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INFAMOUS Designs

New Member and needing guidance

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Hi everyone, My name is stephen wilson, im the owner and painter at Infamous Designs here in Indiana. Been painting for 5 years now and looking to expand my business and get into doing stickers and team t shirts. Ive been doing a bunch of research and I can't come to a decision. My business is mainly RC bodies and motocross helmets, Im getting a cutter for stencils, but i also want to do T shirts for drivers ( Names, sponsor logos etc). These would be small runs, 1 to maybe 4 shirts per customer, and i want to do custom stickers for the cars. So sponsor logos but with custom colors to match schemes. My questions are. 

1. Best process for small order team T shirts (1-4) that would be durable to fuel and dirt and multiple washes.

2. Best process for making stickers for rc cars that can with stand fuel and being outdoors, and not rub off after one crash.

 

Ive been doing as much research as i can and i need some guidance before making this investment. My company is known for quality and customer service so i want the best product i can give them. Thank you in advance for any help.

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You may be better off at first partnering with someone who already has the equipment

and expertise and can supply these items.....leaving you to spend your time doing

what you do best.  This would allow you to determine if this would a be cost

effective addition to your services without putting out money for equipment and

spending time learning the garment imprinting ropes.  If things work out well,

you will know what equipment they use and you can then decide if you want to dive in.

Just my two cents......

Sue2

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Welcome,

I used to do a lot of RC bodies in the past. For the small quantity T shirts, you can use your cutter you already plan to buy, and get a heat press and do Heat Transfer Vinyl. 

For the RC car stuff, I assume you will be using single color vinyl , right?   I HIGHLY recommend a servo cutter and Cast vinyl ( Oracal 751) for the small detail needed for tiny decals.

 

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I was wanting to do heat transfer for the T shirt but I didn't know if doing multiple layers would be better or just print and transfer. Also for the stickers I didn't know how cost efficient and faster it would be just to print them out and laminate them.

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Welcome,  I am further up the EEL River from you.   NE   about 1/2 hour.-40 minutes  :D   This is a great place to learn. Great people,  

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Ok so I can assist with the RC decal questions. You can cut, weed and apply application tape ( least expensive) for vinyl decals. yes they can / will peel off in a crash. 

Edit: you can try printing on your home based printer, (papillo paper)  hand laminating and cutting- but this will not last long in RC and helmet environment. OR

If you want to Print designs- then laminate- then cut them - that would be different equipment. I currently do this for small decals using a thermal printer.

Printed and laminated decals for RC cars are in the same category as MX and football helmet stuff. Materials and machines are the same as sign shops, (print options are eco-solvent, latex or thermal)  with industrial grade vinyl cutters that can cut thick laminates and vinyls together up to 22 MIL. A cold roll laminator would beneeded.

Thermal can print on neon vinyls, print chromes, etc. - which is popular in Motocross.

You would want the appropriate laminate to handle fuel spills (look at Tuff Cover UV 9) for nitro spills and what is called High Bond vinyl.  Plastics are High Energy surfaces, that normal vinyl has a hard time sticking to when flexed.

 

 

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31 minutes ago, MZ SKEETER said:

Welcome,  I am further up the EEL River from you.   NE   about 1/2 hour.-40 minutes  :D   This is a great place to learn. Great people,  

Whaaaaat? Where you at? 

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Also - if you do a lot of painting, then just use the vinyl cutter for paint stencils - you can use Oracal 651 as a stencil material too. 

edit: never mind- you said you are buying the cutter for stencils. 

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Printing of any kind of quality is pretty much an all in deep investment. If your business model will cover that then you are good to go. As mentioned the other option would be to outsource the work at least for now and see of it will make money before you run out and drop 8K-16K on equipment. I have not printer and know that cut vinyl is going to be a pain on small cars and you may run into adhesion issues if you are trying to do certain types of plastics. 

As far as shirts go you will have great success with a heat press to compliment your cutter. Very low starting costs especially if you are already buying a cutter and HTV is a high quality item that will stand up about as good as anything short of embroidery to use and abuse. 

In both regards you have the design element to consider. Not sure what design software you are currently running (if any) but you will have some adjusting to do on that end in order to create or recreate logo's that you can cut.  

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