# How to press more shirts per hour?



## embprints (Sep 13, 2016)

Hello everyone!
I want to press more shirts per hour for large orders (I'm about to start one tomorrow), so I would appreciate any advice!
I currently can press 4-6 shirts per hour, depending on the design and how much caffeine I've had!

BTW, I mainly heat press vinyl, but I am moving into plastisol transfers, and the "vinyl cutter & press" sub-forum seems less active with heat press users. Plus, pressing 1 color vinyl design and pressing heat transfers are almost the same process (aside from cutting & weeding), right?

This is my current process after I have pre-pressed 5-10 shirts to get moisture out:
1. I lay shirt down on table next to my 15x15 clam shell heat press, then use my own ruler method to find center of shirt. 
2. I place vinyl carrier (i have center marks when cutting) where I want it. 
3. Lift up shirt with design on it for a few seconds to see how it looks to make sure its not crooked visually. The vinyl I use (Siser Easyweed Stretch) has a sticky carrier, so the design usually stays in place, but I sometimes use thermal tape to keep it in place.
4. lay back down, and remeasure center lines, because sometimes holding it up will reset shirt to a more natural state, and the center lines can be off by 1/4 inch.
5. When all looks good, I fold edges of shirt over carrier sheet, then place shirt on heat press.
6. Press.

The pressing is less than a minute since I do a quick press after removing carrier, but its the centering that takes like 5+ minutes, but sometimes more if I doesn't seem PERFECT on shirt.

Am I spending too much time making it perfectly centered and visually straight? The most I will allow it to be off is 1 mm from center between arm seems and I allow 1mm off horizontally straight.

How perfect do you guys position your shirts?

The one time I pressed 10+ shirts per hour was when I had to press 250 youth shirts for 5-6 year olds. I did everything on the platen, and I didnt worry if everything was perfect....plus lots of caffeine!

Thank you in advance!


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## Twisted Grafix (Oct 5, 2016)

I have a couple points to my answer. First, you probably won't like my answer, but the fastest way is to screen print them yourself on your own press. Doing the shirts the way you are currently does take a ton of time. There is NOTHING wrong with what you are doing with the transfers, it's the process. Second, They don't have to be perfectly centered on the shirt. Use your fingers as a guide to position from the collar instead of measuring with a ruler. Typical placement is 3-4 fingers from the bottom of the collar to the top of the design. As long as they are pretty close, nobody is going to scrutinize them. You can also cut time by measuring it on the heat press instead of next to it. Once it's good, just press it. No need to move stuff around after the first time. If you are doing 6-10/hr, you can probably push that up to 9-14? Personally, I think if you spent a little less time getting it measured out, you may even surprise yourself and get closer to the 20 mark. Time is money, so the faster you press, the more money per hour you make, and the faster you can move on to the next paying job and keep the cash flow coming in.

If we have a large order with left chest names, we have 1 person staging the size with the name. The second person presses and stacks. Both people are moving so there is always a shirt going on and coming off. We can do about 25/hr if we're all in sync. I know it sounds outrageous, but it is possible. It's all about the flow and the time/pressure/materials.

Plastisol transfers will be faster to press compared to HTV, so you can add additional shirts to up the count a little, but compare that to a manual screen printing press, and we pop out up to 125/hr with some designs. We average 50-75/hr in most cases with a flash on dark shirts with 4 to 6 colors.

If you are looking to do this as a side job or hobby, then you can comfortably continue how you are doing it the same way , or with a couple tweaks. If you want to set up for production and pump out some numbers, then I would suggest either getting more heat presses and additional people to run them, or getting a manual press and printing directly on the shirt, bypassing the whole transfer. Plus, you'd be able to print your own transfers to use at a later date if you have a common design that sells well in certain times of the year to make it easier on you. Hope this helps!


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## embprints (Sep 13, 2016)

Twisted Grafix said:


> I have a couple points to my answer. First, you probably won't like my answer, but the fastest way is to screen print them yourself on your own press. Doing the shirts the way you are currently does take a ton of time. There is NOTHING wrong with what you are doing with the transfers, it's the process. Second, They don't have to be perfectly centered on the shirt. Use your fingers as a guide to position from the collar instead of measuring with a ruler. Typical placement is 3-4 fingers from the bottom of the collar to the top of the design. As long as they are pretty close, nobody is going to scrutinize them. You can also cut time by measuring it on the heat press instead of next to it. Once it's good, just press it. No need to move stuff around after the first time. If you are doing 6-10/hr, you can probably push that up to 9-14? Personally, I think if you spent a little less time getting it measured out, you may even surprise yourself and get closer to the 20 mark. Time is money, so the faster you press, the more money per hour you make, and the faster you can move on to the next paying job and keep the cash flow coming in.
> 
> If we have a large order with left chest names, we have 1 person staging the size with the name. The second person presses and stacks. Both people are moving so there is always a shirt going on and coming off. We can do about 25/hr if we're all in sync. I know it sounds outrageous, but it is possible. It's all about the flow and the time/pressure/materials.
> 
> ...


