Expanding...

[TimnAng 56]

Once we finish up the Tree Service job we're working on, and receive the remainder of the payment, hubby wants to invest in a heat press to do T-Shirts, mugs, etc.  I'm all for it, except for the fact that we're already crazy tight on space around here, and are working our vinyl out of our living room/kitchen!  My one corner in the living room houses the cutter, and a rack with all of our vinyl & transfer tapes.  We do the weeding and assembly at the kitchen table.  Adding a heat press to that, is going to be interesting, to say the least!

 

I've done a lot of reading and searching around the forums, but I'm pretty clueless when I read most of it, as I have never even seen one in person, and have NO idea, the smallest thing about these machines.  I could use as much info as y'all want to throw at me.  For instance, does one machine do T-shirts, mugs, hats, etc?  How much are we looking at for a decent machine, and what vinyl's/transfer tapes am I going to be looking at?  I assume all of my work can still be done using the same programs that I use to do my cutting now?

 

Anything you all wish you had known, or would do differently, if you were starting the journey all over again?  We didn't do much research before we purchased our cutter, but we got lucky and have been very happy with it... I just don't want to jump in with both feet on this one, with as little as I currently know about the subject.

 

Thanks in advance!

 

 

[TimnAng 56]

Looks like sublimation printer for mugs- but also have read that you can use sublimation on T-shirts...  Maybe I should stick to decals- something I know something about.  lol  There's just way too much info, in too many places, for me to wrap my head around it all.  

[xpaperman 719]

Cut vinyl shirts are not bad!  Don't be afraid.  I am on the verge of stepping into sublimation myself.  Either way your gonna have expenses and a learning curve.  I think sublimation would be more expensive mainly because think ink is a little high.  Probably maintenance on the printer as well.  I do have any experience here other than what I have read or asked about here.

 

Back to shirts with cut vinyl.  Either route your gonna need a press.  I got mine with my cutter as a bundle from USCutter.  You can check craigs list to save a few bucks.  Mine is one of their cheap ones but so far works like a champ!  The main thing is that it heats up and holds a good temp and the temp is the same over the whole surface.  Other than that all you need is Heat Vinyl.  Viola.... your in the shirt business!  I and most people use Seiser Heat Vinyl.  Good stuff!

 

When making shirts I don't even have to change any settings on my cutter.  The only thing you have to remember is just before you send it to cut you remember to CUT IN MIRROR IMAGE.  Shirt vinyl has to be cut in reverse but it is only a button click.  The only other tool I would recommend (don't remember the actual name) is the T-Square thing for shirts.  It helps with lining up your vinyl on shirts.  I thought I could do without it.....NOPE.  Worth every penny for me.

 

If I were to buy a press now..... I would probably look for one with a little bigger platen, and one with a swing away platen, other than that this cheapo works great.

 

Oh, and I forgot to mention..... for design work, you use all your current software!  You can even use your existing designs..... just don't forget to cut it in mirror!!

[TimnAng 56]

Do the shirts done with sublimation hold up better than the vinyl?  I worry about cracking and peeling after just a few washes?

[xpaperman 719]

Not sure about those shirts as I don't do that yet.  The vinyl shirts (when I first started I was very leary) hold up great!  I am very surprised.  I made myself a couple and wear them everyday (to help spread my name around town) so they get washed a lot since I only made a couple.  The people I have sold them to rave about how nice they look and how well they hold up as well.  As long as you apply the vinyl right (right temp and pressure, which is not hard at all) your good to go.

[suzy1479 13]

I also got my heat press from us cutter as a package deal. its a 15 inch press. it works great. we have done t-shirts with the siser easy weed vinyl and it has been washed maybe 15 times and the vinyl has stuck 100 percent. we use the same setting for Oracal vinyl as we do for the siser easy weed vinyl on the cutter. and we use SCALP for both also. like xpxperman said " remember to CUT IN MIRROR IMAGE" i usually remember about 2 seconds after i click on the cut button.

making t-shirts is lots of fun. my sons friends come over and make custom shirts for themselves all the time.

[Ravenwind / One Off Grafx 187]

the only draw back i have ran into with sublimated shirts is it has to be done on polyester will not hold to cotton.

[xpaperman 719]

and, not only shirts.... I have done some wine bags, koozies, hand towels, YOU CAN ALSO DO RHINESTONES, I have made some aprons, I even had a customer have me do some pillow cases!

[OWJones 1,981]

Do the shirts done with sublimation hold up better than the vinyl?  I worry about cracking and peeling after just a few washes?

 

Dye sub doesn't crack - it's a permanent transfer of dye into the fabric - there is no "feel" (or "hand" to use the technical term) to it.

 

However, it limits you to only 100% polyester t-shirts, it can be done on 50/50 t-shirts, but the dye will only bond to synthetic fibers, so your image will be washed out and give it a "vintage" look.  If transferred to 100% cotton, it will be pale and will disappear with the first washing.  I had one customer who told me he couldn't wear polyester and kept insisting I do it on cotton, after the 3rd time of explaining to him that it wouldn't work, I just quit answering his calls - now I have 3G Opaque and JPSS so I do most of my t-shirts that way, because people just aren't huge fans of polyester t-shirts for some reason...

 

But... the trade off for that limitation is that you can dye sub onto about a zillion other things, which gives you hundreds of new potential product lines.  Check this page at Conde Systems for a list of dye sublimatable products or this one at Laser Reproductions, Inc. for even more unique items.  I stock Zippo-style lighters, gift tins, puzzles, coasters, mousepads, tiles, dog tags (military style) pet tags (in assorted shapes and sizes), lanyards, poker chips, flags (garden and car types), Christmas ornaments, earrings, clipboards, felt pennants - I even make sublimated metal business cards that I hand out to potential customers.   If that's not enough reasons, how about sublimation fishing lures!  Those of you living along the great lakes (or those of us living on major rivers) could make a killing selling these to local businesses!

