Time estimation manually printing on a bunch of white tees

[mimosatexas]

I'll second the guys echoing that this likely won't give you a return on investment.  We offered maybe 5 or 7 jobs with some form of discount for advertising and have never gotten a single job from one.  This was quite a variety of advertizing media as well, not all radio or print etc.  We no longer offer trade like this.  Services or goods we trade for all the time if we need them, advertizing just sucks away cash.

[GraphicDisorder]

Back in our manual days we did 1500 1 color fronts in just over a day.  Probably 10hrs.  Navy ink on sport grey.  I think 2 long days for a job like that assuming both sides.  We also did this in our basement which had no room for boxes so we could only bring maybe 4-6 boxes in at a time so that took extra time.  We did it with just me and Shelly.  She loaded and I printed and unloaded. 

[mk162]

It's doable, but by the time you bring on extra folks, run the dryer for that long, it might be cheaper to send them out.  I get ads all the time for printed shirts for close to what I buy them for blank...just sayin'

[alan802]

I think doing 1 shirt every 25 seconds is very doable with one guy on the press and one catching.  150 shirts/hr without rushing.  I've done a small left chest, navy ink on ash gray, and I was at 250/hr on a chameleon.  I'd stage the job in sections and just stay one step ahead of your printer and lay out a few hundred shirts at a time.  If you want to break up the boring task of printing you can let your guy take a break from printing and lay shirts out while you or someone else jumps on the manual for 30 minutes or so.  You can get off your butt and lay the shirts out and help with staging them and you'll still have plenty of time to clean your guns and play on the interwebz

[Gilligan]

Got enough ink?

Good point, need to get that once art is finalized... Another variable we don't have dialed in here.

Hiring extra will cost you, so if you want to save some coin, you will have to get YOUR a$$ in gear also! Seriously running a manual with even 2 people speeds it up quite a bit! Plus your printer won't want to kill you at the end of the week. He seems like a nice guy, mr. you are never there when people call:P Can your dryer handle extra qty. per hr?

Reminds me of how they print in some factories in China- 24 color, 24 station semi-auto with like 10 guys printing on it!

Lol, hvac issues at wife's business has had me out of pocket last couple days.

Boy if you can do a push stroke it will help too.
Used to also grab squeegee on sides with thumbs above blade with a push too.
Actually taped t-shirt material on sides of squeegee to help soften wood edges
on this "side grab/thumb push" with very long runs. Lots of pulling then lots of pushing.

Radio stations are a good way to barter, but I don't think any one of them in the history
of radio waves has actually paid normal price for apparel. I cut those conversations short.

Make sure you have your logo on them!!!!

Pushing here.  Yeah, we might not see much, if any return, but it will be good for branding hopefully.  My wife has been working with this girl (this is how we got the gig) and she has been happy with the results and I know ppl hear her ads.  I was doing some covert recon on her competition with the sewing supply shop that is next door to them and she said "it's ok, but they don't do any advertising like Play and Learn (our business).  I hear them doing stuff on the radio and such." So that wasn't even anyone who's ears perked up because they already knew us.  But it's a totally different business as well.

Logo is going on the back with only one other sponsor.

I think doing 1 shirt every 25 seconds is very doable with one guy on the press and one catching.  150 shirts/hr without rushing.  I've done a small left chest, navy ink on ash gray, and I was at 250/hr on a chameleon.  I'd stage the job in sections and just stay one step ahead of your printer and lay out a few hundred shirts at a time.  If you want to break up the boring task of printing you can let your guy take a break from printing and lay shirts out while you or someone else jumps on the manual for 30 minutes or so.  You can get off your butt and lay the shirts out and help with staging them and you'll still have plenty of time to clean your guns and play on the interwebz

Alright alright... You guys know me too well, did someone leak my security cam log in info here?

Isn't the point of a "mastermind" to be masterminding?  I like to think I'm preparing them to be able to run everything without me there..l so I act like I'm barely there to start with.

[Sbrem]

If you have the staff available you could have someone load, someone print  and another catch. You could easily run that in two days without pushing too hard.

Yup.  A manual press with 3 operators can run over 350 pcs/hr, depending on ink and image size, with surprising consistency if you have a decent printer.  Have your printer hire a couple buddies (well three, you'll need someone at back of the dryer) for a day and knock it out. Or just let your staff get some hours and do it over a few days.  4 days for a solo press op is very realistic, you'll probably get it done a little quicker.

Do this however:  round your squeegee edges and, presuming plastisol, tape the bottom of the screen at the blade edges, the screen will want to break down there.  Got enough ink?

Like Zoo, 3 operators can go pretty fast on a manual. The 350 per hour is pretty much what we would expect here too. My best printer does 200 an hour in her sleep, alone on press, with a catcher. On our auto, 400 per hour for a conservative estimate, capable of much more, less than 1 day here; better yet in ideal conditions, off one auto, and onto the next for the other side. But I digress... the question was about manual. I personally touch a squeegee a few times a year anymore, and I can do a gross per hour in one color. Get crackin'

Steve

one weekend about 20 years ago, we did 9000 2c full fronts on 2 manual presses starting on Friday afternoon, and finishing on Sunday around 5:00. 2 catchers

[Inkworks]

One loading and swinging platens, the other printing and unloading. It's more than twice as fast as one person doing it all. Both take a break every 20 minutes or so to empty the box at the end of the oven and stack shirts.

Crank the tunes and have at 'er!

[GraphicDisorder]

One loading and swinging platens, the other printing and unloading. It's more than twice as fast as one person doing it all. Both take a break every 20 minutes or so to empty the box at the end of the oven and stack shirts.

Crank the tunes and have at 'er!

That's how we did it!

[TCT]

Alright alright... You guys know me too well, did someone leak my security cam log in info here?

Well you didn't exactly make it complicated for us, what was the login info again? Oh YA!-

Username: Oprah
Password: Britney Spears

 

[Inkworks]

Britney was so last year, he changed it to : "Miley"

[Gilligan]

Well... of course nothing goes smoothly as a 1:1 white shirt right?

Now it just changed to 4 color process on the back.  I hope I didn't screw myself by sticking with my 4 color price.  BTW, I'm at 4.90 each for this.  1 color front (text) 4 color process 3 logos (one of which is mine) on the back.

I'm thinking at this point this job is out of my league to do in house.  We've never done 4CP only 4 color Semi and only one of those.

Guess I'll be looking to contract this out.

[Gilligan]

Actually that was a misquote... but I am going to play dumb.  It should have been $4.60 (30 cents per additional color on the back... she did the math as 4 colors = 1.20 + the original price of the 1:1 not taking away the original color. )

[Inkworks]

We always do 1 color for the sponsors on the back. I'd jack the 4cp price high enough to make them choose 1col. instead of 4cp. You can always do grey scale or trace the crappy logo's you'll invariably get.

btw, a little trick for you when putting you logo on the back of an event shirt with a bunch of others, tell them that you'll put it at the very bottom and fairly small, then put it there all alone, that stands out much better than in with all the other logos even if it was bigger, and sponsors that pay more generally want their logo at the top and bigger.

[Gilligan]

It's only 3 sponsors, the radio station, local coke bottling company and us.

I said we would do our smaller at the bottom.

I think the problem is the bottling company is wanting the colors.  Might be mandated.

Great tip though!

[Frog]

It's only 3 sponsors, the radio station, local coke bottling company and us.

I said we would do our smaller at the bottom.

I think the problem is the bottling company is wanting the colors.  Might be mandated.

Great tip though!

Better also find out how close to "corporate Coke red" and other colors they expect.