I have the opportunity to do a 25000-50000 Tshirt run. 3 colors front and back or process front and back. White T's either cotton or 50/50.
I am in the printing trade and can't pass it up.
1/I have an HP large format and access to another so I can do inkjet transfer at 36" with high ink costs and higher transfer paper costs.
2/ I have one and can buy another Epson 1280 and outfit it with large capacity
Dye Sub Inks and go slower and less costly in materials. or 3/ I have access to a cheap 4 station, six color manual silkscreen machine for which I will have to buy supplies for. I am very handy and a little bit knowledgeable in all areas but have no experience in producing this volume.
Looking for advice in which avenue to pursue. I am competing with a big outfit out of town and think they sub out the transfers and do the heat pressing on about a dozen machines in house. I have little overhead.
What doyou think. Which way seems the most cost effective and practicle?
Thanks.
None of the above. For fifty thousand t-shirts you can pretty much rule out transfers straight away - screenprinting will give you better quality, lower cost, and faster turnaround. 50,000 shirts is probably not the kind of order you want to cut your teeth on and learn to print yourself either. At that point you wouldn't want to use a manual press either (although you could I suppose... eventually); an automatic screenprinting press is the way to go.
So I suppose what I would do in that situation is get the contract if I could, outsource it to a screenprinter with an automatic, skim some money from the top (on an order that large it will be still be quite a bit of money), and use the time saved to make money in other ways. Or if you have the capital, buy an automatic press and set up your own shop - a 50k order would be a good place to start offsetting that cost
It is a unique situation. I am the manager of the print shop given the opportunity to do the job. I can profit on the production end because I am the outsource. If we send it elsewhere else the skim money goes to my boss the owner. I am able to have him pay directly for the shirts and set up a temp place in a warehouse with a couple of guys running manuals. I have been in production for a long time in the printing and large format business and don't shy away from money making situations. Just ask me why I have 2 large formats and a laminator at home. Sold my letterpress business a year ago too. Just need the industry standard or most profitable method without crunching a lot of numbers. If silkscreen is the way then it is a 3 color application large back and small left chest. Sure transfer wouldnt work? Just seems fast and cheap. How fast can you run a 3 color shirt on a 4 station manual.
I really appreciate your input.
I agree with Solmu. I would outsource it also to a printer with a big automatic shirt caroussel with several stations, so a few shirts could be produced at the same time. Skimming the cream from the top on an order that large would be enough for me
Still not an option due to my situation. There is no cream to me just my employer. What about a dedicated space with 2 6 color 4 station manuals and a tunnel dryer. 3 man crew. Feasable if I have a couple months to complete. Trying what I can. Hate to see this one go.
Thaks all for your input.
It is really a simple math question. (Total number of shirts/Shirts per hour) * 2 sides.
A fully automatic press will take 167 hours to print 25K shirts. That is one month dedicated at 40 hrs a week and 300 shirts hour on 2 sides. If you are going to do this by hand and can do 50 shirts an hour at 2 sides you are looking at 1000 hours of time for 25K shirts which is 6.25 months at 40 hours a week. If you have that kind of time, go ahead.
For that volume, you can probably source it to China and get a good deal. There are also printers in the US that could do it for a higher cost than overseas.
Last edited by guest3300; July 14th, 2007 at 04:56 PM.
Thanks for taking the time to put together the numbers for me. This wouldn't have been the first time i went into something I wasn't well versed in. I have tackled printing, large format and letterpress. Some under very similar circumstances. An opportunity presented itself and I made money with it. I didnt mean to go against the advice but some are not as motivated as I am. The numbers don't lie. This is too big for me. Thanks again. I have learned a lot and will probably start a side business in the heat transfer, and dye-sub market anyway. Thanks.
Large job advice 
Re: Large job advice 
