First real post. Advice and thoughts
Hello all from sunny Hong Kong.
By way of introduction my name is Ryan and am based in Hong Kong, I have been here for 24 years so call it home. I was recently made redundant after a 30 year career of bashing, smashing , lifting and carrying, one thing I have to be thankful for is that my children have completed university so don't have to worry about that though much to their disappointment the bank of Dad has closed its doors.
Now to the business at hand, after a lot of thought (even before my career came to an abrupt halt) I have been thinking of opening up a small custom apparel and gift shop. After surfing these forums ( I think that is the lingo) until the tears are rolling down my cheeks I have some ideas and would just like to get your thoughts. I intend on doing both sublimation and pigment ink transfers. I will put it in bullet form for ease of following.
1) The heat press is probably the most important bit of equipment, I am leaning toward a Hotronix fusion, a swingaway would be more comfortable in my opinion to avoid working under the heat plate, Hong Kong is extremely hot and I sweat like a snake at a Thai wedding as it is. Being able to change the platens is another factor.
b) A cap and mug press
2) The sublimation printer I am looking at is the Virtuoso SG 800 for A3 printing. I will be looking at doing sport apparel as am involved in the rugby community and there are some pretty large people as well as mugs and what not.
b) I would also like to get an Epson printer also with A3 capabilities with pigment inks to do cotton apparel, people generally lean more toward cotton garments because of the heat and think it would be beneficial to an apparel business.
3) A cameo 3 for cutting
Most people are probably aware that I could get no name brand equipment here for next to nothing the quality would be questionable though and would more than likely fall apart in no time for that reason I am going to have to go probably to the UK to get some items, the heat presses for example, I don't have the luxury of getting these items here as far as I can see and have not had much joy from Stahls, I have tried contacting them both by email and through you tube. Quality garments may also be a problem, we do have a company called blank Tee but the cost of a shirt for example is 4 times that which is in the UK again as far as I can gather it would be more cost efficient to go to the UK and set up a supplier.
On that not I thank you for your time and would really appreciate any feedback from the people in the know,I understand that a lot of this information is on the forums and that is where I have got the ideas I have laid out however quite a bit of the information is fairly dated, so if anyone has some advice for me or if I am going wrong to please point out where. Are there decent suppliers of ink and papers in China? I do intend on providing a quality product, as I said cheap and questionable I can get.
Once again I thank you for your time
Best Regards
Ryan
By way of introduction my name is Ryan and am based in Hong Kong, I have been here for 24 years so call it home. I was recently made redundant after a 30 year career of bashing, smashing , lifting and carrying, one thing I have to be thankful for is that my children have completed university so don't have to worry about that though much to their disappointment the bank of Dad has closed its doors.
Now to the business at hand, after a lot of thought (even before my career came to an abrupt halt) I have been thinking of opening up a small custom apparel and gift shop. After surfing these forums ( I think that is the lingo) until the tears are rolling down my cheeks I have some ideas and would just like to get your thoughts. I intend on doing both sublimation and pigment ink transfers. I will put it in bullet form for ease of following.
1) The heat press is probably the most important bit of equipment, I am leaning toward a Hotronix fusion, a swingaway would be more comfortable in my opinion to avoid working under the heat plate, Hong Kong is extremely hot and I sweat like a snake at a Thai wedding as it is. Being able to change the platens is another factor.
b) A cap and mug press
2) The sublimation printer I am looking at is the Virtuoso SG 800 for A3 printing. I will be looking at doing sport apparel as am involved in the rugby community and there are some pretty large people as well as mugs and what not.
b) I would also like to get an Epson printer also with A3 capabilities with pigment inks to do cotton apparel, people generally lean more toward cotton garments because of the heat and think it would be beneficial to an apparel business.
3) A cameo 3 for cutting
Most people are probably aware that I could get no name brand equipment here for next to nothing the quality would be questionable though and would more than likely fall apart in no time for that reason I am going to have to go probably to the UK to get some items, the heat presses for example, I don't have the luxury of getting these items here as far as I can see and have not had much joy from Stahls, I have tried contacting them both by email and through you tube. Quality garments may also be a problem, we do have a company called blank Tee but the cost of a shirt for example is 4 times that which is in the UK again as far as I can gather it would be more cost efficient to go to the UK and set up a supplier.
On that not I thank you for your time and would really appreciate any feedback from the people in the know,I understand that a lot of this information is on the forums and that is where I have got the ideas I have laid out however quite a bit of the information is fairly dated, so if anyone has some advice for me or if I am going wrong to please point out where. Are there decent suppliers of ink and papers in China? I do intend on providing a quality product, as I said cheap and questionable I can get.
Once again I thank you for your time
Best Regards
Ryan
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