CherokeeDesign

I'm pretty new to the shirts, I started out with Gildan 50/50's because I read how it's important for the shirts to be pre-shrunk when heat pressing them. I tried some 100% cotton Gildans, it says they're pre-shrunk. I'm doing a 3 color design, I pressed the first color (20 seconds at 360*) and it seems like the design shrunk about 1/8". Is this my imagination, or is there a difference in pressing the two types?

Well see that, we still have CherokeeDesigns with us! and I'm up to 97 posts of awesome *flexes*

That's the wrestling work ethic, if you were a participant in a lesser sport, you could have never managed 10 t-shirts. Hope you feel better, shirts look great.

I think it's very well done. It's a unique font, and the stroke around the letters is the perfect size (not too small to add much, not too large to be distracting). Arrow is good too. Hopefully with it being set between those ribs or whatever, it won't get much wear. You might consider clear coating it to offer a little more protection (although you mentioned he's not real concerned about it). But it's nicely done, very good.

Thanks for all of the input, I appreciate it. It's something I hope to offer in the very near future.

I'm still here for you.

yes

that worked for me on the 50/50's, on the 100%'s the design would pull up with the backing unless I did 10+ seconds.

I worked on some stuff. Thought a lot about the meaning of the holiday. My grandfather was a WWII vet (passed away), I need to go to the cemetary as well. High school classmate was killed in Iraq in '07, I looked up where he's buried (I know it's at Rock Island Arsenal National Cemetery, I'll never find it, graves go back to the Civil War) but I am not able to go. I made it as far as the gate on Tuesday. I hope one day I will. He was a better man than me. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=pittman&GScid=109441&GRid=19941573&

Good cutting, and good placement. When doing full-size truck rear windows like that, I like to come up higher than center also (especially with a toolbox on there). It helps visibility if people are in cars behind, any lower and it can get obscured by the top of the tailgate.

Very good! You'll be hooked now! You know what I think would be neat? If you outline the red letters with the shape of a license plate frame.

That's very good, you're off to a great start!

Thank you, and you're welcome. I'm going to try to offer a download with each "show your work" I post. Maybe it will catch on.

Made this for my trainer at the gym, the regular gym logo is on back, the front is a design he described. He does a lot of training for military and law enforcement. I was very impressed that my cutter (MH871) cut those tiny stars. The flag is about 2.5 x 3", and those are indeed 50 small stars. I was afraid with them being that small, and the ThermoFlex Plus being somewhat rubbery, it wouldn't work. It cut them all perfectly, and while it was painstaking to weed due to their small size, they were all completely cut (requiring no additional knife work). I'm not sure how many he wants, but while I'm happy the stars cut like they did, I'm not looking forward to weeding a quantity of them.

I need real good light, and a high bench. And I absolutely hate Old English font for weeding. It almost seems like certain vinyls weed better than others also. I made a bunch of decals for my friend's tattoo shop (Old English font of course) using identical vinyls but different colors. White was easier than yellow to weed.

SignBlazer "flag" file if anyone wants it, ready to cut. Black in file = what you'll cut from white (for the sake of visibility on monitor). It's a white rectangular background, with red stripes, and blue field punched for star location (white background = white for the stars). May need a slight stretch horizontally, as I sized it to fit with the text. flag.SBD flag.SBD

Had a minor tech issue with my cutter, got a fast reply from Levi in getting it resolved. I dealt with Ken in the past and was very happy with his service. There's been a lot on the forums lately about Ken leaving. Yes, he will be a hard act to follow, but I hope everyone will give other US Cutter staff a fair chance. Levi was prompt in replying, knowledgable about the issue, and professional in getting it resolved.

I just started heat pressing recently, but I'd like to get pricing in order, so the first time I'm asked, I can have an answer. I've calculated that I'll have around $3.83 in materials in a black Gildan shirt, size from S to XL, if I use a single 15" x 12" piece of Thermoflex Plus. I used this just as an estimate, figuring a 12" x 12" for the back and the remainder for a front logo. A 2 color design (2nd piece of ThermoFlex) and I'll have $4.66. Let's say for the sake of conversation, and ease of figuring numbers, that I'll start pricing at $10/shirt for 1 color. I have these questions (probably more as the discussion goes): 1. What quantities do you make your price breaks at? (1-5, or 1-10, etc) 2. Once you establish that, how do you figure your price breaks? Is it a percentage? (example, 1-10 shirts = $10/ea, 11-20 = $9/ea, 21-30 = $8/ea). How do you establish your minimum price per shirt/lowest discount? My friend does screen printing, this is a sample from his pricing: I would like to do something similar, but dedicated to heat transfer. He won't do anything less than quantity of 12, and I'd be willing to do a 1 shirt minimum. On the other hand, I would outsource an order of 1000 to him. What's a realistic quantity that I should keep in mind as a maximum? Sorry for all the questions, but thanks for any help.

