I'm new to the business, I know I can't get everything at once, but can you give me your thoughts on what press I should buy? I only have about $5000.00 to spend right now and would like to get a good one, but I also need other stuff as well. What would you do if I were you? If you have any good suppliers, please send the links.
Hi.
I would suggest a Riley Hopkins press. A lot of people here can recommend it and while I've never used it (yet) I saw one at the ISS conference and I really liked its design. I'm going to get one as soon as I get my shop out of my laundry room. They're about $2800 I think for a 6-color 4-station press, with joystick registration, and rotate able platens.
I'd also suggest a flash cure unit. I have one made by Black Body and it works great.
I'm sure other people will chime in with suggestions, but those two machines are what I would suggest.
That'll get you a pretty good start. I started with $50 in screenprinting. Slowly kept learning and made enough money to buy some great equipment.
If I were you, I'd keep my eyes on screenprinters.net classifieds and ebay. Look for some good used equipment. There are a lot of screenprinters that get into the business and quickly learn that it's not as easy as they thought, and sell their equipment.
Of course, there is junk out there too. Even the best brands are going to be a headache if they were abused. Usually you can tell a lot from pictures and talking to people though.
Some good presses are National (Global), Antec (Epensive), Riley Hopkins, Hopkins BWM, Rototex, Vastex, Anatol, Workhorse...
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I'm new to the business, ...I only have about $5000.00 to spend right now ...What would you do if I were you?
This is not the answer you are looking for...
Spend the money building a client list and contract out your screen printing for now. Once you get a good flow of customers and orders, you will have the cash flow to buy the kind of equipment you want/need to get into the production side of the business.
If you buy the equipment, and don't have any customers, you will have a hard time putting food on the table.
If you have customers, they will pay for the new equipment.
What kind of stuff are you trying to buy? Just a regular old heat press? Are you doing transfers? Are you talking screen printing? What are you looking to do?
We got a heat press(Swingman 15), plastisol transfers (20 designs at 15 sheet minimum order per design from Frist Edition), professionally done web site logo and business cards, all of our shirts, and all of our designs done by a graphic designer for under 5K.
We had a hook up on the shirts and designer but still 5K can get you a lot unless you are just wanted to start off big time.
I have only $5000 to spend. What to buy? 
