# Plastisol transfers - my thoughts and questions.



## Pwear (Mar 7, 2008)

I've been getting a bunch of local screen printing jobs lately, and find that most of my time is taken up just making screens, drying screens, washing screens, storing screens, and all things "screen" related. I feel that my time is not being spent productively due to the amount of "work" involved in my _work_.

I did some reading up on plastisol transfers, and due to Rodney's great transfer company review thread and Badalou's love for the transfer, I'm considering it as an option on most of my future jobs.

I don't really understand the pricing structure for ganged sheets, but it seems that for slightly more than it would cost in emulsion, water and power (and TIME) to do a job with my printing press, I can have really nice transfers made for me, spend a fraction of the time (and the mess) to make the actual shirt, and spend more time on other business duties such as marketing and less time on production - especially for multiple color jobs.

Now here are the questions:

1. Does it make economical sense to order transfers for small jobs (20-50 shirts). Is there any profit in it? Seems to me there is, but again I'm not familiar with how the pricing structure works on plastisol transfers.

2. To those experienced with this aspect of printing, how would you rate FMexpressions, Transfer Express and ACE Transfer in cost and ease of application?

Thanks for reading, I appreciate any thoughts.


----------



## wormil (Jan 7, 2008)

1. I think it does. You'll give up some profit but you'll have more free time for marketing etc. I think transfers make more sense in three situations: small-medium orders, fulfillment, and for difficult to print textiles (either because of shape or having a liner).

2. I think you are severely limiting yourself with only those three choices. F&M is the company I use because of their combination of quick turnaround and low price but their color choices are limited. Transfer Express is by reports a great company but among the most expensive. Considering they are 2-3x more expensive than other companies that's eating a lot of profit. Ace is somewhere in the middle with pricing, # of standard colors but their turnaround is 1+ days depending on #colors. Ace does have gang sheet pricing but only if they gang your images for you.

Other companies:
Versatrans - very quick turnaround, lots of colors, expensive
Quick Trans - ditto (note: their samples had a relatively soft hand)
Howard - the most standard colors, short turnaround, inexpensive
Silver Mtn - lots of colors, medium turnaround, inexpensive

If I were to switch from F&M I would probably choose Howard Sportwear but there are plenty more solid choices (Universal, Semo, First Edition) More below.

vendors - Google Docs


----------



## Pwear (Mar 7, 2008)

wormil said:


> 1. I think it does. You'll give up some profit but you'll have more free time for marketing etc. I think transfers make more sense in three situations: small-medium orders, fulfillment, and for difficult to print textiles (either because of shape or having a liner).
> 
> 2. I think you are severely limiting yourself with only those three choices. F&M is the company I use because of their combination of quick turnaround and low price but their color choices are limited. Transfer Express is by reports a great company but among the most expensive. Considering they are 2-3x more expensive than other companies that's eating a lot of profit. Ace is somewhere in the middle with pricing, # of standard colors but their turnaround is 1+ days depending on #colors. Ace does have gang sheet pricing but only if they gang your images for you.
> 
> ...


Thanks alot for your thoughts! When you say fulfillment, are you referring to one-off pieces?

I'll give transfers a try for the next few jobs and see how it goes.


----------



## wormil (Jan 7, 2008)

By fulfillment I mean when you have a stock design that people will be ordering in small quantities, applies to t-shirt retailers.


----------



## Pwear (Mar 7, 2008)

wormil said:


> By fulfillment I mean when you have a stock design that people will be ordering in small quantities, applies to t-shirt retailers.


Got it, thanks again for your advice!


----------



## wormil (Jan 7, 2008)

One other thing to consider is location, choosing a vendor close to you can save time and money in shipping which may make up for minor differences in price.


----------



## Colorfast (Sep 2, 2006)

I use plastisol and believe it has many advantages over direct screen print. I have limited space to work (home based) with and did not want to get into screens and all that is required as you mentioned. I also did not want to get involved in all the chemicals.

