"He who marches out of step hears another drum." ~ Ken Kesey
Do yourself a favor and skip the single head, you cant make any real money with a single head. You can use it sure as a way to learn, but if you want any real money, you will need more heads. SWF is what we use, I would for sure say they are not the best, they are however not the worst either. I would say they are probably 3rd behind Tajima and Barudan. You pay for both of those machines. SWF comes in a good bit cheaper. I would get a 15 color machine, no reason for smaller. Really isn't. Re-threading doesn't take long no, but if you have say a 30 hat run, and each are different colors, that would really slow you down.My BEST advice is also this, the single heads (most of them) are smaller sewing fields. You wont be happy with that in the long run.
Quote from: GraphicDisorder on February 21, 2012, 02:43:18 PMDo yourself a favor and skip the single head, you cant make any real money with a single head. You can use it sure as a way to learn, but if you want any real money, you will need more heads. SWF is what we use, I would for sure say they are not the best, they are however not the worst either. I would say they are probably 3rd behind Tajima and Barudan. You pay for both of those machines. SWF comes in a good bit cheaper. I would get a 15 color machine, no reason for smaller. Really isn't. Re-threading doesn't take long no, but if you have say a 30 hat run, and each are different colors, that would really slow you down.My BEST advice is also this, the single heads (most of them) are smaller sewing fields. You wont be happy with that in the long run.I have to say every time you guys post some of your work it makes me want it that much more.
Like everyone has said, Tajima, Barudan, or SWF in that order. We have a Tajima TFMX 1504 and have had zero complaints or problems. Don't cheap out and get some cut rate machine, you will probably regret it. I would suggest a two head at the very minimum. The nice thing about a 4 head is you can bust out more stuff in half the time of a two head. The only drawback is when you get people wanting onesie, twosie orders. Brandt, you link keeps causing my antivirus to block it. It says that it is infected with HTML/ScrInject.B.Gen virus
Thanks everyone for the replies. I do have a noob question now. If I have a 4 head machine and someone does want just one or two garments. How do you do it on the machine?SWF seems to be the most reputable budget friendly option. Tajima and Barudan are top dollar even in the used market.Do you all test emroider before running jobs like in screen printing? Seriously this is all greek to me. How long does it take to learn and do digitizing for an illustrator geek? Any free software to download to try my hand at it?