hey friends, Dave here with transfer express, and i think we can all agree that heat printing
with screen printed transfers is perfect for those low or mid quantity t-shirt orders
and that inexpensive on-demand printing... but, they are also a great way to make some big
money on those larger quantities so maybe your business is growing or maybe you just want a bid
on a huge order of custom apparel or maybe your Tik Tok post and channel went viral and you've got
200 orders to fulfill by the end of the week! well regardless we've all found ourselves in a position
where we've got to knock out a ton of shirts quick now granted based on your setup there may be a
tipping point where we may consider outsourcing the job to a contract screen printer but with
some tips we're going to show you today you could be confident in taking on those humongous projects
and putting all that profit right back into your pocket are you ready? let's do it!
now if you're new to the channel transferxpress as the world's leading supplier of custom screen
printed and digital heat transfers for the apparel decorating industry with two facilities in ohio
and arizona we're able to meet the demand of our customers nationwide now we are dedicated
to quality and customer service and helping grow your t-shirt business is our number one priority
everything we do is focused on making sure we send high quality fashionable custom transfers
on time and on a budget now before we talk about optimizing your setup for super efficient printing
let's touch on a few of the benefits of using screen printed transfers for large t-shirt orders
so number one no weeding now if you're using vinyl this could be tedious and time consuming
especially on multi-color artwork that you're going to have to line up and those detailed
graphics with fine text usually take a ton of time to weed number two the screen printed quality and
durability without the setup or mess no burning screens or worrying about washing out ink
and these transfers are wash tested to over 50 wash dry cycles and it ensures you a long lasting
durable print number three is quick printing we're gonna use goof proof today which is a four to six
second press so that's four seconds pressed per shirt per location and a hot peel that's going
to maximize your shirt per hour count depending on the fabric that you're printing on of course
and the number of colors in your design number four is maximum profitability labor is only the
fixed cost that doesn't scale with quantity both print cost and your garment costs lower when you
buy more now we're going to talk about the tips for maximum efficiency you're going to see a lot
of these boil down to proper planning and prep and that's going to make a huge difference when
you actually get printing and be able to print super fast so first thing we're going to do
is cut all of our gang sheets down so you could have them in pre-sorted stacks depending on the
print location or the artwork that you're doing so we're going to take our gang sheet here since
our case we're just going to be doing the fronts we'll take our gank sheet and just cut out only
this front graphic so there's nothing else laying around in our workstation just what we're printing
once we're all set we'll go ahead and put them right next to the heat press so they're ready to
go and we'll move on to our next step so the next thing we're going to talk about is using a quality
heat press now we're saying that because we want to maintain and stabilize the temperature of the
upper platen now this could also reduce wait times because some of those lower quality presses could
lose the temperature and then you have to wait 5-10 minutes for the temperature to come back up
if you're worried about that for any reason you could always bump the temperature by 10 degrees
to make sure it stays in that perfect zone for the transfer that you're pressing so for our use here
the hotronix auto clamp has a patented elongated e shape design for the heating coil in the
upper platen that keeps the temperature super consistent regardless of what presses you throw
at the next tip to maximum efficiency is going to be threadability now this is mega important
if you're printing both the fronts and backs of your t-shirts on this run even if you're not it
makes printing just the fronts super easy now not only can you just spin the garment on the platen
if you're printing both sides but it makes the loading unloading and aligning of your prints an
absolute breeze now not to mention the time spent getting the shirts to lay flat or aligned properly
if you're used to just laying the shirt over the platen so we are using a quick slip pad protector
mounted onto our hotronix 16x20 auto clamp which makes threading the garment very quick and easy
now the hotronix auto clamp is not threadable by itself so you are going to have to couple
it with something like this caddy stand or the counter caddy stand that is available
from transferexpress.com now not only does it save space with its compact design but it also adjusts
the height of your press to be the best ergonomic fit for you and that is absolutely crucial for
the days when you are going to be spending hours at your heat press now along with our setup here
