Discuss the various aspects of direct to garment printing. DTG printers include Brother, T-Jet, Flexi-Jet, DTG Kiosk, Kornit, Mimaki, Tex-Jet and others! Discuss and learn about this up and coming printing technology.
Depends on your budget - sub-$1000 I would definitely add a vinyl cutter to do cad-cut materials. Embroidery can be added for around $10-12000 and rhinestoning can be added for a couple of thousand up to $50,000. Both are viable, rhinestoning adds a higher "markup" to the apparel and lends itself to more wholesale work as well.
Don pretty much nailed it. Your best bang for the buck would be a vinyl cutter, you could do single color and some multi color designs using vinyl or flock. You can also do simple car decals, signs, etc. If you opt for something like the Eagle cutter, you could also do rhinestone templates...
A vinyl cutter is definitely the way to go. There are alot of different things that can be done with them..lettering, numbering, logos, decals, flock, twill, some can accompolish rhinestones and even contour cutting.
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Mike Koval --- Imprintables Warehouse --- 800.347.0068 x240
I will go with a vinyl cutter (for all the reasons listed above) and an dye sub printer. dtg printing is great for natural fabrics, but it does not work really well on the synthetic fabrics (i.e. polyester) and on hard substrates.
Just becareful that whatever you do, do it in steps so that you have a enough time to learn one process before you try to start another. Otherwise, you are going to get fustrated.
Just becareful that whatever you do, do it in steps so that you have a enough time to learn one process before you try to start another. Otherwise, you are going to get fustrated.
I think vinyl cutter it is...& should be! Thanks all for the info. I didn't know you could add the rhinestone template to the Eager Cutter. Matt, rhinestones are super popular right now! I think you could really benefit financially in that market. I just added a few designs in my line.
Muneca,
I agree! Rhinestones are indeed popular, and word is that sequins are becoming really hot. You see them even on men's clothing.
Question is: are those styles likely to persist? The machines are interesting but very specialized in the sense that, with a DTG or d-sub you change the graphic when styles change, instead of junking the machine...Thoughts?
Muneca,
I agree! Rhinestones are indeed popular, and word is that sequins are becoming really hot. You see them even on men's clothing.
What's really weird is we did a bunch of new sequin designs for a few craft shows recently. Lots of people looking, nobody buying... We have a sequin attachment on our SWF 15 needle machine and it's really amazing watching this thing sew them...
After DTG, what would you invest in? 
