a minimum order of 5, now it's 10. The price doesn't start to get realistic until you get to orders of 50 or more then a 1 color print drops to $2.58 per transfer and a 6 color drops to $11.65 each. They are for any image larger than 5"x5". For smaller transfers you have to order 20 of them and they start at $5 each.

People don't understand the amount of work required to make just one screen and when you hit them with prices like that they just walk away and you've lost a customer. Now you can make your own inkjet or laser heat transfers for a fraction of that price, but sometimes the results are anything but professional looking.


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## astorian (Nov 30, 2010)

You got that right Loretta, Thanks people.. More info and opinions the better..


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## treadhead (Jul 26, 2006)

brice said:


> The average price in the industry (I used prices from Transfer Express, Versatrans, FM Expressions, Ace, First Edition, and ProWorld - The Big Dogs) for a 6 color transfer at 10, if you can get the vendor to sell you 10, is $37.29. 1 color transfer is $7.70 at 10.


I would also look at SEMO Imprints. They have the cheapest prices I've found and their samples pressed really nice. But, even with their prices my above comments hold.


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## astorian (Nov 30, 2010)

cool, thanks treadhead


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## bigluelok (Aug 10, 2007)

im gonna start out just using a heatpress and plastisol transfers.
but i will use gang'd sheet and the images will be 2 color. we will see how that goes but eventually i may buy/build a small line table


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## jgaskin (Jan 20, 2011)

For what it's worth, I have both setups, screen press and heat xfer. Here's what I've run into...

Customers don't want to buy/don't need 24 screen printed shirts (our minimum), so we have the option of using transfers to work around this. Problem is, they end up not wanting to pay the price we need for a transferred garment, so a lot of times they end up walking anyway.

Point blank, 9 out of 10 people who walk in your shop simply don't understand what goes into either process and somehow, explaining doesn't help either from what I've found.

My .02 worth,
jason


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## selanac (Jan 8, 2007)

I agree with you Jason.


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## Streamline73 (May 25, 2010)

Sell your equipment buy a US Cutter plotter get some vinyl transfer start cutting, pressing and selling! Find someone to out source your screen printing jobs to typically you will pay between 2.oo and 4.oo each not including shirts not a bad deal when the typical 24 shirt order is around $9.00 each.

Honestly Im glad to be ride of the 8 year tee shirt print headache but that's me! I would print 24 shirts for say 9.50 each that comes out to 228.00 out of that I pay for the shirts -54.00 then take out your shop fee's and you might make some ware around 120.00 of the job not bad for a 24 shirt run. My wife yesterday sold a vinyl transfer job that was 12 shirts at 13.50 each total of 162.00 take shirt cost of 30.00 and figure your vinyl cut transfers cost and you come out around 100.00 or more profit lot less effort for nearly same amount of profit. 

This is just my opinion nothing iron clad to my figures just ruff estimates!

Im actually making more money outsourcing my tee shirts and doing transfers in house and with my signs and banners than I was before because of the many cost I did away with when I sold my equipment! Im sure the day may come when Im going to maybe wish I had my old equipment and when they day comes I will have actually made money so I can go out and buy a DTG Printer! Still less work....lol

Hope this helps someone in someway!


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## selanac (Jan 8, 2007)

I don't think the DTG is less work. We've had both, and you still have many headaches with the DTG. 

What ever works for you is what counts. If you like using a Cutter/plotter instead of Screen Printing, the more Power to you. 

You have a lot less equipment to deal with that's for sure.


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## goodtease (Nov 29, 2006)

I can say that I run my business out of my house and have been doing so for about 5 years. I only do vinyl, imageclip, and heat transfers. I can say that I have been very pleased with the results because I didn't want the mess of silkscreening. Some big orders that I did I farmed out to a friend. But other than that I do up to around 200 shirts an order in vinyl. Some may say I am crazy but I charge more than a silk screener and I honestly think I get more business these days because I dont' have a minimum and alot of my orders average about 50 to 100. I am a little more pricey but I explain the quality of the vinyl and they love that wearabliity of it.

So I think it will just take some education and Sales ability to convince a customer you can do something with vinyl and heat transfers. But so far so good for me as far as getting people to convert to vinyl and heat transfers. All my stuff in my photo album is made this way  

Regards,

Anthony


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## Streamline73 (May 25, 2010)

selanac said:


> I don't think the DTG is less work. We've had both, and you still have many headaches with the DTG.
> 
> What ever works for you is what counts. If you like using a Cutter/plotter instead of Screen Printing, the more Power to you.
> 
> You have a lot less equipment to deal with that's for sure.



I guess the older I get the more washing screens and dealing with messy screen inks has just became more like work to me!

I just figure the DTG will be cleaner to mess with if they ever get them working well! Of course you can spill the ink and cause a big mess! Probably more tee shirt wast as well!


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## Streamline73 (May 25, 2010)

goodtease said:


> I can say that I run my business out of my house and have been doing so for about 5 years. I only do vinyl, imageclip, and heat transfers. I can say that I have been very pleased with the results because I didn't want the mess of silkscreening. Some big orders that I did I farmed out to a friend. But other than that I do up to around 200 shirts an order in vinyl. Some may say I am crazy but I charge more than a silk screener and I honestly think I get more business these days because I dont' have a minimum and alot of my orders average about 50 to 100. I am a little more pricey but I explain the quality of the vinyl and they love that wearabliity of it.
> 
> So I think it will just take some education and Sales ability to convince a customer you can do something with vinyl and heat transfers. But so far so good for me as far as getting people to convert to vinyl and heat transfers. All my stuff in my photo album is made this way
> 
> ...


