Rezmoto

Newb: heat transfer vinyl and heat press on a budget

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Hey!

Im a newb to the plotter scene. Just picked up our first from USCutter and we are looking to make a couple of shirts for the business, and for sale in the future.

I know that my machine can cut heat transfer vinyl, I was just hoping someone could inform me of the heat press part.

Can I use a regular iron to transfer the vinyl if the logo is small enough and fits under the iron, or does it have to be a heat press?

Any other tips, tricks, tutorials, videos on doing heat transfer stuff would be much appreciated!

Thanks in advance.

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and the presses make sure you have even pressure so it won't peel off after a few washes

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You can get a low cost heat press used or on ebay, but save yourself a lot of time and buy a little better machine.

I like Hot Tronics. I've had three heat presses, and we bought the Hot Tronics used and it works great, and the best of all three machines.

Work a few extra hours, find a part time job or market the heck out of yourself to pay for a better heat press.

In my humble opinion of course.

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I have 2 Hix presses. One is over 20 years old! I have to use a laser heat sensor because the gauge is no longer accurate, but other than that it is a champion! I even e-mailed the Hix corp with a question about it recently and had an answer the next day! Now that's great customer service! There are lots of good machines on the market now, you might want to figure out what style will fit in your price range. Clamshells take up less space, but the swingaways allow more work room for layout.

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Last winter I had bought a hotronix swinger and had only used it once and it didn't seem to work like the instructions said. Today I finally called tech support and found out it has 2 AA Batteries that had corroded in the holder hidden underneath.  I removed the old batteries, repaired the holder and installed 2 fresh batteries and it works great.  If I remeber right I gave around 350-400 for it!

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Thanks for all the answers!

So no iron, got that. Where do you guys buy your heat presses from brand new. Im going to search Craigslist, but if I was to buy it new, whats the best place to save some $$?

Also, what vinyl roll do you recommend? Ill likely be printing on black/grey/white shirts at first, so I want to pickup a roll of white, a roll of black, and perhaps a color roll like gold for my initial run of designs. Suggestions?

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Sunie's are cheap, and  you'll have problems with the manual pressure.

Hot Tronix from Stahls, and GeoKnight.com presses have digital read outs.

Trust me, it'll make all the difference when you're pressing and your vinyl or transfer keeps coming up.

Sunie's are light weight and are good to take to a show, but if you're going to do several at a time you want a good machine.

ProworldInc.com has a big selection of heat presses. Talk with a saleman about the type of work you're doing.

With two or three jobs you'll more than make your money back, and you'll save a lot of time and physical pain.

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I agree the hotronix and Knights are the best but my sunie has been a great starter machine.  Just make sure to get the one with over the center pressure adjustment like the mighty press's.  On service, after a year I started doing sublimation and found that one of the digits used for higher numbers didn't work properly and sunie had the part to me in 2 days!

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Forgot to mention that www.t-shirtForums.com has a ProworldInc link and you can ask questions.

If you sign up for a free account for t-shirt forum, do a search for Proworld and you'll see a thread. The person from there has great anwers and even gives great customer service.

I've even seen him give a free repair to someone who bought a machine from another company. The machine was the same type as he sells.

I'm sure that person will buy all his heat presses from proworld from now on. If I buy a new one again, I'll buy from them.

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Did they send it free or did you have to pay?

With the better US made machines like Hot Tronix and Geo Knight, I only had one problem with Geo, they sent me the product for free, and I had it the next day.

Even that was too long. I have a few presses, conveyor dryer and flash dryer. I still prefer the Hot Tronix. It's a work horse.

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I love my Hix.  Gave around $500 for it off ebay about 5 years ago. 

Nope an iron will not work.  It will look ok at first, and might even stand up to a few washings, but will not stand up long term.

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