THANK YOU SO MUCH for the reply and for the great advice. You have helped me more than you know.

I agree with everything you said...I basically need to stop worrying about the design being centered PERFECT and also do everything on the press instead of to the side. I think i just needed someone with more experience to tell me that. When I had to do 250 youth shirts in less than a week last December, I was easily pressing 10-15 per hour when I did everything on the press and when I didn't worry about perfection. Most of my big orders are for the local high school and the students wear the shirts for fun, so I doubt they will notice anything being off-center a little bit anyways.

I really needed to address this problem because my business is picking up and I need to keep up with orders. Doing things like I have been doing takes up too much time. I cater mostly to customers who need shirts done usually in about a week, without charging the "rush order" prices. I'm always competing with quotes from Customink .com or other local screen printers. 

I also am working on offering screen printing again. When I started my business 2 years ago this month, I was doing water based screen printing for family and friends on a homemade 1 color press with a homemade drying "machine". LOL I stopped because I wasn't happy with the way white on dark colors were ending up and drying was a pain. I then bought $20 of Siser vinyl, borrowed an old Cricut cutter, and grabbed our iron...then didnt look back. A month later in late November, I had enough to order a cheap heat press. Since I recently learned that I can use the press to cure shirts, been getting orders of 50+ shirts, and have more experience/understanding, screen printing bigger orders instead of cutting/weeding/pressing HTV makes more sense. 

I agree that I need a second heat press, just like how I have 2 cutters (both Cricut- 2nd one is a basic model, so cost only $150).
If anything, I need a new heat press because the one I have now was the cheapest one I could get from USCutter 2 years ago during their Black Friday sale. Its made in China and has its problems (I have to use my body weight to get firm pressure now) and quirks, but its lasted way longer than I expected! LOL My sister helps me with weeding and sometimes pressing once or twice a year, but I do everything myself. I quit my IT project management job after almost dying 3 years ago from work stress/overload and now I just focus on my shirt business and trying to build it up....hopefully eventually to the point of making a decent income. Stress from a business you own and control is way better than stress coming from a corporate job having to answer to a stressed out CEO. LOL

Again, thank you so much.


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## Twisted Grafix (Oct 5, 2016)

Stress from a business you own and control is way better than stress coming from a corporate job having to answer to a stressed out CEO.[/QUOTE said:


> I completely agree about the stress thing...My wife and I both quit our jobs years ago. It's been a completely different stress level, but nothing beats not having to hear an earful from a boss who's never done the job before.
> 
> You'll get there. It just takes time and persistence. We worked our butts off to get where we are today, and sometimes, it's still rough. The biggest thing is to streamline it early. Make it as efficient as you can with the equipment you have. If you can get it all dialed in with the process, you can start to take on larger and better paying jobs and planning for growth is way easier.
> 
> ...


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## embprints (Sep 13, 2016)

Twisted Grafix said:


> I completely agree about the stress thing...My wife and I both quit our jobs years ago. It's been a completely different stress level, but nothing beats not having to hear an earful from a boss who's never done the job before.
> 
> You'll get there. It just takes time and persistence. We worked our butts off to get where we are today, and sometimes, it's still rough. The biggest thing is to streamline it early. Make it as efficient as you can with the equipment you have. If you can get it all dialed in with the process, you can start to take on larger and better paying jobs and planning for growth is way easier.
> 
> ...


So much great advice! Thank you! The advice on pricing, I will definitely work on! Right now I just match customink, if mentioned, and the local printers (except those crazy 50 shirts for $4.50 each specials), or I go about 25 cents less, but I do the work in a week, instead of the normal 2 weeks. So far, I haven't done an order where I make less than $3 profit per shirt. I typically make $4-5, sometimes $6+. I don't know if that is good or bad amount of profit. But you are right, when once you get use to working at a lower price, its hard to get out of that mind set.

I think I have been lucky because on the bigger orders where a customer wanted to pay less than $8.50 per shirt, the designs were small, so my cost of vinyl was like 50 cents per shirt. Plus I try working it so that I control the size of the design to keep vinyl cost low. Once, I start doing screen printing, I hope business opportunities and profit opens up more.