Im sure that there are different grades of Transfer vinyl that can be purchased that can cause variation in this question but overall how long do you think the vinyl stays on the shirts without peeling? So far I have a shirt I did last year and it still is attached but I have heard after 2 years it will start peeling witch I feel that if you got 2 years out of the shirt that was great anyway! I have also have had this question asked to me before and not sure what would be the proper response?


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## ccolors1 (Jan 16, 2011)

Do you mind elaborating a little on your setup. For the US cutter plotter , what size did you get? Does the stand really help? What type transfer paper do you use and which vendor? And most importantly what design software do you use. The more I read on equipment and software the less decisive I become. 

Thanks for any input you can provide




Streamline73 said:


> Sell your equipment buy a US Cutter plotter get some vinyl transfer start cutting, pressing and selling! Find someone to out source your screen printing jobs to typically you will pay between 2.oo and 4.oo each not including shirts not a bad deal when the typical 24 shirt order is around $9.00 each.
> 
> Honestly Im glad to be ride of the 8 year tee shirt print headache but that's me! I would print 24 shirts for say 9.50 each that comes out to 228.00 out of that I pay for the shirts -54.00 then take out your shop fee's and you might make some ware around 120.00 of the job not bad for a 24 shirt run. My wife yesterday sold a vinyl transfer job that was 12 shirts at 13.50 each total of 162.00 take shirt cost of 30.00 and figure your vinyl cut transfers cost and you come out around 100.00 or more profit lot less effort for nearly same amount of profit.
> 
> ...


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## proworlded (Oct 3, 2006)

Streamline73 said:


> Im sure that there are different grades of Transfer vinyl that can be purchased that can cause variation in this question but overall how long do you think the vinyl stays on the shirts without peeling? So far I have a shirt I did last year and it still is attached but I have heard after 2 years it will start peeling witch I feel that if you got 2 years out of the shirt that was great anyway! I have also have had this question asked to me before and not sure what would be the proper response?


I don't think there is a 'proper' response. Depends on so many factors...the garment, number of washings, how many times it is worn, etc.etc. How can you put a time limit on a graphic that is applied to a fabric? Do people really keep a record of all this?


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## Streamline73 (May 25, 2010)

ccolors1 said:


> Do you mind elaborating a little on your setup. For the US cutter plotter , what size did you get? Does the stand really help? What type transfer paper do you use and which vendor? And most importantly what design software do you use. The more I read on equipment and software the less decisive I become.
> 
> Thanks for any input you can provide



I have a MH 365 12" US Cutter Plotter that I have been using now for about 8 months with no problems. I use it for all my text banners and card decals as well as our heat transfer vinyl. Now we have a MH 871 34" US Cutter plotter that I have had now for 1 month it has a stand. I cant say weather the stand is better or worse than table top but so far I have had no issues using it on the stand it cuts just as well as my 12".

I did a 3x5 banner with it yesterday and had to cut a 29"X 26" arch out and the new 34" plotter stayed on track perfectly! 

We only do Heat Transfer Vinyl designs at this time we do not print any ink transfers in house. We order our ink transfers from Pro World they are a little pricey on some things but overall good stuff!

I use Flexi 8 pro but Im now trying out US Cutters Signcut program that came with my plotter and its working better for me because I can cut directly out of Corel now instead of having to save for flexi then open flexi then raster some of the images then sometimes I have to weld the images then cut!


P.S. I wanted to buy a Roland but several that I checked out from private sellers had problems that was pricey to fix the others are just out of my budget at this time.


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## Streamline73 (May 25, 2010)

proworlded said:


> I don't think there is a 'proper' response. Depends on so many factors...the garment, number of washings, how many times it is worn, etc.etc. How can you put a time limit on a graphic that is applied to a fabric? Do people really keep a record of all this?


I dont think they are keeping track after say a year but I have had customer mention too me that they had a shirt done from somebody else and in less than a year it faded or peeled and know they are asking me will my Heat transfer vinyl last longer. I just tell them from my experience I have seen shirts that wear done just over a 1 1/2 years and still look good and then they say ok to me doing a shirt or too!

Bad when we have to spend 10 or 15 minutes selling our product so we can do one $15.00 shirt!


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## valleyboy_1 (Jan 23, 2010)

To the OP, I know this is a year old, but you can always keep your press and conveyor dryer, and outsource the actual burning of the screens. I know Ace Transfers will burn your screens for you, and all you have to do is just print and dry your shirts. Just a thought. Also, if you are printing from home, it's essential to have a niche in mind for getting your business. I plan to do family reunions and church events, also I plan to do community service events that my job participates in. I work for one of the big 3 beverage companies, and they are always involved in the local communities (breast awareness, Habitat for Humanities, etc.,) and they are always ordering T-shirts for those types of events. So it's ideal for me to have both a heat press, and screen printing press. I figure to skip the emulsion, exposure, and burning screen part because i'll be operating in a garage, and go straight to printing and drying. Thanks


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