I have used Verstranz and ACE. Both have get hand for 1 and 2 color work. plastisol with a heat press is great for this type of job. Plastisol is competitive with screen printing in my area which is Charlotte NC. Most jobs I have done fall in the 24 to 100 piece range. At the moment I am quoting on a job for 250 to 300 t-shirts. It is one color front and back same ink color. Both images are going to be ganged on the same sheet. My cost including shirt. plastisol transfer and shipping is in the $3.50 range for S - XL dark color shirts. I have checked pricing and most people in the area are in the $5.50 to $6.25 range including art, screens etc.

The only time I have issues with plastisol is the image area. If the customers art exceeds the size of the plastisol transfer sheet you could be looking at 2 sheets per shirts (front & back) which may be more expensive. Before quoting get the final size of the design to be printed.

Set up costs and clean up in screen printing are time consuming. I just purchased a cutter for t-shirt vinyl to the smaller runs.

Wormil speaks highly of F&M but the samples I tried seemed very heavy handed. I believe he likes the SPOT fashion print which is advertised to be very soft. I also like the fact that they offer several sheet sizes which would help with the image size issue. With ganged sheets you have to cut the designs out and that can be time consuming. Ishould request some SPOT fashion samples from them and give them another try.


----------



## wormil (Jan 7, 2008)

The samples that F&M sent me were terrible. Had I based my decision from the samples alone I would never have used them. Their Freedom transfers are pretty heavy but then so are Dowling's full color stuff, I think its the nature of the beast for full color transfers that will be opaque on colored shirts. The only company who has a particularly soft hand among the samples I have is Quick Trans but their prices are very high. The rest are about the same. It's tough to judge because almost all the samples I've recieved are single color spot which isn't going to be that thick anyway. At this point I'm not doing fashion stuff so it doesn't really matter but I've been getting a few requests on designs I've made so it might matter in the future. F&M is perfect for what I'm doing now. In the future... who knows.


----------



## Pwear (Mar 7, 2008)

Thank you guys, I really appreciate all of the info.


----------



## racerxmccoy (Feb 26, 2007)

Great posts guys....I have been questioning the exact same situation.... My main business revolves around vinyl signs car wraps etc. but I dabble in screen printing for a few customers. I bought a six station hopkins press used a bunch of screens chemicals and inks, then kind of figured it out on my own. Now I realize that the time and clean up plus my lack of skill is costing me more than its bringing in. Most of my runs are in the 20 - 40 shirt range so this seems like a good alternative. Maybe I'll sell my hopkins and use the cash to pick up a better heat press ( I have a cheap ebay unit). Thanks for all the helpful info!


----------



## Pwear (Mar 7, 2008)

That's exactly what happened to me - I bought a press for my t-shirt company, and it's ok for that because I can't afford to make plastisol transfers of every design so I just print them to order, but for regular jobs that are coming in it just takes way too much time to do on a press. I have a full time job on top of this and I'm spending 4 hours on some nights, mostly just making and cleaning screens.


----------



## Colorfast (Sep 2, 2006)

Pwear said:


> That's exactly what happened to me - I bought a press for my t-shirt company, and it's ok for that because I can't afford to make plastisol transfers of every design so I just print them to order, but for regular jobs that are coming in it just takes way too much time to do on a press. I have a full time job on top of this and I'm spending 4 hours on some nights, mostly just making and cleaning screens.


I wanted to buy a screen printing press at first but after weighing the pro's and con's the heat press was the way to go. For any jobs that are more than 1 or 2 color or long run I work with a wholesale screen printer. I bought the cutter to use apparel vinyl for jobs that don't quite "fit" with plastisol transfers due to cost or turn around time.
Even though profit may be some what lower using plastisol transfers I can use the extra time for marketing and selling. I have a "real" job too and don't have the time for screen prep, cleaning etc.
I own a 15 x 15 Mighty Press and have not run across a need for anything larger. Most prints I do are small business, event, school or team oriented. I don't do anything for fashion either. As of now all I concentrate on are the bread and butter 1 and 2 color work.


----------



## heartsandskulls (Nov 9, 2010)

Can anyone pls teach me how to make my own plastisol prints?

What supplies do i need?

Where can i buy supplies?


----------