BTW, back in 1979 when i was almost 8 years old, we visited my relatives in the Philippines and my teenage cousin had a screenprinting store/shop near the market and I watched him make me a bunch of tank tops...I was hooked. Then in 1993 while I was in college, my art class taught us how to screen print then I went out and bought a 110 screen, emulsion, squeegee, and blue waterbased ink and printed a couple designs on some white under shirts we had. I gave up when I couldnt clean out all the emulsion out of my screen. LOL Now I finally have a t-shirt business and will start screen printing again in the next couple weeks. I guess I'm fulfilling my dream!

Once again, thank you so much for the great advice. You may have changed the direction of my business and fixed some problems that would eventually kill my business! It also helps when I hear from people who started small and grew into big businesses. Thank you!


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## Twisted Grafix (Oct 5, 2016)

You're welcome! Good luck!


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## BadZebedee (May 6, 2014)

I'm a bit OCD about image placement and can take 5 mins to get it right. When I was doing only vinyl I was using a method similar to yours which as you know is far too slow. My breakthrough was to stop measuring. I just lay the transfer or vinyl on the shirt (off the press), hold it up as you're doing and get it right by eye. Take a look through your wardrobe at t shirts you've bought. Looking critically you'll probably find that they are way off what you'd produce but until you started producing yourself you probably never noticed.


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## into the T (Aug 22, 2015)

i do vinyl with a cameo and a 15x15 hix swingman press, so similar to your setup

here is my methodology (may be something in here for you):
1) *separate the steps*, as much as possible (i do my own custom designs, but larger orders also works)
*CUTTING *
- i use a 12x24 mat when cutting and fill it with as many designs as will fit 
(trying for either 19.8" x 12" or 9.9" x 24", i use thermoflex plus, so either the full 19.8" width or 1/2 width)
this saves vinyl and allows the cutter to run while you do other things (cut the next piece of vinyl, etc.)
- when finished cutting add your next piece of vinyl into the cutter
with the finished piece i then cut out the individual designs and separate into piles according to t-shirt size
- go outside and build something while waiting for cut to finish, and repeat above till cuts are completed
(the new silhouette studio actually gives you a countdown clock to tell you approx. how much time the cut takes and is remaining as it cuts)

*WEEDING
*-now you have piles of designs ready for weeding according to size, grab a pile and start weeding
i sit on the couch and use a 12x12 cutting mat on my lap with a bag beside for the scraps 
(watch some instructional videos/tv/podcasts/music whilst weeding)
-then when finished a design i place it sticky side down on a used piece of parchment paper 
(they wrinkle slightly over time which can create a relief in the vinyl so should be taken out of service for a new piece)
-continue above until completed all the weeding, keeping the sizes still separated

*PRESSING
*- now you have a stack of layered weeded designs on parchment paper
- turn on heat press to warm up
- grab all the smallest t-shirts and design stack and place individual tee's with its design just below
(if necessary i have smaller scraps of parchment for individual designs)
- when press is warmed up to temp grab your first tee, with both hands, one on either side of the collar along the seam equidistant from the collar seam,
bring tee up the platen so your hands end up equidistant from the middle pillar
this gives you a vertical centering
- gently roll lint brush on tee to remove dust/threads/etc.
- with both hands grab the two bottom corners of the tee and look 'up' the tee,
gently shake to the left or right so it 'squares' with the platen
this gives you horizontal centering
-your tee is now centered on both vectors in 10-15 secs
- give tee a 5 sec pre-press
-place design on tee and with a ruler measure from collar to top of design for your vertical placement
then measure each edge of design to edge of platen,
if they are they the same measurement then the design is horizontally centered
- press for recommended time, peel (for warm peel remove tee from platen and wave in the air 3-4 times first),
cover with parchment paper and re-press for 5-7 secs
- continue above until finished pressing

the above will give you a quick centered design,
and the stages allow for other constructive activities during the first two
making for a less stressful, more enjoyable life


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## jeff99200 (Jan 25, 2010)

IMHO based on 25 + years of heat pressing, if you want more production out of your business spend the money and buy quality equipment. Throw the Chinese heat press in the scrap pile. Good for hobbies but not for making $$. Get a swing away threadable press like a Stahls Fushion. Thread the shirt check the armpits on the side of the lower platten. Press away moisture. Use a t-square to find center of the shirt. I use a 2" wide t-square so it gives me a rough distance from the collar on the front of shirt. Set the design on and press. No one but you will notice if the design is off to one side by 1/4 inch.

