[ashiver]

As a newbie, my girlfriend and I have been teaching ourselves a bit about screen printing. We've been pondering the purchase of a 4-color manual press in order to do a small print-to-order website.

This is the press we're looking at, and I was wondering if anyone here had used it and what they thought of it. Any advice is appreciated.

http://www.silkscreeningsupplies.com/site/799934/product/lg4x1

Thanks,
Adam

 

[Colorfast]

I don't own any screenprinting equipment but I have heard nothing but negative comments about the equipment this company sells. On another forum I check out they don't care for it at all. See screenprinters.net

If you are printing your own designs on a print to order basis you should consider heat transfer with plastsol inks or inkjet. What type of t-shirts will you be selling?

Welcome to the forum.

 

[ashiver]

I don't own any screenprinting equipment but I have heard nothing but negative comments about the equipment this company sells. On another forum I check out they don't care for it at all. See screenprinters.net

If you are printing your own designs on a print to order basis you should consider heat transfer with plastsol inks or inkjet. What type of t-shirts will you be selling?

Welcome to the forum.

Thanks for the welcome!

We will be doing various custom designs. We are both graphic designers and want to port our talents to a new medium. We've been doing some screen printing by hand, and wanted a non-frustrating way to register our shirts. This seems like a good way for us to go. We're not really that interested in heat transfer, we much prefer screen printing.

I will have a look at the link you sent.

If anyone else has experience with this company or their products, I am all ears.

Thanks, again.

 

[T-BOT]

We will be doing various custom designs. We are both graphic designers and want to port our talents to a new medium. We've been doing some screen printing by hand, and wanted a non-frustrating way to register our shirts. This seems like a good way for us to go. We're not really that interested in heat transfer, we much prefer screen printing.

I will have a look at the link you sent.

If anyone else has experience with this company or their products, I am all ears.

Thanks, again.

i dont , but perhaps some of the brilliant screen printing trade members may know, and help you out with some buying tips etc.

the 4-COLOR PROCESS press you are checking out its only $ 364.00 . even a Heat press cost more than that.

 

[Squirts]

Thanks for the welcome!

We will be doing various custom designs. We are both graphic designers and want to port our talents to a new medium. We've been doing some screen printing by hand, and wanted a non-frustrating way to register our shirts. This seems like a good way for us to go. We're not really that interested in heat transfer, we much prefer screen printing.

I will have a look at the link you sent.

If anyone else has experience with this company or their products, I am all ears.

Thanks, again.

as far as durability its as solid built as any others and maybe a bit more solid then some...your not gonna wear it out... the draws backs of this press is that it doesnt have micro registration something your gonna want if you are doing anything that requires precise registration...the second draw back is that it only has one workstation.... a major drawback on large multicolor orders or anything requiring flashing... however life is about trade offs in order to have something you have to give up something...if you want low price then you may have to give up micro registration and or multiple workstations...if you want them you have to give up more money....but as far as workmanship and how well its built, theres nothing wrong with the presses from this company... weither its the right press for you, only you can answer that Good Luck with your venture....

 

[ashiver]

Thanks for the thoughtful answer.

Since we don't plan to do major press runs we decided the single workstation was fine for us. As for micro-registration... what is the difference between the registration that this press offers and one that offers micro-registration? Both in how detailed one can get and in how the presses themselves differ from one another.

 

[tonym]

I have that press and it is very well built.

Micro registration allows you to lock in the screen and make fine adjustments to registration using knobs or a joystick.

This unit is all manual registration. You move the screen and platen around to line things up.

Micro registration would be nice, but I think with some practice and a little patients you can register up just fine without it. It just makes life much easier.

At the moment, I'm just printing 1 and 2 color company logos, so I don't really need much registration at all.

 

[ashiver]

Thanks. I think this clears it up a bit for me. I appreciate it!

 

[Colorfast]

We enjoy the process of screen printing. It is as much for us about having fun as it is selling our shirts.

I have had screenprinting classes and it is fun. I investigated opening a screenprinting business for quite a while just to do as a side business but printing is about the only fun part. Coating the screens, creating film, burning the screens and then all the clean-up and chemicals is not fun to me.
FUN- 30%
WORK & Chemicals- 70%

My plan was to set-up the business in my garage but to buy decent equipment and do a job that I felt comfortable selling was going to run about $4K to $5K.

After learning more about plastisol heat transfers I am going in this direction.

Still get to create
Have designs printed on transfer paper with plastisol ink
Pay for the transfers only and buy the shirts as needed (lots better cash flow)

Equipment investment is way less than screenprinting
Plastisol transfer quality is excellent...seriously doubt your customers would know


Good luck with your shirts...

 

[anders]

colorfast, your last reply helps me too.
Is screen printing only really useful and cost effective, when you print a LOT of shirts (+100) ?

 

[ashiver]

We must be weird, because we enjoy the coating of the screens and other stuff, too. lol

 

[Squirts]

We must be weird, because we enjoy the coating of the screens and other stuff, too. lol

Not Weird at all.... Actually quite interesting to see a project or design thru all the stages ....one other plus is that by growing familiar with the entire process you can push the perimiters and come up with some ingenius prints.... We do a form of Imaging for our customers that we developed thru trial and error....(alot of error) that never would have become a part of our arsenal had we not been envolved with the whole process...
Good Luck with your Venture and welcome to the "Addicting world of Screen Printing" LOL

 

[Colorfast]

Is screen printing only really useful and cost effective, when you print a LOT of shirts (+100) ?

In terms of dollars & cents screenprinting is more cost effective when doing more shirts...a lot of shops have minimums of 3 to 4 dozen. They may do smaller orders with heat transfer inkjet or CLC.

It all depends on what you want from your business. If you really enjoy the process of screenprinting and perhaps experimenting as Squirts mentions then try it. As for me... I enjoy the creativity and interaction with customers. The heat transfer process offers many options and makes sense for me. I also have as a goal to make a few bucks for retirement someday.

 

[Solmu]

We do a form of Imaging for our customers that we developed thru trial and error....(alot of error) that never would have become a part of our arsenal had we not been envolved with the whole process...

Something for this thread?

 

[Chin Print]

Get your stuff from Vastex/vastex.com They are great people and really work well with you. American Made and will help you out over the phone.