Need to Register?

badalou · January 31st, 2007

My wife just told me it was a little over 3 hours. Must have been the beer.

T-BOT · January 31st, 2007

Rodney, I thought that you were getting into Plastisol transfers and it's benefits to make your own designs/brand and be able to fill orders on demand and NOT stock printed shirts.

But it sounds like you are approaching it from a source out middle man that will be taking orders, sending them to the manufacturer, than print the shirts yourself and deliver to your customer.

I honestly believed you were doing it to promote your own stuff/Brand.

Good luck.

T-BOT · January 31st, 2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by MayanXic


	Lucy - is there a way to differentiate between GOOD vinyl and NOT SO GOOD or BAD vinyl for the plotter/cutter/small quantity option? Is there a brand we should look for or look out for ie "don´t buy Brand X, DO buy DuPont" or something? Thanks Ralf

Hi, the best quality Vinyls and other Deco Materials are the ones that are easy to cut and weed. The worst I find are the Materials that are hard to weed because too MUCH adhesive/glue. You will run into this problem when companies send you OLD stock that has been sitting around the warehouse and the Glue has glued it self more to the material.

So, go with companies that turnover stock, this way you always get fresh goods, NOT Too Sticky.

Personally, Thermoflex(tm) I like because thats what we use and never had an OverSticky problem. Specialty Materials (they are NOT the Distributor) Can drop ship to Mexico, USA etc...

Nice meeting you btw.

Rodney · January 31st, 2007

Quote:


	Rodney, I thought that you were getting into Plastisol transfers and it's benefits to make your own designs/brand and be able to fill orders on demand and NOT stock printed shirts.

I may use it in some cases to promote my own line of t-shirts, but I still don't think I have the time to "print on demand".

When I get orders, I just want to pull them from the shelf and ship them out. I don't want to have to spend time lining up transfers, pre-heating the press, pressing shirts, etc.

I'm sure it works for lots of companies, but for my specific situation, it wouldn't be beneficial.

It will help me start "new lines", but I wouldn't use it for my existing line. I just don't have the time to add that into my workflow.

I still don't think I would start a new line with a $500 minimum order though.

Quote:


	But it sounds like you are approaching it from a source out middle man that will be taking orders, sending them to the manufacturer, than print the shirts yourself and deliver to your customer.

I'm still a newbie at this, so I don't honestly know every way I'll be taking advantage of the technology

Some jobs I will print for myself and deliver to the customer. Some jobs will be me testing out new clothing line ideas. Some will be samples for customers or potential wholesale orders. I'm still learning the ropes, but I can see it has a lot of possibilities.

My point was just that a $500 minimum order doesn't always make sense.

Quote:


	I honestly believed you were doing it to promote your own stuff/Brand.

I may end up doing that with new "brands" that I want to launch.

There's a lot of things you can do with a heat press, from promoting your own brand, offering printing services, to testing new markets. I plan to explore as many as possible in this "T-Shirt Crossover" project

Rodney · January 31st, 2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by badalou


	Rodney I did 100 shirts with plastisol transfers and completed in 2.5 hours. I made $450.00 That's $180 per hour. Tees Shirt cost $1.50, Transfer 100 single color .77 cents each Shipping $10.00 Beer $16.00 I charged $7.00 for shirts.

Thanks for the breakdown, Lou. There may be more possibilities with that sort of volume that I didn't realize.

Depending on the exact specs of the job, it might also be possible to see similar profits sending it to a screen printer and drinking beer for 2.5 hours

$7 per shirt seems a bit high for 100 shirts with a one color design. With screen printing it would be a couple bucks less per shirt.

shirt-maker · January 31st, 2007

Well, all this discussion sparked me into action. I just spoke w/ Janet and have info and samples on the way. I can't wait to try them out.

I have 750 t-shirt order to do, 2 colors, 3 locations... so I'll be analyzing the economics - screenprint myself, contract screen printing, heat press plastisol transfers, or maybe some combination thereof.

I think doing screenprinting myself will win out $$$ wise, but the flexibility that transfers offer is valuable too. Plus, I bet you can drink more beer while heat pressing too.

Jim

T-BOT · January 31st, 2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by shirt-maker


	Well, all this discussion sparked me into action. I just spoke w/ Janet and have info and samples on the way. I can't wait to try them out. I have 750 t-shirt order to do, 2 colors, 3 locations... so I'll be analyzing the economics - screenprint myself, contract screen printing, heat press plastisol transfers, or maybe some combination thereof. I think doing screenprinting myself will win out $$$ wise, but the flexibility that transfers offer is valuable too. Plus, I bet you can drink more beer while heat pressing too. Jim

Speaking of beers...gee I missed the gold old Moose Head Canadian beer while I was away. Hummm tasty....just having 1 guys.

Yeah, if the order is pre-sold and there is not much in the way of specialty strectch factors etc..... a direct Screen print makes sense on 750 pcs.

The problem with low minimum transfer orders (24 or so) at chepo low end prices is that when peeps are trying to launch their own designs/Brand, for that type of transfer and low price, they will get transfers that will look good ok after you press them (if you don't run into a ruin a bunch of shirts problem because they are not consistant) ......but after a few washes they will CRACK and look terrible.

I'm sure everyone here knows that NOT all transfers are made the same by Now.
And yes it's exiting to get your first transfer order and print up some shirts.

But, when you are re-selling them to consummers with your Brand Name on them....I would think twice about going the cheap root.

But like others have said, it depends on your project.