If you really want to speed up get an air powered shuttle press and laser guides. 

With good equipment you should be able to do 30-60 shirts and hour minimum depending on process (HTV, cold peel, hot peel etc.) I do around 60-100 on average. I use mostly HTV and Hot Peel transfers

Good luck and there is plenty of info on t-shirt layout out there if you look.


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## Beckmansbeach (Jun 30, 2014)

I always weed all my vinyl first, or have a helper weeding while I press.
I usually do about 50 shirts an hour 1 side, 30 an hour front and back. I have the T-square it for doing left chest prints, everything else measure with fingers. Thats normal workflow numbers, i can fly if im husslin’

Stahls threadable press is key, and the extra pressure with the air fusion makes a big difference in longterm durability of Plastisol transfers, doesn’t matter with vinyl though


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## DrivingZiggy (Apr 24, 2017)

Here is a video showing how to use the laser alignment.

Then there's the T Square It:










And an instructional video.

Then there's the Logo It:










And the video.


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## Waiting (Feb 25, 2018)

Good tread!


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## ajmonka (Oct 11, 2017)

For left chest, I center it with the outside edge of the sewn on collar, and about 4 fingers down from bottom of the collar. Saves time over measuring.

Andy


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## ms6276176 (Jul 17, 2018)

i think Moving up to an automatic press is a better option


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## merchminion (Oct 15, 2017)

If you are doing something where the design is repetitive, I have found it easier to make a template out of cardstock to help with quick alignment. Ill cut a curve in the cardstock that matches the curve of the tshirt being used and then cut out a box where the design is supposed to go on the shirt. (for example jersey names/numbers) I then put the shirt on the heatpress, quick heat it to get the moisture out, pull the clamshell up, slap my little card stock template on, lay the design in the box (feel free to write on your template so you can mark where a corner or thing needs to be line up wise) lift the template off and then close the clamshell again. It means I only have to OCD setup once when making the template and the rest goes much much faster.


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## ecp in vt (Nov 23, 2016)

If you are matching prices with CustonInk and saying that you've never made less than $3 profit per shirt then you are woefully un-informed about profit and loss. What you probably meant was that you have made $3 over the cost of the shirt.
Before you know if you've made a profit you need to know what it costs you to produce a shirt. Your time, the cost of electricity, overhead, depreciation, taxes all figure into expenses. If you think you can ignore these things for awhile, that might be OK but you cannot use the term 'profit' until you KNOW what you're doing.
We all had to start and many of us learned things in a painful manner. The fact that we are still in business means that we did learn. You will, too, but it takes time.


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## embprints (Sep 13, 2016)

UPDATE

First, I want to thank everyone for replying to my question!
So much great advice. This is why I love this forum!

Im sorry for taking so long to post a reply, but I was working on the order that was the reason for my post.
I did read everyone's replies as they came in.

As I stated in my original post, I usually press 4-5 shirts (vinyl) an hour, or 6-7 if I really hustle, due 
to all the time I spend centering and measuring because of my need to be perfect (OCD) and
my fear that I will lose customers due to crooked designs. 

After @Twisted Grafix told me to stop trying to be perfect and basically saying I needed to be more
efficient, I decided to do everything "on press". I also started to find center by folding the shirts and pressing them. 
Then I would line the top shoulder seem corners to the platen edge. *This got me to 10-12 shirts per hour comfortably.* 
But the fold/press method had drawbacks.

Then I saw the reply with the T square it and the laser system, and thought I can do better than this.
So I made some modifications to my heat press platen that would guide me visually for confirming 
that the shirt was centered in like 5 seconds, instead of the 15-30 seconds it took to fold/press.
So now I was able to grab the shirt, load/center it, center vinyl, press, and put the finished shirt
to the side in *UNDER 2.5 MINUTES COMFORTABLY*!!! WTF I could not believe it! 

I was *comfortably averaging 20-22 shirts an hour*. I would take a 5 minute break every 30 minutes 
because the pressure on my 2 year old cheap press is weak now, so I have to use my weight, and this was causing fatigue. 
But I more than quadrupled my shirt output, so I'm very happy! Btw, I say "comfortably" because I was relaxed
and just listening to the TV or youtube videos and not really hustling. If I hustled, I could have done more per hour. 

Once again, thanks to everyone who replied to my posting.* This is a game changer for me.*
I actually finished the 43 shirts (large vinyl design front and vinyl player numbers on back) for our local high school
powderpuff game a day early!