Glad the ThermoFlex arrived! First make sure your heat press doesn't measure it's temperature in Celsius...if it does, setting it at 350C would actually be 662F. According to FireMalt's conversion chart in this thread: http://forum.uscutter.com/index.php/topic,11695.0.html, 350F = 177C. I run mine for 20 seconds at about 185C/365F. 177C/350F wasn't hot enough on my particular press (designs wouldn't bond to the fabric). I peel mine hot for the most part, although for small/thin fonts, I let it cool. Sometimes those small fonts pull away if I peel it hot, so I let it cool a bit. I don't have any problems peeling bigger designs when it's hot. I do use a teflon sheet. I've forgotten it a couple times, and whether or not it was luck, I didn't have any problems with the backing in place. If the backing wasn't on, it would probably have been a different story.

For something real simple, like a simple shape or something one dimensional, yes, it's just a matter of clicking "trace bitmap" in Inkscape. It gets more challenging when fonts get involved, or it's a low resolution image. Doing the "trace" doesn't always reproduce the fonts or fine details with 100% accuracy. I have better luck just using a text tool and reproducing text with that rather than vectorizing it.

very good!

For the most part I don't think it's hard, but I've been at it for a while. Something like a photograph of someone's face can be pretty time consuming and more of a challenge. To me, simple bitmaps are pretty easy. I guess it depends on the quality of the image, if there's text, etc, lots of colors.

I think you just sold me one, those were the exact thoughts I had in wanting one.

I do much of the same, with minor twists: 1. I've got a Dickies jacket and some work shirts with my logo on them, that I wear doing jobs (or sometimes out and about). I like the Dickies stuff vs. regular t-shirts, I feel more professional. Deion Sanders said "if you look good, you feel good. If you feel good, you play good. If you play good, you get PAID good". Plus it's free advertising, I also did vinyl on the hood and tailgate of my truck. 2. I never leave without business cards, I keep them in my truck. Last week I also had some flyers printed, 2 per 8.5 x 11 page (also some kept in my truck). Kinkos has $.49 color copies, so I got 50 pages = 100 flyers for ~$25 (could probably be done cheaper if you shop around, it's just an experiment for me). I did a brief summary of my services and had maybe 5 or 6 pics of local projects I've done. My thought was to make it a bridge between my business cards and my website. More info than a business card, less than my website. Not overwhelming with pics or info, just hopefully to catch their attention and make them want to learn more (visit my site or call/email). I'm also going to start mailing them out (compiling my list). 3. People that I know well (not first contacts) I've been doing little free stuff for. My trainer at the gym mentioned maybe wanting shirts, I made him a couple sample shirts and a 2 color gym logo decal about 3" x 10". He liked them and wants to talk about an order next week. He's real busy and travels a lot, so actually being able to have a couple shirts will hopefully keep it on his mind, more than just trying to remember a conversation from last week. I've made the offer to a couple other people I know and we'll see how it turns out. Previously I mostly just did website work, so contacted a couple people I did sites for, "hey, here's new stuff I offer now". People like free stuff, and they like being able to actually hold a finished product with their name on it. A website with examples is good, but you really see the wheels turning in their head with a shirt with *their* name on it, that they can hold or actually wear around. I would say keep that to people you know well, or existing customers. If you get a $200 or so vinyl job, throw in a shirt. If you already have their existing artwork and are set up to heat press, it can be fast and easy.

I've only been at it a few weeks, and use my fingers. I'm thinking about purchasing the T Square It. My friend does regular screen printing, and I've helped him in the past. I've just been doing what he taught me, with a couple modifications specific to heat pressing. I use my fingers to measure down from the collar, and mostly eyeball it. The most I do is sometimes put a mark in the middle of the transfer, and center that to the tag in the shirt (been using only Gildans for t-shirts, and the tags all seem to be well centered). For getting them aligned straight vertically, I measure, and to double check I see how any vertical lines in the design match up to the vertical lines in the weave of the fabric. Again, Gildans seem very straight and consistent between shirts, so it gives me the confidence to do that. I've been happy with my results so far. I did have a few crooked ones starting out, but I'm learning. My goal with the T Square It would be to produce shirts more quickly. I feel like I can get them straight and centered, but the T Square looks like it would be a lot faster. I might have my first customer order next week, and I want them all to be as perfect and consistent as possible, and also be able to produce them quickly.