Good Equipment?

Eric · February 6th, 2009, 12:54 AM

Hi All,

I was hoping to get a little insight into the screen printing world. I am an embroiderer and have been doing embroidery for quite a while. Currently we sub out all of our screen printing, well, despite the economy we had a decent year. So therefore I am looking at buying a screen press & setup myself.

I attended ISS long beach and there were TONS of screen printing equipment people there. Enough to totally make my head spin! I anticipate our volume to be about 500 shirts a week, at least thats about what we have been subbing out on average, however, we don't push screen printing, cause once we sub it we make very little money. Once we get an operation set up we will push the screen printing seriously.

I want to buy a good setup, not something cheap enough to get me started. I was given quotes all over the road from $15k all the way up to $40k. Our shirts seem to be mainly single to 4 color designs, I was thinking a 6 color? We have one customer that does a ton of White ink on Black T. They all kept saying that this required a nicer press that would hold better registration.

I guess I'm asking a general opinion question here. What do I need? I understand exposure and dryers and all that, but what is a good press to buy, that isn't too cheap, and can handle it if we grow. I plan on buying something that might be slightly overkill in the beginning but hopefully we grow into.

Some names I have info from are:
Brown
Workhorse
Atlas
Vastex
M&R
MHM

Any of these stand out above the rest?

SkyLinePrints · February 6th, 2009, 09:14 AM

personally, i'd stay with Vastex, M&R, probably Workhorse. M&R is probably tops in that list. M&R makes great products and you can get the CEO's attention if you have a problem real quick by posting over at forums.screenprinters.net. He is an active member and there is a forum for M&R that he monitors. Kinda like that myself.

Vastex's are great but built like a tank. can get to be a bit heavy if you are swinging that a lot.

Another one to consider is RJennings. From what I understand, this press is impressive.

Overall, service AFTER the sale is the most important. Since you have been doing embroidery for awhile and i know how tempermental those machines are, i'm sure service is at the top of your list. right? :-)
Good luck!

Nick Mattina · February 6th, 2009, 04:08 PM

I would check Anatol. They are built very well, great prices, and a real solid history with building high end sophisticated equipment. The owner is actually an engineer - really nice to know that the person driving the helm is such an expert.

SkyLinePrints · February 6th, 2009, 05:51 PM

Hey Nick! good to see u on these boards. :-)

tshirt outlet · February 6th, 2009, 08:21 PM

antec is a great machine . and workhorse

Eric · February 7th, 2009, 01:21 AM

You just said a mouthful, I own an SWF machine and I would rather have a root canal or an IRS audit than deal with them ... its like pulling teeth to get a return phone call, been waiting 3 weeks for a part I was supposed to have in a few days.

Then on the other hand, I called Tajima christmas eve to leave a message and they answered the phone, I was so caught off guard I didn't know what to do.

Aftersale support is SO important to me!
Thanks for your advice!

Quote:

Originally Posted by SkyLinePrints

Overall, service AFTER the sale is the most important. Since you have been doing embroidery for awhile and i know how tempermental those machines are, i'm sure service is at the top of your list. right? :-)
Good luck!

freshinkmerch · February 17th, 2009, 03:10 AM

M&R hands down. Everything is inter-changable and built in the U.S.A. You will get unsurpassed service from them!

Gustavoh · March 2nd, 2009, 09:23 AM

Hi guys, in my opinion,
M&R is a very famous brand and excellent manufacturer of automatic presses, but their manual press (chameleon) is a Dinosaur, very heavy and your production guy will hate it.
A good manual presses are ANTEC and VASTEX
I specially prefer Antec, the reason:
A light duty machine, only one in the market that can bring all heads down at the same time (this is good only for production speed). Very high micro-registration.
The only thing is that you need a lot of practice to get all the features expertise.
Good luck in your adventure.

lkallus · March 18th, 2009, 10:36 AM

Where do I find info on Antec? Do they have a website? I did a quick searc and didn't find anything.

I am shopping around for a start-up package. Anyone familiar with Rayonet? They seem to have good start up packages but I would like opinions about their product and customer service.

All advice appreciated!
Laura

SkyLinePrints · March 18th, 2009, 11:23 AM

Antec: http://www.antecinc.com/