with the caddy stand we have it coupled with the caddy shelves they're super easy to install and
available from transferexpress.com but it brings us to our next point of keeping your supplies
close by sure you could have your t-shirt six feet away from you and it only takes four seconds to go
get that shirt but four seconds over the course of a couple hours printing could really take 10
to 20 minutes of printing time away from you so you want everything super close by here we have
our transfers on one of the shelves here and over on this side we have our t-shirts now it is an
awesome tip to set everything up so that you have to do the least amount of motion to get everything
where it needs to go let me explain so instead of having them folded up between every single shirt
that we have to unfold it and get it aligned we'll just go ahead and turn it right around so when we
are printing and we're really jamming all you have to do is grab a shirt and in one motion thread it
right onto your heat press just like that now that we've got everything all set up let's talk about
the right platen so if you're printing on hoodies with the pocket seams that get in the way or polos
where you have to build up the print area with mouse pads maybe you're printing a lot of sleeves
and sliding the print perfect pad into the sleeves just takes too much time investing in a specialty
platen can pay itself off in just the time saved printing one of these large runs it makes it super
easy to avoid printing near seams or collars and it's much faster than elevating certain areas with
a mouse pad we could totally use this 16 by 20 platen that's on the hotronix auto clam right now
but to make things a little bit easier and quicker and more efficient on us i want to show you one of
our brand new platens now if you haven't seen this one it is the tag along hp platen and this works
great if you want to print the tags at the same time as your front artwork but in our case here
for today it's going to help us just make sure our regular t-shirts are aligned properly on the press
with this shoulder and neck shape in the platen if you're printing hoodies it's absolutely clutch
because it gives you a good printing area that keeps that lower pocket seam
and hood from the hoodie off the press so you don't have to raise any print areas and it prints
super quick so let's get this installed on the press right here all you have to do is lift this
lever pull the platen right on out we'll set this one right here and grab your new platen
and line it up drop it in and lock it back down that's how easy it is to switch over the platen
there's only one step left and that's to keep it clean so we are going to keep a
recycling bin or garbage can very close by so we don't start covering the floor
or table with release papers now these could cause a hazard or a mess to clean up later
so you're really just making more work for yourself if you haven't already secured a place
for you to throw your release sheets when they're all done now that we've got everything set up and
we're ready to roll let's start pressing we'll go ahead and grab our shirt align it right here
onto the heat press all nice and straight makes it super easy we'll pre-press this one for
three to five seconds we've got both of our dual timers set up on the press so we're ready to roll
and we'll go ahead and take our artwork and set it down right here on the shirt now once
you get into a rhythm all of this alignment and placement is just going to become second nature
go ahead and press it three to five seconds with our goof proof makes it super easy
throw it right down there and we'll come right on off
now i do have just a couple additional tips real quick before we wrap everything up number one you
should absolutely try to minimize all distractions and interruptions while you're printing if you're
printing at home try to keep the family or kids in another room and some people like to watch tv
while you're doing it but we've seen productivity go down whenever you start getting distracted and
looking up away from the printing area music let's jam out get in the rhythm and get everything done
number two you saw us using our goof proof screen printed transfers
our groove proof transfers are awesome for large runs because they're not only a hot peel
you can peel immediately there's no waiting for the transfer to cool it is just ready to
go it also applies in as low as four seconds so it makes the presses super super quick
and you're not wasting any time just waiting for the shirt to apply so here at transfer
express we are always dedicated to helping you and your teacher business with tips tricks
education and inspiration just like this video here if you have any questions comments or topics
that you would like to see us cover in an upcoming video just let us know in the comments section
down below as always make sure you're subscribed to stay up to date with all of our weekly content
we're dropping videos just like this one all the time but until next time i'm dave happy pressing
the upper platen temperature when the thunder hits we're easy on any of
the hot tronics presses i caught it