DCMoney
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Posts posted by DCMoney
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I gave up on a lot of the free vector stuff a while back, the specific ones I needed were just bad traces. Bought a few items off vectorstock.com even some of them still need touch up but its a much better starting point.
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T-Shirts, HTV.
Excel sheet says as of today, 82% of money comes from shirts, 15% decals, 3% etched glasses.
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This is the seller I've been buying from since August. Check other items for sale for smaller rolls.
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Personally, I stock 50-100 yards of white HTV, 5-10 yards of black, and <5 of anything else. My internet item options are limited to black and white graphics, majority being white HTV.
Buy my HTV off ebay, cheapest delivered price I can find.
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After some research on the Summa DC4, looks like its about $1.50 a sqft for ribbon, then what ever material you print on, which depends on what you buy. I really like that I can print directly to inexpensive 651.
This forum has some pretty impressive examples of what can be done with the Summa thermal printers.
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If I was going that route I would probably lean toward the Summa Thermal printer. Supposed to be less maintenance woes. I don't know enough about it and am not thinking about a printer at this point so i have not pursued either style other than a cursory review at first before I realized how high the cost was going to be.https://www.summausa.com/collections/dc-series
I would be curious to get an informed comparison from Dakota on these DC series printer cutters vs the solvent or eco-solvent printers from someone who has experience. (hint hint Scott)
I forgot about thermal printers! Looked at a Gerber FX a while back but the single color at a time was a negative to me. The Summa will hold multiple colors, DC4s look like they are reasonably priced for a used one, just look like they are slow, they don't have the same resolution as a printer, but lamination isn't required. That seems debatable from what I've read.
Need to find a good price per sqft calculator to compare printed vs thermal.
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In all the research I've done, (Have still yet to buy a printer because of start up cost, material cost, and maintenance.) the Roland VersaCamms are a great value, another option is the Roland BN-20 its slower and smaller.
I've looked at just about everything, and because of dakotagrax experiences with the Rolands makes me look more toward.
I would prefer to have print/cut as well.
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We cut a lot of small detailed stuff, some letters are just 1/8" tall. We have Googled for a week for videos and cut samples but nothing shows the cut quality or detail. Also we sometimes have drop vinyl that's about 3" square, the way this machine seems to set itself up is by "seeing" the pinch rollers, can we still cut small sizes like this?Thanks so much gang!
Did this with my CE6k-60, no issues doing small detail.
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I'd say thermal is better than laser for printing shipping labels. Just depends on how often and how many you need to print.Yep, amazon had a DYMO 4XL on sale awhile back for $115 I picked it up, couldn't operate without it now!
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When you have 4 times as many customers, what's word of mouth advertising worth?
Project 5 years out, shop number 2 now has 20,000 customers, 300k in sales while shop number 1 has 5k customers and 250k in sales. And that's with no growth due to sales.
But I get why people want to be shop 2, I've all but quit selling small decals, there's no money to be made in them. Yet I keep some on ebay and etsy because it's a gateway to similar items, and it's cheap advertising. I get people that buy decals and shirts all the time in the same order. Work hard to get a large customer base while providing a top quality product and get repeat customers for life. They'll tell their friends and the cycle will continue, slowly raise your prices and your customers will understand the quality of the product they are getting is worth the cost.
snip... I always try to explain this idea to my father as well, but he is the guy that buys a Husky Tool from Home Depot (cant think of a low brand) insteadof SnapOn..Your dad sounds like a smart man.
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If you can afford it, go bigger get a 16x20. Used a cheap ebay china 15x15 swinger for about 6 months before upgrading to a 16x20 Geoknight. Never had any issues with the cheap press but the Geoknight is in a totally different league.
Same with this http://www.hotronix.com/heat-press-laser-alignment-system, completely worth it, really sped up my shirt making process.
Shirts - Jiffyshirt.com unless you have a resellers license etc.
This for those times you forget to weed something. http://www.uscutter.com/AlbaChem-Vinyl-Letter-Removing-Solvent HTV falls off with this stuff. I've had great luck using it applied to a Q tip and applied only to a specific location to remove unwanted HTV. Removed an entire design just to see what it does, there was a faint outline left of a few letters.
I too use siser easyweed, keep Black and white on hand, everything else is a special order. I wouldn't order a ton of material till you know what you're selling. Right now I'm running through a 50 yard roll of white in about 3 weeks. 15" wide, found this to work out best for me with minimal waste.
Tips:
Don't forget to mirror.
Check the temp of your press, verify what the readout says.
When layering HTV a few seconds is all that's needed to get the base layer to stick to the shirt, so the final layer can be the full siser recommended time.
I press a center line in all my shirts and same with the transfer. Folding the design in half lining up the weeding box as long as the weed box is in the center of the design. This gives you two center lines to align to. Using the laser alignment makes for quick consistent placements with the center lines, but it's not necessary just a time saver and time is money.
Use the backing (what you peal off the shirt once it's pressed) as a scrap catcher when weeding more HTV.
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I pulled all glasses due to the time it takes.
Interesting idea using saran wrap, still seems like too much time though.
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My personal experience with HTV.
Pro's:
Not a lot of overhead: Equipment doesn't have to be expensive to make a HTV shirt, made lots of shirts on a cheap china press.
More on the low overhead. I buy a lot of shirts from Hobby Lobby. Mainly because I don't want to have a ton of shirts on hand that may sit for months before getting used and they are cheap. Not having a business license means I can't buy shirts at discounted rate. Jiffyshirt.com is great but at $2.75 a shirt for a Gildan 100% cotton shirt its not super practical to order a bunch of green mediums that may never get used when I can go to Hobbylobby and pick one up for $3.02 after tax. Same for the 2xl's and 3xl's, right now its actually cheaper for me to buy them at HL than Jiffyshirt. I do carry Small-XL White, Black, Red, Blue that I buy through alphabroder through my works account. May eat into my profit but it's not a ton, I calculate like $200 lost in profit because I use HL and not alphabroder for all my shirts.
