screen printing > General Screen Printing
DTF and the future of screen printing
Homer:
--- Quote from: CBCB on February 17, 2024, 08:22:54 AM ---Doing a lot of it here.
Had some trouble getting a heat press with certain members here repainting them and trying to block people from buying directly.
Had some trouble finding a reliable supplier, ended up going overseas for it all. Way better than any domestic shop I tried.
Now that’s it’s running it’s great. My market doesn’t have 30k piece jobs but when someone wants a multi-colour print front and back on 50 pieces we’re making money with no headaches.
Just pressed 200 on Friday. Not me though. Someone who was trained on it in like 15min. That’s another factor. It’s very simple to operate.
--- End quote ---
see, that's what I mean. 15 minutes, a new hire off the street and banging out multi color jobs. Employees or lack of- might be one of the major driving factors into which direction a shop should go, I would think? I'm sure high volume shops would still need a fleet of autos to hit production numbers but most mom and pop shops, 2-3k piece orders at very most, how can you not look at dtf?! Speeds will only increase with printers, I see 600 sq/ft hour as one of the faster units but give it a few years, we'll see a huge increase. In the sign industry, we see printers that can print 18" in one single pass, that's amazing..... A few inline heat presses and you're off. No need for the auto shop - for us little guys anyway. As far as "brands", the owner of the "brand" may care how it's produced, but do you think the end user cares? I wonder if they do...I'm keeping the staff I have now but we're getting older, finding a replacement press op is next to impossible so I need to do something for quality of life for us... I don't know, talking to a few people in this industry about the the future really has me shook for some reason. This isn't the same as DTG, this seems to have potential to produce high volume at decent speeds... Just imagine not making a screen again and all that goes into it, and still producing the same quality of a product with ease....
whitewater:
Ive been looking seriously into DTF, for the reasons that Homer pointed outFor me personally, it is partly due to staffing. We are always struggling to find press ops, constantly. I prob pay the most of any company in the area. I have tried every single way to keep them. We have hired experienced, we have trained young ins...In 2023, I hired 5 ppl for the press ops, not one of them showed up on first day.
My future business plan is not going to work without having stable staff in place. We are to busy and large enough that I can not be the one that goes back there to print, and or train someone to print.
I fee like our business model, or the customers we have will be fine with DTF. I think it can def be different for other shops depending on their clientele. Our clientele is basic. I feel like over the years it turned into that, which is fine. We are really busy and we burn and turn. We have a 6/8 diamondback, so our max is 5 print colors. So we are not doing really high end printing.
We have some orders now in house that we are doing def on. I have samples up in the shop, to show people ( at the moment) ahead of time. And so far no one has issues.
Since the auto and everything is already paid for, I will be keeping it for a bit. We may get 4 large runs per year, if need be just on those runs Ill jump back there for a few hours and pump them out. I don't mind that, but it can not happen day to day.
We are getting a TMEZ new 6 head, (because we have 3 older tajimas ), and looking hard at DTF printer.
Removing 2 employees off my payroll, I would have more than enough to make our monthly payment on both machines, with out the struggle.
blue moon:
--- Quote from: Homer on February 16, 2024, 06:07:36 PM ---If I was a new guy looking to get into the industry, there's zero chance I'd buy screen printing equipment. Talking to my CCI rep today, it seems many shops are down sizing their fleets of automatics and adding in DTF set ups. Honestly, as technology and print speeds advance, I will be looking to make the switch too, sooner rather than later. Imagine zero screens to make, coat, clean, seps, expensive inks, large expensive presses, 6 employees to operate it all. I remember the DTG movement back at the screenprinters.net days, saying DTG will over rule but I really see this DTF stuff actually taking hold. I understand the look and feel can be rather comparable to a SP as well.....On one hand it's amazing we won't need any of that equipment anymore, but on the other, all those years of knowledge will be almost useless..give it a few years and I think we'll see a giant shift, but that's just me - Thoughts?
--- End quote ---
How do you het DTF to feel like SP?
On a side note, our DTG is actually doing ok. The feel and quality are indistinguishable from SP. the only downfall is poly content.
pj
Ron Pierson:
Are we talking DTF (direct to film) or DTG (direct to garment)...??
blue moon:
--- Quote from: Ron Pierson on February 17, 2024, 04:20:11 PM ---Are we talking DTF (direct to film) or DTG (direct to garment)...??
--- End quote ---
DTF, We can make it not so shiny, but no matter what it always feels like a sticker.
pj
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version