Advice - New Equipment

[Get Shirts]

We have outsourced our embroidery for years now and have decided to bring it in house.  I am hoping that the good people of the board could weigh in with their experiences and suggestions.  As of now, these are the facts:

-  We're going to buy new
-  6 Heads
-  Baruden or Tajima

Brandt has been nice enough to share his knowledge with me and has suggested Baruden.  The cost is pretty much the same but Tajima seems to offer more support in the same way that M&R supports their equipment.

I would love to hear from folks who have this equipment currently in production as to pros & cons of each brand.  What sets one apart from the other.  What features are important that I am completely unaware of given that I have no physical experience with embroidery (loading thread, user interface, changing frames, etc...)

Tajima claims to have a higher resale value after 5 years, and that's a point they made a few times.  Are you guys upgrading your equipment consistently after 5 years?

I really appreciate the help, and hopefully this thread can help others in the future.

Greg

[mk162]

6 heads is a lot to start with...personally I would go 2/4 rather than a 6 head...but that is just me.

I find we do a ton of 3 pc fill-in or names or whatever and a straight 6 would be wasted on us.

[GraphicDisorder]

We have outsourced our embroidery for years now and have decided to bring it in house.  I am hoping that the good people of the board could weigh in with their experiences and suggestions.  As of now, these are the facts:

-  We're going to buy new
-  6 Heads
-  Baruden or Tajima

Brandt has been nice enough to share his knowledge with me and has suggested Baruden.  The cost is pretty much the same but Tajima seems to offer more support in the same way that M&R supports their equipment.

I would love to hear from folks who have this equipment currently in production as to pros & cons of each brand.  What sets one apart from the other.  What features are important that I am completely unaware of given that I have no physical experience with embroidery (loading thread, user interface, changing frames, etc...)

Tajima claims to have a higher resale value after 5 years, and that's a point they made a few times.  Are you guys upgrading your equipment consistently after 5 years?

I really appreciate the help, and hopefully this thread can help others in the future.

Greg

I don't think you can go wrong with either machine.  Both are great machines and you will not be worried a bout resale unless you decide to get outta the embroidery game but both machines will hold those values just fine. 

[GraphicDisorder]

6 heads is a lot to start with...personally I would go 2/4 rather than a 6 head...but that is just me.

I find we do a ton of 3 pc fill-in or names or whatever and a straight 6 would be wasted on us.

6 Heads is a lot, but when hes doing 200pc hat runs or some;ting hes going to blow through them so that's a big bonus and honestly the cost from 4 to 6 heads isn't a massive jump, so id recommend it value wise.

[TCT]

We don't have embroidery equipment anymore, but when we did we had 2 Baruden and 1 Tajima. The Barudens are workhorses and if I were going to do it again and had my pick I would go with the Baruden. There was nothing really wrong with the Tajima either though.... The Baruden just had a better "feel" about it(can you tell I never ran them ).

With all the experience we have had with some of our contract customers we have had heard first hand about pretty much every other brand out there, Barudens and Tajima's seem to be top dogs. But it looks like you already know that ! 

[TCT]

6 heads is a lot to start with...personally I would go 2/4 rather than a 6 head...but that is just me.

I find we do a ton of 3 pc fill-in or names or whatever and a straight 6 would be wasted on us.

6 Heads is a lot, but when hes doing 200pc hat runs or some;ting hes going to blow through them so that's a big bonus and honestly the cost from 4 to 6 heads isn't a massive jump, so id recommend it value wise.

I'd agree here, if you have the space and coin go for the 6 head. If you find you are doing a bunch of small orders(cough cough, Christmas stockings) after bringing it in house single head units seem to come up used here and there.

One of our Baurdens was probably 15 years old or more and still ran like a tank. Didn't do hats, and the computer was the size of a hoodie case, but it didn't miss a stitch!

[Get Shirts]

We already outsource jobs on a regular basis that would benefit from 6 heads.  If we were just starting out and beginning to offer embroidery I would consider a 2 head, but i would rather have some capacity right out of the gate.

That's my thought on the resale too, Brandt.  I'm considering the Baruden bc that's what you use.  Would you expect similar quality & speed out of both machines?

[Get Shirts]

The difference between a 4 and 6 head is about 5k.

[GraphicDisorder]

We already outsource jobs on a regular basis that would benefit from 6 heads.  If we were just starting out and beginning to offer embroidery I would consider a 2 head, but i would rather have some capacity right out of the gate.

That's my thought on the resale too, Brandt.  I'm considering the Baruden bc that's what you use.  Would you expect similar quality & speed out of both machines?

I would but everyone I talk to suggest the Baurdan sews smaller text better.  I don't do a BUNCH of that so not a deal breaker either way.  But I wouldn't by from Hircsh if it was the last people standing.

[GraphicDisorder]

The difference between a 4 and 6 head is about 5k.

I would not buy a 4 Head over a 6 unless it was a space issue over just 5k difference. 

For me in my space right now we are outta room in our embroidery area so I can't by anything until we reconfigure our situation but we love our 6 heads, man you can just chuck work out on them.  Just took a 1,000pc order 2 locations on embroidery.  Every head we got extra will matter on that deal.

[BorisB]

I would go for 6 heads, really. This depends on type of work you do, but in my shop on person can "feed" 8 head machine.

Both brands would work great. Get one where support is closer, better, easier to reach...


boris

[shirtz]

My embroidery tech mentioned that if you do a lot of hats the Baurden sews hats a lot nicer than Tajima.
We have two Tajimas a 2000 four head and a 2007 six head we bought new. The 6 head has had alot of issues. I'm not real happy with it at all.

[Get Shirts]

Based on support Tajima will win out. 

What kinds of issues do you have with your 6 head and how easy has that been to resolve?

[JJPrint]

Greg,

We have had Barudan 8 & 15 head machines for almost 9 years and they still run like they were new.  During this time we have had good service.  If you are going with Barudan they did change the machine in 2004, I wouldn't buy older than that.  I would recommend the larger machine. 

[GraphicDisorder]

We had some issues on our first 6 head.  They changed trimmers, and id be honest and say it took 2 visits but they took care of it no cost to us and they were quick about it.  It's not M&R level of service but it wasn't bad. 

IMO if it was me I would always buy the largest machine my budget and space could fit.  We have a 2 head that is the last machine we use.  Before that our single head was a table basically.