| Starting Your
heat transfer garment decorating business you probably
did a lot of reading about equipment and supplies that
are used in this industry. If you did not then you
should have. But if you did then you decided in order
to be successful you needed to buy all equipment you
found. And
that is good. But to a degree. You can go both ways with
this. You may have the funds to start out with the all
best equipment and get the things that you found and that list could be extensive. That could set
you back financially quite a lot. If you can start there then fine
but I know in talking to a lot of the people that have
gone into the business they bought things they did not
need and went overboard in spending. Funds spent could have been used in
other areas to develop your business.
Spending money on
unnecessary items when you start a new business is the
road to why a lot of businesses run out of money. You
should do your home work and don't be impulsive. "Gee I
think I need that," is not the way to go.
Now you could go the other
way. Buying equipment at a price that is so low that you
could not possible do without it. But you find out
later that you can. There for an example are heat
presses sold on auction sites that are made of wood and
sell for less then 200 dollars. . Wow, I bought my press
for less then $150. That is $150 dollars
misspent. Or this "I know I am only going to do
children's clothes so I will get the small press." Then
someone calls and wants a hundred shirts and they are
mostly extra large and then you have to turn it down
because your press is just too small.. If
you are just doing this as a hobby maybe you can set
that limit. But if want to extend your service then you
need to rethink your list. Now why do I know this.. OK..
I bought the small press.. Oh I was only going to do
tote bags and sell then on eBay.. And I did. Then
someone asked me to do 100 tee shirts.. That was several
years ago. Remember this web site is being done because
I made mistakes and I have friends who made mistakes and
we are trying to stop you from making those same
mistakes.
Lets look at what your needs
really are. Remember we are not going to be doing
screen printing. That subject can be found on other web
sites and you can also find a lot of info
At
www.appareldecoratorsforum.com
Lets start from the
beginning. You need a computer. This day and age most
people have a computer so that should not be an issue.
But on that note if you are starting a business you want
to mark the date you placed that computer into service
under your business for tax reasons.
With your computer you
should have a design program or a graphics program. This
is where it may get expensive. My recommendations are..
CorelDraw x3 $399.00
or.
Adobe Illustrator or CS3 $599.00. You may want a great
photo graphics program and I recommend
Adobe Photoshop CS3 (newest version)$649.00. These
are all full sale price and you may find these programs offered for less at some of
your larger computer stores or student version. Most you
can even get trial version to use for 15 days. Then you
can learn a little how they work before making the final
decision.
Remember these are part of your business and are tax
deductible. There are many other photo programs to
replace Photoshop and cheaper. If you are doing just Ink
jet transfers then these will work. if you step up and
are planning to be more creative and do designs
then you really should go with either Corel Draw or
illustrator. There are design programs and add-on's
available. But more about those later.
Now
lets look at the printer. I have a section here on
printers and I recommend all of the ones shown.
These use pigment inks (See ink test in Ink
section) and that is the industry standard
for inks with printed (Ink Jet ) transfers.
Your cost here can range from $70 to $800. What you buy
is whistles and bells and or larger format printing at
the higher end. Some of the higher end also use
more inks. I just want to emphasize that you should use
a pigment ink printer. If you are going to do
sublimation printing then that will be covered in an
another area.
So far we have computer, software, printer. Now we need
a press. Earlier I made some statements about presses. I
will make a strong recommendation on the size but not
the type other then saying get a brand name. Make sure
you are backed up by the company and you have a great
warrantee.
The smallest press I would buy would be a 15 x 15. if
you can put it in your budget to get a 16 x 20 then that
would be my next recommendation. Your range is somewhere
between $600 and $3,000. I know, big range. But that is
what's available and what you are getting are the
extras that come with it. I have had my Mighty Press 15
x 15 for the last 2 years and it has served me well.
Again it is about your budget. You may also consider
swing-away
 or
clamshell. If space is not available I would look at the
clamshell .
So not counting the apparel and the transfer paper we
pretty much can start our business. I hoped you
also read the section about the legal stuff because that
is where your journey truly begins.
What I would
do now is get some test shirts and transfer paper and
practice, practice, practice. We will be covering
transfer paper in another section. There are many types
to choose from. I have my own recommendations but I will
list other type and let you decide which you like the
best.
We will also be covering the other types of heat applied
graphics
such as Plastisol and heat applied vinyl. Those subjects
will be found in their own section. And of course you
want to add an alignment tool and the TEE SQUARE IT is a
tool I designed to assist you in making sure your
transfer are properly centered on your garment.
www.heatpressessentials.com.
Any question?
Can I answer any questions?
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