[Nordanyan]

I have a 1 color hand made printing press and I just started my production. I have finally got a set-up that I can comfortably print. I currently don't have any form of curing ink other than a hair blow dryer or home oven. For that reason I try to keep away from plastisol. After seeing someone run there cured t-shirts through a heat press, I saw how it got really flexible and set in well through ribbed shirts.

I want to be able to:

1. apply transfer paper designs onto my t-shirts
2. apply foil design
3. melt plastisol ink into the garment.

Basically I wanted to know what should I be looking for in a heat press? Do all heat presses do those 3 things?

Also, I dont have a flash dryer either. What should I buy first, a heat press or flash dryer? and why?

 

[Foundation]

I've been using my 15x15 heat press from pro world for 2 years now. Pretty awesome deal, check them out they're a preferred vendor.

 

[Nordanyan]

That heat press looks perfect for me. What are some other must buys? There is a deal at Pro World if I buy $300 worth of items. I don't want to buy things that will just sit on my work desk. I payed the price starting off with a a Yudu and Speedball for a while. What I already have is...

Homemade Single Color press (would love to upgrade)
I have a set of good plastisol and waterbase inks, Ulano QTX emulsion, good quality screens (i think), screen opener, spary-on platen glue, screen tape, and a solid squeegee.

I currently have a set-up that exposes my screens pretty efficiently. but it takes 30 minutes to fully expose.

And I also print my transparencies on a low end epson deskjest inkjet type printer. I spray glue sketch pad paper onto a regular copy paper and cut to size then print on that. (its worked fine thus far.)

Thank You,
Hayk

 

[smudge guy]

I have been drying t-hirts with my heat transfer (Air Waves 15x15) for almost 5 years & no problem with it. I just got a flash and a manual press. I didn't have a press, I was printing 1 color manually w good results. The needs you have, you will solve it w a heat transfer, if you can afford it with auto timer, it's a great feature also.

Happy drying & let us know