Adding screen printing services

February 14th, 2006, 02:41 AM

Hello. Most of my work consists of custom embroidery services for small businesses with the remaining work consisting of personalized gifts and misc. stuff. Every now and then I get requests for screen printing as well. I usually just turn down those requests but lately screen printing requests has become more frequent than the usual.

Also, I'm thinking maybe I'm losing my current 'embroidery only' customers that needs shirts screen printed on occasion to other embroidery shops who also does screen printing. So my customers end up staying with the embroidery and screen printing shops because it's more convenient for them because both services are under one roof. Does that make sense?

Anyways, I'm thinking of offering screen printing services as well. I'd be grateful if anybody knowledgeable in screen printing can shed some light on starting or anything at all about the screen printing industry. I've already spoken with printing sales people, they were nice people, but I can't trust all they're saying

Any tip is greatly appreciated!

Samantha

February 14th, 2006, 12:57 PM

Hi Samantha. I also offer custom embroidery and thought about adding screen printing awhile back. Too messy for me. I didn't like it one bit!

Marc · February 21st, 2006, 07:12 PM

On another thread you mentioned you have a single-head embroidery machine so I'm assuming you do pretty much everything in your business. If you do everything yourself, one thing you have to be careful about is spreading yourself too thin. Screen printing is no walk in the park and you might find that you've bitten off more than you could chew. Not only do you have to invest in new equipment, supplies, software, etc., but you have to invest a lot of time to master a new craft. And yes, Candygirl is right about screen printing being messy, but that's not really a problem--well for me anyways. I don't know what your working environment set-up is like, but proper ventilation is required with printing as you will be dealing with chemicals.

One solution would be to just outsource all your printing needs locally. You would not make as much as you would if you did the job yourself, but you'd still make money nonetheless.

Marc · February 24th, 2006, 12:10 PM

Just to add: Outsourcing for a period of time will provide you enough data to see if it makes sense to bring printing in-house or continue contracting it out.

VKTApp · January 2nd, 2007, 10:13 AM

I have screen printing as part of my business and am getting out of it. Keeping with my embroidery. I don't want to deal with the mess anymore myself. I have done a lot with Heat Transfers. It yields the same result, with no mess and supply upkeep. So if interested, I have a complete shop ready to sel.

JuBilee · February 5th, 2007, 05:27 PM

I have a screen rint shop and added embroidery 2 years ago. As Marc said, screenprinting is no walk in the park. There is a lot of work in putting designs on t-shirts. If you are busy with your one-head, I'll tell you now, you don't have enough time to do both without help.

To help with your question, I have M & R equipment in my shop, dryers and presses. The Chameleon is an amazing press. The only problem with M & R is that thier service is terrible at best. The one time my dryer broke in 16 years it took me forever and a day with way too many phone calls to fix it. The other side of that is, it's broken once in 16 years.

I recommend side clamps and micro-adjustments reguardless of manufacturer. These 2 features make it easier to register your logos.

Hope some of this helps.

Mudge · February 11th, 2007, 06:41 PM

... The only problem with M & R is that their service is terrible at best. The one time my dryer broke in 16 years it took me forever and a day with way too many phone calls to fix it. The other side of that is, it's broken once in 16 years...

Heheh

The last shop I managed had a Guantlet 2 which rocked, however the M&R guy who set it up didn't know how to run it (neither did we at the time) and had us crank our flood bars down so far they were rubbing on the pallets- needless to say the stencils on our first run didn't last very long-

The best part is that several years later, when I was doing maintainence on it, I found an allen wrench that he had left indside the machine! That's like a surgeon leaving clamps in a patient!

A word on messyness... a good shop should be set up (an maintained) like a lab- it's only as dirty a job as you let it be. Hey! I just found some plastisol on my ear- where did that come from?

Nate

johnshamblin · February 15th, 2007, 09:00 PM

Hi Samantha,

I sorta did it the other way. I started with screen printing and added embroidery. Listen to what these others are saying because there's only so much one person can do. Screen printing is messy, labor intensive and produces fumes that are dangerous to your health (after 15 years, my sinuses can attest to that). Not to mention the cut-throat competition of big shops that have equipment and employees that they have to keep working.

If you are a good graphic designer and know how to prepare graphics for color separation, do the design and contract out the work. If you don't know how to do color separations, that's a whole 'nother learning curve. If you're not a good graphic designer, there's tons of us out here too.

Shambles
www.shamblin.net

February 17th, 2007, 02:02 PM

Thank you all!

I really appreciate all the info and great advice.

rerockvisual · June 27th, 2009, 06:17 PM

can you email me a embroidery price list at [email address]