Good Equipment?

By Eric on Feb. 06, 2009

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's picture
Submitted by SkyLinePrints on Fri, 02/06/2009 - 09:14

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!

Have a great day! :)

Nathan Harrison
Skyline Prints Embroidery and Screen Printing
4982 Bill Gardner Pkwy
Locust Grove, GA 30248
(770) 914-1558
www.SkyLinePrints.com
Follow us on Twitter or FACEBOOK

Design your own shirt on our website.

We Bring Your Ideas To Life!

Submitted by Eric on Sat, 02/07/2009 - 01:21

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!

SkyLinePrints wrote:
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!
Submitted by Nick Mattina on Fri, 02/06/2009 - 16:08

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.

Nick Mattina
prodigiemb.com
nick@prodigiemb.com
636 724 6400

SkyLinePrints's picture
Submitted by SkyLinePrints on Fri, 02/06/2009 - 17:51

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

Have a great day! :)

Nathan Harrison
Skyline Prints Embroidery and Screen Printing
4982 Bill Gardner Pkwy
Locust Grove, GA 30248
(770) 914-1558
www.SkyLinePrints.com
Follow us on Twitter or FACEBOOK

Design your own shirt on our website.

We Bring Your Ideas To Life!

Submitted by freshinkmerch on Tue, 02/17/2009 - 03:10

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

Submitted by Gustavoh on Mon, 03/02/2009 - 09:23

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.

Submitted by lkallus on Wed, 03/18/2009 - 10:36

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

Ghostwork Ink's picture
Submitted by Ghostwork Ink on Wed, 03/18/2009 - 17:11

M&R, Vastex.
take it from me, you dont want a press thats not steel.

@Justin_PalmTees

Submitted by kindness on Thu, 03/26/2009 - 14:35

Eric wrote:
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?

Eric,

We have been building screen printing machines for the past 31 years. Our top line Legend printer is the one chosen by the majors such as Russell Athletic, Nike, Fruit Of The Loom, Gemline etc. Russell Athletic just ordered their 48th unit from us. Research well to avoid the all-too-often pitfalls associated with a new start up. Call me if you wish to know more about our unique technology.

Regards,

Dave Peterson
Antec, Inc.
800-552-6832

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