I have a fairly large graphics and sign and printing company and would like to get into the T Shirt Printing Business. It would be a natural extension for my clients. I have a HP Indigo printer and have been doing a few transfers (great quality). I have 3 questions. 1. Does it make sense to get into this market if I don't do screen printing, 2. is it wise to offer embroidery along with printing and 3. I live in Arizona can anyone recommend a Mimaki distributor. Thanks.
Not sure you want to go with Mimaki. They have made NO Zero Upgrades in the 5 years I have owned mine. They have recently changed the ink, but the colors are not improved. They raised the prices SIGNIFICANTLY & lowered they volume per cartridge from 220ml to 210ml...
Mimaki is fantastic in manufacturing sign printers. The PRINTER is excellent. The PRINTER is durable & fast!
The INK is horrible EXPENSIVE & WEAK colors. If they would make the switch to the Dupont
Artistri Inks, the GP604 would be a great SPEED production option for the Light & White Shirts.
Last edited by TurtleNick; October 11th, 2009 at 08:43 AM.
Reason: TYPO
Getting into garment printing, alongside digital printing is a great idea.
I do alot of large format graphix and DTG has opened up many gates for me : )
I first went with a typical DTG with Epson heads and was pure garbage, than switched to Brother printer and in Love.
Great production machine, easy to use, colors are good, and barely any maintenance which is best part, downer is only can do light/white garment but that's ok, Brother has 782 printer that can do dark's but price tag is way to high in my opinion
Which machine today? Well I am n the market right now. We have run the Mimaki for about 5 years with some big production. We need to double print everything due to the inferior ink, that is equivalent to 10 years of production. So the Mimaki a durable machine w Crap INK! Have I beat that dead horse enough??
I am currently considering the I Dot, MS One or HM1C.... No exactly thrilled with any of them.
Where do you stand w ur purchase?
I love my Brother, Happy with durability, Inks, Colors for most part and clients been extremely happy to so far.
I heard bad things about MS One, I thought was suppose to be a good machine, but talked to a few people that said other wise, HM1 seems to be nice machine but its a toy, not made for production and again uses print heads off a 600 machine I think, unless they are using 4800 heads on it.
When you get a Brother its a 250lb beast made to print with no hassles. got around 6 or 7 thous prints sice april, and not one hick up, issue or anything
BigJack. I love everything about the Brother. Dependable. Durable. Great Color on the inks w one hit. Big drawback is the ink cost $700/liter The Dupont inks can be purchased for about $200/liter. Some Korean Textile inks are about $150/liter. Mimaki advertise "Low Ink Cost" & their cost is close to $1,000/liter since we need 2 hits of CMYK on white shirts.
Ok.. here thing about ink: I know high ink cost right? wrong because factor these in...
Fewer head cleans, ink is thicker, which means you use like alot less CC than a Dupount ink
Lew time machine down, less time to print, file/print and now RIP system to by pass
Also, print ones and not a double print strike which is costing you money right now : (
Honestly avergae cost per print is about 60 to 85 cents for something 12 by 14 and with dupont what you gonna save prob? 15 cent a garment, basing on fact that inks on those machine are more water and need more of it to make a decent print...
Oh factor in, 60 sec cure time compared to 35 sec on Brother and its a load of crap some of companies that use Dupount ink say u just need 35 sec because crap will fade on you like no tomorrow
If I didn't thing was best thing since Spongbob, I would bother ranting so long ; )
Take my word that you will be happy, all I do is printing and hate machines giving me headaches and the Brother has been on of best investments I have made so far
It sounds like a lot of folks out there are real supporters of brother. If you were in my shoes would you just focus on digital printing and forget about the screen printing part of it. If so, what is the cut off point in quantity when you just can't compete against screening?
People tend to like Brother because they are a reliable machine, I know people buy used Brother, which havent been used for 6 month, all they do is a few head cleans and they are good to go.
Well screen printing is just to competive/complicated, you gotta make screens, fix up are to be screen printed, messing up first few shirts is prone ect.
A good set up will prob run you 40 or 50 grand, with Brother its about 23K with everything you need
Profits are Higher per garment but not in volume base.
With DTG it opens up a new world of kool things to be done, and all my client send stuff only a DTG can do, I also do contract work for other screenprinter which says alot right there Ha.
If you know how to run a Home printer, you can run a Brother, if you wanna be real savvy than go with screenprinting and sub work to me you cant do (J/K)
Or why not do both? Plenty of people here screenprint and DTG
Consider contracting our the screen printing, we do. We also get a lot of work from our contract screen printers. They give us low qty 4 color process jobs. You Bail Them Out & They Will Bail You Out on Rush Jobs, Win/Win.
What to send out & What to Keep Inhouse? Keep smaller multi color images inhouse.
I would try to keep most in house, unless screen printer gives great deal to ya.
Always made me curious when people who can do a job in house make a profit on it great than them subbing out, sub it out?
I personally either do everything in house or I dont bother saying I can do it, to sub it out.
Alot of people may say I am idiot but I think of the what if scenario of person I sub out to messes up, client yells at me and I can loose a potential big client, just so I can make a few extra bucks.
Unless job is for 100 single or two color, keep them bad boys in house.
As for Ink, Sawgrass makes a non OEM ink chepaer than brothers 220ML Oem but why bother when Brother now has OEM that its 25 percent cheaper than 220. which comes in 500ML.
You gott either use sawgrass or Brother ink because Brother ink is one of a kind compared to all the other hack jobs companies that relabel Dupount ink as there own.
Btw 65 to 85 cent cost for ink was based on 220ml cart. so with 500ml I prob save more Ha
Best thing I like about Brother is, tells me right off bat on screen cost, also the job being printed ect.
When Do I Use Digital 
Re: When Do I Use Digital 