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## embprints (Sep 13, 2016)

UPDATE

First, I want to thank everyone for replying to my question!
So much great advice. This is why I love this forum!

Im sorry for taking so long to post a reply, but I was working on the order that was the reason for my post.
I did read everyone's replies as they came in.

As I stated in my original post,* I usually press 4-5 shirts (vinyl) an hour*, or 6-7 if I really hustle, due 
to all the time I spend centering and measuring because of my need to be perfect (OCD) and
my fear that I will lose customers due to crooked designs. 

After @Twisted Grafix told me to stop trying to be perfect and basically saying I needed to be more
efficient, I decided to do everything "on press". I also started to find center by folding the shirts and pressing them. 
Then I would line the top shoulder seem corners to the platen edge. *This got me to 10-12 shirts per hour comfortably.* 
But the fold/press method had drawbacks.

Then I saw the reply with the T square it and the laser system, and thought I can do better than this.
So I made some modifications to my heat press platen that would guide me visually for confirming 
that the shirt was centered in like 5 seconds, instead of the 15-30 seconds it took to fold/press.
So now I was able to grab the shirt, load/center it, center vinyl, press, and put the finished shirt
to the side in *UNDER 2.5 MINUTES COMFORTABLY*!!! WTF I could not believe it! 

I was *comfortably averaging 20-22 shirts an hour*. I would take a 5 minute break every 30 minutes 
because the pressure on my 2 year old cheap press is weak now, so I have to use my weight, and this was causing fatigue. 
But I more than quadrupled my shirt output, so I'm very happy! Btw, I say "comfortably" because I was relaxed
and just listening to the TV or youtube videos and not really hustling. 

*If I hustled and had a better press, I could have done more per hour. *

*Once again, thanks to everyone who replied to my posting. This is a game changer for me.*
I actually finished the 43 shirts (large vinyl design front and vinyl player numbers on back) for our local high school
powderpuff game a day early!


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## Twisted Grafix (Oct 5, 2016)

Awesome!!! Now go make that $$$$$!!!


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## embprints (Sep 13, 2016)

ecp in vt said:


> If you are matching prices with CustonInk and saying that you've never made less than $3 profit per shirt then you are woefully un-informed about profit and loss. What you probably meant was that you have made $3 over the cost of the shirt.
> Before you know if you've made a profit you need to know what it costs you to produce a shirt. Your time, the cost of electricity, overhead, depreciation, taxes all figure into expenses. If you think you can ignore these things for awhile, that might be OK but you cannot use the term 'profit' until you KNOW what you're doing.
> We all had to start and many of us learned things in a painful manner. The fact that we are still in business means that we did learn. You will, too, but it takes time.


Yes, you are absolutely correct! I am using the word "profit" lazily and obviously incorrectly. The $3 I mentioned is just the amount over the cost of materials.


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## into the T (Aug 22, 2015)

good stuff!

find your groove and move forward


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## sublial (Mar 24, 2011)

I remember when I first started and had my first order of 400 shirts. It took me a whole week. The next order I got from that order was 4,000 shirts. 
My boss {WIFE} said if it took you a week to make 400 shirts how are you going to make 4,000.
I said I will move out of our basement and rent a larger place. Hence 7,500 sq. ft.
The best way to produce in quanity is to set up a great system that doesn,t have any bottle necks in production. 
I had a Hydraulic Heat press so the pressure of that press reduced the time requirement to press a shirt
Where is the main bottleneck in production?
It is spent lining up your print onto the shirt at the heat press.
I had 35 girls working in my shop with only 2 hydraulic heat presses.
I set up light tables for each girl and marked the light tables with markers for different size shirts and where the kneckline was to be. I then taped a transfer they were applying onto the shirt to the light table to be able to align the transfers in the same place each time.
I also had a table over the light tables to stock and store the completed shirts. one pile for stock and the other for shirts with transfers stuck to them.
I made all my transfers with 3 clc Canon 500 copy machines
I also made a coating that the girls would roll onto the paper transfer and stick them onto the shirt.
When the person working the press needed shirts to press he would grab a bundle of shirts with the transfers on them and take them to the press. He now didn,t have to waste time lining up the shirts on the press. Just throw them onto the platen and hit the button to press every 12 to 16 seconds. They were all hot peel transfers.
We operated to 1:00 every day but Sunday. The presses worked on Sunday also.
I got paid when I showed a bill of laiding that they were shipped.
I hope this helps someone.
AL


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## tippy (May 27, 2014)

embprints said:


> So I made some modifications to my heat press platen that would guide me visually


What did you do?


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