Rodney · January 31st, 2007

Quote:


	The problem with low minimum transfer orders (24 or so) at chepo low end prices is that when peeps are trying to launch their own designs/Brand, for that type of transfer and low price, they will get transfers that will look good ok after you press them (if you don't run into a ruin a bunch of shirts problem because they are not consistant) ......but after a few washes they will CRACK and look terrible.

I don't think anybody here is talking about getting "poor quality" transfers.

Just because there are smaller minimums, doesn't mean that the transfers are cheapo. Be careful with the broad judgements you're making there.

It sounds like you're saying that all transfers printed by companies with smaller minimums will crack. That sounds like misleading information. Since those other companies aren't here to defend themselves, it's not too fair to bad mouth the competition.

People have commented on the quality of some of those transfer companies with lower minimums here, and the quality has been good.

T-BOT · January 31st, 2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rodney


	Just because there are smaller minimums, doesn't mean that the transfers are cheapo. Be careful with the broad judgements you're making there. It sounds like you're saying that all transfers printed by companies with smaller minimums will crack. That sounds like misleading information. Since those other companies aren't here to defend themselves, it's not too fair to bad mouth the competition. People have commented on the quality of some of those transfer companies with lower minimums here, and the quality has been good.

The Facts are the Facts and Im NOT bad mouthing, you are putting words in my mouth.

What Im saying is that a 24 pc. lowend transfers will CRACK. Sure you can also get a 24 sample run of Much Better quality transfers that Will Not CRACK. But not for the same low price.

The best way to rank the quality of the transfer is to gently try to Scratch OFF the Ink with your thumb after its printed on the shirt and see what happens. That's what I was reffering to, Not the 24 qty. per say... it was more about the Quality.

Sorry for trying to make you and others understand that there is a lot of Fictional facts relating to transfers and the sad part are the Newbies that max out their credit cards because they have been mis-lead on the quality factor and learn the hard way.

So, I know Im not gaining any brownie points but I would not be able to sleep know that at least I tried to inform members that there is a differece between Good and NOT so good Plastisol Transfers....

Thats why some make it and others don't I guess.

Rodney · January 31st, 2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by T-BOT


	The Facts are the Facts and Im NOT bad mouthing, you are putting words in my mouth. What Im saying is that a 24 pc. lowend transfers will CRACK. Sure you can also get a 24 sample run of Much Better quality transfers that Will Not CRACK. But not for the same low price.

If we're talking facts, please let me know which lowend transfers that you're talking about specifically?

Because the transfers that people have talked about here that are reasonably priced and have low minimums don't seem to have the cracking problem that you seem to say is a fact.

Quote:


	The best way to rank the quality of the transfer is to gently try to Scratch OFF the Ink with your thumb after its printed on the shirt and see what happens. That's what I was reffering to, Not the 24 qty. per say... it was more about the Quality.

Well, you didn't really specify how to test the quality, and since we were talking about other transfer makers in specific (first-edition, dowlinggraphics, etc), you sort of lost me when you went off on something that wasn't related (you seemed to imply that quality could be easily measured by what a company's minimums and pricing were

)

Sorry for misunderstanding you, but I think you might have thrown a few people off with your comments about minimum quantities relating to quality.

Information like "trying to scratch the ink off" is much more helpful when trying to help members understand what a quality transfer is like than saying if they have low prices and low minimums, it's cheapo

Quote:


	Sorry for trying to make you and others understand that there is a lot of Fictional facts relating to transfers and the sad part are the Newbies that max out their credit cards because they have been mis-lead on the quality factor and learn the hard way.

I appreciate you sharing your knowledge, but at the same time, you have to be careful to explain exactly what it is you're talking about, because when following the course of this thread, we were talking about various transfer makers specifically that offered smaller minimums and when we mentioned a company that had a larger minimum, you sort of made the leap that because they had larger minimums, the quality was better than the companies with smaller minimums. At least that's how it read to me.

Quote:


	So, I know Im not gaining any brownie points but I would not be able to sleep know that at least I tried to inform members that there is a differece between Good and NOT so good Plastisol Transfers....

I think everyone is aware that there are different quality of transfers. From inkjet transfers to plastisol transfers, obviously there are going to be some companies that do better work than others.

My point was that you seemed to be basing the "quality" on the minimum quantity offered by the company, not by any experience with a specific company.

I'm trying to get all the information I can here, but if Lou is saying he ordered from First-Edition and the quality is there, and you're saying that companies with small quantities and lower pricing aren't good quality, then it makes me a bit confused

Quote:


	Thats why some make it and others don't I guess.

There's a lot of reasons why some people "make it" in the t-shirt business and some don't. I don't think boiling it down to buying transfers from a company that has lower minimums or competitive pricing is necessarily one of them.

Again, it's about testing. As I said in the beginning of this thread, I'm testing out many different transfer makers and the whole plastisol process.

I think by actually doing first hand tests to see the quality after press and quality after wash, I'll be able to see if they crack or not

Of course I won't use companies who sell transfers that crack (as long as I know that it's not my own error causing the cracking...since I am new at this)

T-BOT · January 31st, 2007

Rodney, Lets get one thing straight so that there is no more confusion.

All the companies mentioned here on the recommended list put out quality product.

Now, of course these companies may vary in their capabilities to output specific needs required by clients due to their equip. set. nitc

Need to Register?

Preferred Vendors
View Offers

Resources

T-Shirt Sites

[PLASTISOL TRANSFERS] - trying to get started with plastisol transfers (getting samples?)

Need to Register?

Preferred VendorsView Offers

Resources

T-Shirt Sites

[PLASTISOL TRANSFERS] - trying to get started with plastisol transfers (getting samples?)

Preferred Vendors
View Offers