 

With regards to pricing, heat press vinyl is NOT cheap.  Siser Easy Weed runs about $1.33 per square foot, vs. $0.32 per square foot for Oracal 651.  It does have the nice feature of not requiring application tape, so there are some savings to be had, but it's still pricey.  Thankfully USC now sells it by the foot (at $3.10 for each 12" length of 15" wide vinyl) so you don't need to buy a 5 yard roll of odd colors that you only need small amounts of.

 

Dye sublimation has steeper start up costs because you do need to buy a printer that will be used exclusively for dye sub work, although you can buy nearly any Epson ink jet printer and use it for that purpose, so you don't need an expensive printer.   The inks seem expensive if you're used to buying normal inkjet cartridges, but I bought a set of five 2 oz bottles to fill my CIS tanks on my Epson and it was $75 including shipping and that will last me many months at least.   I guarantee I can print more than 56 square feet ($75 / $1.33) and it will usually look nicer, too.

 

You can buy an Epson "wide format" (capable of 13" x 19") printer with a pigment/dye sub CIS tank and no ink for $169  and then another $75 to Cobra Ink for a set of their 5-color (CMYKK) high temp inks, plus $24 for a stack of 100 sheets of sublimation paper and you would be in business, all you would need are blank items to start imprinting.   I stock 3 sizes of sublimation paper, 8.5"x11", 11"x17" and 13"x19" - coupled with a 16"x20" heat press, there aren't many blanks that I can't cover with designs.

 

If you're looking at heat presses, the ones that claim to do 5 or 8 different things are tempting, but usually aren't the greatest quality.  For most heat press work you want two things to be consistent - temperature and pressure, and the cheaper models just aren't that great at either.   You'll also notice that usually 2 of the 8 possible items are plates and/or other obscure items that you'll probably never press.  Most people on here that do mugs don't even use a heat press/mug press - they (myself included) use thermal wraps that are stretched around the mug/bottle/shot glass/whatever and then baked in a hot oven for ~10 minutes.  I use the wraps from LRI, most people are partial to Cactus Wraps, I got mine before I knew better, but mine work just fine - so far - knock wood.  Using a wrap allows me to do complex, curved shapes that would never fit in a press, like this crescent award glass.

 

I just got my second press, this one is a hat press, so I can start putting printed and rhinestone designs on hats, too.  You can see my other posts in the Heat Press section for more information.

[maddog 12]

the only draw back i have ran into with sublimated shirts is it has to be done on polyester will not hold to cotton.

The New Chroma Blast Ink says it is for 100% Cotton on White or Light Colors as well as 50/50 Blends, I have just recently purchased the Richo 3110 Printer with the Chroma Blast looks very nice however as for test of time and washings thats to be seen yet I have washed one shirt only once and that does look the same so far. Just My 2 Cents.

[jaybyrd 3,770]

Any 1 with sublimation and chromablast experience want to chime in on what the feel of chromablast is vs. dye sub vs. jpss. I've been curious myself.

[sleeveofwizzard 104]

JPSS and 3G opaque inkjet transfers have a few limitations as well. JPSS is great on white shirts but I have not had much luck on other colors. 3G Opaque can show a white edge where the paper is cut. It is basically an iron on paper that is printed on. 

[slice&dice 2,450]

USCUTTER is offering info --  Join their webinar ---

http://forum.uscutter.com/index.php?/topic/40922-opportunity-for-innovation-dye-sublimation-webinar/?p=316357

[jaybyrd 3,770]

Never had anyone say anything about the white edge on the 3G. I had to do over 60 of them on red shirts last week and everybody loved em. Just curious though if chromablast feels more like jpss or sublimation.

[TimnAng 56]

Thanks a bunch for all of the information!  I really appreciate you taking the time to give me information that is probably already here somewhere.  I'll keep y'all posted on what we decide to do!

[RBeaubien 6]

Please define:

 

 

... - now I have 3G Opaque and JPSS ...

 

Is this referring to the Cobra Ink?

 

I'm thinking of grabbing an epson printer to do some shirts myself.  The shirts would either be 100% cotton or 50/50 blend.

[jaybyrd 3,770]

I use the cobra pigment in and ciss system but I have been told by some smart people that the epson inks hold up very well also.

[OWJones 1,981]

Please define:

 

 

 

Is this referring to the Cobra Ink?

 

I'm thinking of grabbing an epson printer to do some shirts myself.  The shirts would either be 100% cotton or 50/50 blend.

 

 

Yes... and Yes....   I have Cobra Ink brand pigment ink in an Epson WF4020 (the printer also came from Cobra Ink) that I use for printing JPSS and 3G Opaque transfers (transfers also from Cobra Ink and from other forum members who were selling excess inventory) for t-shirts.   I also have Cobra Ink brand high temp inks in an Epson WF1100 for printing dye sub transfers.   So far I've had nothing but 100% satisfaction with Cobra Ink

[RBeaubien 6]

Thanx, but what does JPSS stand for?  3G Opaque transfers?

[Dakotagrafx 7,297]

Thanx, but what does JPSS stand for?  3G Opaque transfers?

Jet Pro Sof Stretch

[jaybyrd 3,770]

3g opaque are transfers designed for color shirts, jpss is basically white shirt only