Yet to have a HTV shirt peel even after 40+ washes my first shirt graphic still looks like it did the day I made it. Have plenty of DTG (direct to garment), screen printed etc shirts the fade and crack after a few washes. Apparently this is in relation to the maker of the shirt not doing things correctly.
Cost: When I started HTV I was shocked at how much more expensive HTV was compared to something like 651, now I buy it in 50 yard rolls and don't blink an eye when buying it.
Easy: Think it's really easy to make a HTV shirt. Made my first shirt in February of this year after only reading on forums like this and watching youtube videos, currently at 1456 shirts sold.
Con's:
Large graphics with a lot of solid material on the shirt doesn't feel as good as a screenprinted shirt, ie too thick doesn't breath well. Personally I've never had anyone complain, but I tend to design around less material transferred on a shirt. Example if someone wanted the plane below on a shirt I would make an outline of the plane instead, just an example.
Weeding time: Time is money. I try to design around ease of weeding. I like to use stencil fonts to decrease weeding time. Not having to go back and pick out the inside of letters or numbers saves time.
Finally, the way I look at it if I got out of shirt making tomorrow, I could sell everything and not be out of more than $600 and I've made way more than that this year alone.
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Havent broken down the sales between Etsy and Ebay but if I had to guess its about a 4 sales on ebay to 1 on etsy.
I had similar thoughts about it mainly being females which I still think it is, but they are buying shirts for their boyfriends, husbands, kids, etc. I get quite a few messages asking about ETA's because they need it as a gift.
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thanks both for the info... what is a good heat press to buy...and if i am following this right... you need HTV vinyl to make the logo/picture...I went back and forth between a Hotronix fusion like Sue linked to and a Geo Knight DK20SP.
I personally went with the DK20SP because I wanted auto release and a pneumatic action.
http://www.uscutter.com/Geo-Knight-16-x-20-Air-Op-Swing-Away-Heat-Press-DK20SP
I didn't buy mine new, searched craigslist (search tempest) and ebay for months and found a great deal on my Dk20SP.
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75% of my sales are Heat Transfer T-shirts. Personally I like the HTV over screen printing, all my screen printed shirts eventually crack after a wash or 2 and I have yet to have a HTV shirt crack or fail. In my opinion there's a lot more to learn and buy when doing screen printing. It might be something I eventually get into but not right now.
HTV is a little bit more money, roughly 3 times the cost of something like 651 vinyl. Personally I think HTV would be easier to get into, buy a press, buy some HTV make a shirt.
I've dropped all glass etching from my etsy and ebay, do some here and there for friends but for me there's more money to be made doing shirts. Same for small decals I keep raising my prices on them and now basically keep them as cheap lures on ebay and etsy to get people to look at my shop for similar items.
I started in February of this year with a cheap 15x15 swing away press. After a month realized I wanted to upgrade to a better press. My advice to brand new users buy a 16x20 to start with if you don't want to spend the money on a more expensive press. I sold my cheap 15x15 for $50 less than I paid for it 6 months after I bought it.
Can you do multi color, sure it's more time and material. But it's possible.
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Sounds like you turned on tangential emulation. I'm not a graphtec owner but that could be the reason. Is it still getting the job done correctly?+1, turn tangential mode off.
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Had my SBR'd PS90 dipped love it! Good luck with your endeavors!
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Do HTV and decals after work, and on the weekends, ebay and etsy mainly.
Think it could be a full time job for someone willing to put the work in.
Wife and I started selling at the end of january this year and have done more sales than we ever expected.
Personally I'd skip the titan 2 start with the graphtec.
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Using Graphtec studio - completely new to this. Learned a bit about different blades and the various options for the machine though. All settings are stock currently aside from the cutting force - I have it at 8, the speed which I have at 5cm/s and the step size which I have at 0.1mm. Since you've noticed it on yours too, would you say it's simply a characteristic of the machine? I'm not sure what exactly to expect from a machine like this since I have no experience!It's not a characteristic of the machine, when mine does it is because of the font. Circles U's etc cut just fine.
I'd do a hard reset on your machine. Turn power off, hold down the "up" arrow button (^) and turn the power on while holding the button. NOVRAM will begin and just follow the queues.
And try cutting it again, if that doesn't work call customer service at Graphtec.
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I've noticed it on mine with certain fonts, most are so small it's not noticeable once applied. I run my CE6K at 55cm/s though, time is money...
What software are you using?
What are your settings?
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Not helping my want to buy a printer.
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Summa DC4 Thermal Printer/Cutter Free - St Louis Area
in Buy, Sell, and Trade
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The good: Its free, 54in cutting and printing. 8+ ribbons.
The bad: It needs a new print head. You have to get it out of my basement, which is not a walk out. I got it down there with 4 people. It weights 600 pounds, and is 90.6" x 24.8" x 51.2". Bring a trailer.
I bought it used in 2016 with the bad print head. Used it mainly for single spot color printed decals, printed onto all kinds of different vinyl. The print/cut feature is awesome, being able to cut out decals to the shape of the decal and not have to use any transfer tape was a huge time savings.
Anytime you do CMKY print you'll get a single bad line from the bad print head. Zero issue with single color spot printing. New print head was $1500 when I bought the printer and decided against buying one for what I was using it for. No dongle or software included. I ran it with signlab but I'm keeping the software.
Located in St Peters Missouri. If no one wants it, I'm disassembling it and throwing it away.