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T-shirt heat press – are cheap ones bad? Advice please?
I have a small one man op doing mainly property and vehicle signs but have just invested in a new Versacamm and thinking I could do some T shirt printing as no one is doing that in the town I am in .
Now i am not going to be using this 24/7 just the odd batch of T shirts here and there so I don’t really want to blow £900 on a top end press ! but heard very mixed reviews on cheaper presses that look similar for £150 on ebay, Amazon etc !
So In my head I am thinking spend a couple of hundred from Amazon who have a good return policy for 12 months then if I am doing quite a lot then invest in something more expensive .Is this a decent plan , have people tried these cheaper presses and been pleased or are they just rubbish ????????
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8 Replies
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We used to do this, but got rid of it as it was more trouble than it’s worth, my experience was:
To remain competitive you need to carry a stock of garments. (4 colours, 4 sizes, 5 of each 80 shirts) as the carriage on 1 or 2 is about £8.00.
The artwork supplied by the customer isn’t often ‘print ready’, so 20 mins messing about for one shirt? Or they all want different names on the back etc.
Then print the one transfer, turn the heat press on, all for £10-12?
It’s great if you can get 10+ shirt orders like stag & hen do’s, but we personally have much more profitable ways to make money.
I’m sure someone who does shirts will be along shortly to answer your original question.
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quote David Hammond:We used to do this, but got rid of it as it was more trouble than it’s worth, my experience was:To remain competitive you need to carry a stock of garments. (4 colours, 4 sizes, 5 of each 80 shirts) as the carriage on 1 or 2 is about £8.00.
The artwork supplied by the customer isn’t often ‘print ready’, so 20 mins messing about for one shirt? Or they all want different names on the back etc.
Then print the one transfer, turn the heat press on, all for £10-12?
It’s great if you can get 10+ shirt orders like stag & hen do’s, but we personally have much more profitable ways to make money.
I’m sure someone who does shirts will be along shortly to answer your original question.
I agree 100% with David. The second worst decision I have made was getting a heatpress when I 1st moved into premises. I sold it after 6 months. The worst decision though was when I bought a second one 😳 spent 99.9% of its time gathering dust and getting it the way,
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Well we are a small outfit and we have just invested in a shiny new heat press, my view is that after the initial outlay it can only add to the bottom line. We’ve only done a few so far but that’s money we wouldn’t have made and as an add on it can only be good.
ie a builder comes in for a vehicle livery so sell them builders boards and t shirts as extras – youve already got the logo after all
Add £5 to every van and you can give them all a FREE T shirt and lets face it they’ll need more so theres only one place they are likely to go.
However I agree if all you do is T shirts you would need to do a lot to pay all the bills
One thing for certain regarding heat presses I think buy right or dont buy at all, cheap ones will bite you 😀
john
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As already said, unless you already do clothing, we do embroidery and screen printing. Starting add on side to your business which is primery for low numbers isn’t going to be great.
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Careful where you buy the press from, lot of sharks out there, use all three of ours every day easy money just try and promote it.
The difference between an expensive heatpress and a cheap one is how much you pay for it, they are simple machines they heat and press you don’t need rolls Royce engineering all of our presses have been working maintenance free for 10 years (one of them is pneumatic)
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I have a cheap heatpress and mug press……..had them both for 7 years now and had no issues with them.
John
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Years ago I bought an ebay special. It was so inconsistent and unevenly heated – it was terrible.
After lots of research I plumped for a Stahls Hotronix Fusion and now wouldn’t be without it.
I don’t do a lot of t shirt pressing but i want the ones I do get asked to do to be done properly. Repeat orders take less time for the same cash.
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Perhaps i am too late had add a reply. If you are going to do this for small runs have a look at the magic touch system it is design to do small runs multi colours. Used Oki laser printer (which you can just buy your self and buy the transfer paper separately think Yolo creative does the paper), if you are wanting to use your versacamm then have a look at Grafityp for printable garment vinyl. In terms of heat presses i would always suggest Atkins presses, we have had 3 for 10+ years now looking for a change. They arn’t cheap but grab a 2nd hand one at first. Target Transfers are now the UK supplier for Hotronixs (Stahls) which seem to be good machines.
Hope this Helps, If you have any questions please ask. We have been printing and embroidering for over 10 years now process about 20k garments a week.
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