Welcome! You'll certainly have a tight fit in your 12x14 room, but once your 20x30 is built you will be set. Sounds like you've planned well - printing transfers is a great idea for your application. I wish you the best!
My new setup...
Hello everyone...
So, ordered my starter setup from ryonet and it's going to be here on Thursday. Here's what I got on the way now:
Riley Hopkins Jr. 6 color 4 station benchtop press. I did not get the press cart and am planning to build my own cart with the same dimensions because I have a welder and steel and can make it for much less.
X-Vactor exposure unit
Ryonet branded 16x16 flash unit.
I ordered it all as a kit so it comes with startup supplies and whatnot.
It is not my plan to do local based screen printing work, but strictly for my own designs sold retail. I've been selling my designs via teespring and have done quite well, but its difficult to profit from multi-color shirts so I have stuck with 1 color designs. I chose to migrate away from that platform and sell on my own site and print on my own in order to keep costs at a level that I can create better/multi-color designs and still sell at the same price point.
I'm a little concerned that doing the physical printing may be too much for me because I have severe fibromyalgia, degenerative disc disease, carpal tunnel & and autoimmune disease that spends much of its time attacking my nerves and when combined all together I suffer from chronic fatigue. I have trouble walking around the mall & at 44 years old I walk with a cane if i need to walk alot, but I CAN "power through it" but usualy suffer in pain for a couple of days to a week after I do. I sell about 50 shirts a day tops right now but hope to be able to expand that to 100+ shirts a day (retail) soon. My short-term goal is to just get things off the ground with the printing myself at first and then I plan to hire someone part time. I need to learn it all enough that I could then turn around and train a young kid (college student type thing or something) to do the physical printing.
I have maybe 20 designs right now, but over the next 6 months or so I plan to offer around 100 designs. I am planning to print mostly plastisol transfers around 100-1000 at a time (depending on popularity of the design obviously) and then using a transfer press so I can avoid having a massive inventory of pre-printed shirts.
I do intend to have lots of fun with this process so its not all work, and I am an obsessive learner once I decide to do things, even if I don't intend to do things as a 'production' oriented thing I still want the ABILITY to expand or do special events and such and I will be doing some large print jobs also.
I figure its going to take me at least a month or 2 to learn the techniques needed to achieve good results, so I plan to 'tinker' for awhile first... With that in mind, my next purchase is a conveyor dryer (probably in 2 weeks), and I am looking at the Vastex DB-30. I'm literally operating out of an 12x14 bedroom with an opening into a 'den' which is currently my office and that adds some extra space that can dip into my office area. I'm in a unique position where nearly 100% of my income can be poured into setting up shop because my house & cars are all paid for and I have very few bills. Assuming things work out over the next 6 months or so, I plan to build about a 20'x30' workshop on my property and move everything into there. I know it will be super tight inside my place now, but I don't want to 'under-buy' anything. When I do things I like to do them "right" or not at all... I think the smaller riley hopkins press is a nice middle ground between quality and size, and so is the DB-30. I thought about going with the ryocure jr. dryer, but I have not really heard anything about it and I plan to experiment with discharge so I will be getting the scrub air addon to the DB-30 as well.
Anyway... was that a long enough introduction?
So, ordered my starter setup from ryonet and it's going to be here on Thursday. Here's what I got on the way now:
Riley Hopkins Jr. 6 color 4 station benchtop press. I did not get the press cart and am planning to build my own cart with the same dimensions because I have a welder and steel and can make it for much less.
X-Vactor exposure unit
Ryonet branded 16x16 flash unit.
I ordered it all as a kit so it comes with startup supplies and whatnot.
It is not my plan to do local based screen printing work, but strictly for my own designs sold retail. I've been selling my designs via teespring and have done quite well, but its difficult to profit from multi-color shirts so I have stuck with 1 color designs. I chose to migrate away from that platform and sell on my own site and print on my own in order to keep costs at a level that I can create better/multi-color designs and still sell at the same price point.
I'm a little concerned that doing the physical printing may be too much for me because I have severe fibromyalgia, degenerative disc disease, carpal tunnel & and autoimmune disease that spends much of its time attacking my nerves and when combined all together I suffer from chronic fatigue. I have trouble walking around the mall & at 44 years old I walk with a cane if i need to walk alot, but I CAN "power through it" but usualy suffer in pain for a couple of days to a week after I do. I sell about 50 shirts a day tops right now but hope to be able to expand that to 100+ shirts a day (retail) soon. My short-term goal is to just get things off the ground with the printing myself at first and then I plan to hire someone part time. I need to learn it all enough that I could then turn around and train a young kid (college student type thing or something) to do the physical printing.
I have maybe 20 designs right now, but over the next 6 months or so I plan to offer around 100 designs. I am planning to print mostly plastisol transfers around 100-1000 at a time (depending on popularity of the design obviously) and then using a transfer press so I can avoid having a massive inventory of pre-printed shirts.
I do intend to have lots of fun with this process so its not all work, and I am an obsessive learner once I decide to do things, even if I don't intend to do things as a 'production' oriented thing I still want the ABILITY to expand or do special events and such and I will be doing some large print jobs also.
I figure its going to take me at least a month or 2 to learn the techniques needed to achieve good results, so I plan to 'tinker' for awhile first... With that in mind, my next purchase is a conveyor dryer (probably in 2 weeks), and I am looking at the Vastex DB-30. I'm literally operating out of an 12x14 bedroom with an opening into a 'den' which is currently my office and that adds some extra space that can dip into my office area. I'm in a unique position where nearly 100% of my income can be poured into setting up shop because my house & cars are all paid for and I have very few bills. Assuming things work out over the next 6 months or so, I plan to build about a 20'x30' workshop on my property and move everything into there. I know it will be super tight inside my place now, but I don't want to 'under-buy' anything. When I do things I like to do them "right" or not at all... I think the smaller riley hopkins press is a nice middle ground between quality and size, and so is the DB-30. I thought about going with the ryocure jr. dryer, but I have not really heard anything about it and I plan to experiment with discharge so I will be getting the scrub air addon to the DB-30 as well.
Anyway... was that a long enough introduction?
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