Odd ball question....???

[Rocfrog]

Anyone ever do a "mobile" screen printing set up??

What would it take to do this?

What are your thoughts and opinions on something like this?

I know it couldn't be 100% mobile but it's something that has been brought to my attention a few times....

Nick

[brandon]

I want to say there is a print shop in Austin Tx that has one in the back of a flatbed truck. Or something like that. I remember reading an article somewhere a few months ago. Totally for events like sports and beer garden type of things. They had a small manual and electric dryer on it. Not too sure if the ink was cured or not though. But it did look cool. Flames and all if I remember!

[Nick Bane]

have done a set up with 8 diff one color prints, basically big table, jiffy clamps, puff ink printed on hand/golf type towels, and placed under a flash until the ink puff dry.  was for a basketball tournament, fairly simple set up and got the job done quite well.  not sure if that helps for your purpose but thats the closest ive got.  and yeah, puff ink on towels, it was the early 90's, they werent meant to use, just as rally towel type things.


Nick

[Zelko-4-EVA]

New Buffalo has one -  http://www.newbuffaloshirt.com/Locations/NBSFRoaming

[brandon]

That, my friend, is bad ass!!!

[Rocfrog]

New Buffalo has one -  http://www.newbuffaloshirt.com/Locations/NBSFRoaming

Ummm....HOLY CRAP!!!!!!!!!! That is AWESOME!!! But I'm thinking quite smaller scale!

I was thinking maybe an over sized car trailer..?? But what would you have in it? Would you go with DTG or maybe a small single head 4color press? My origonal thought was to some how build an "in-line" 4 color press that is on the side wall of the trailer (the pallet would "slide" along the wall and then lock in under each screen) and then have some sort of small dryer at the end. How would you store blank shirts? do you offer stock designs or could you some how expose screens on the go?

Nick

[Rocfrog]

How would you store and transport the ink?

Could you do ink changes?

As you can see I have no real definite thoughts on this just an idea and looking to see how feasible it is.....

Nick

[Frog]

If the main thing you want is mobility at, say, different events, but don't want to commit to pre-printing, then heat pressing plastisol tranfers is probably the easiest thing, with the least investment on possibly unsold shirts.
If you like the gimmick of printing them to order, then you still shouldn't worry about burning screens on the spot.

A small compact 4 color manual, a flash, and a five foot dryer could get you by and be fairly space efficient.

That, along with shirt storage would all depend on the size of your trailer.

[T Shirt1]

We looked at concession or game trailers where the sides opened.  Thought about a 4 color manual and small electric dryer.

[Rocfrog]

If the main thing you want is mobility at, say, different events, but don't want to commit to pre-printing, then heat pressing plastisol tranfers is probably the easiest thing, with the least investment on possibly unsold shirts.
If you like the gimmick of printing them to order, then you still shouldn't worry about burning screens on the spot.

A small compact 4 color manual, a flash, and a five foot dryer could get you by and be fairly space efficient.

That, along with shirt storage would all depend on the size of your trailer.

I didn't think of heat transfers...! That could be an option. One of the big reasons why this came up is because a buddy of mine was at an "event" and there was a guy selling shirts like hot cakes but ran out of a popular color/design and said he would be back the next day but failed to follow thru. So I was looking into how I could provide something similar but not run into the same issue.

We looked at concession or game trailers where the sides opened.  Thought about a 4 color manual and small electric dryer.

Those are the type of trailers I was looking at....

Nick

[Gilligan]

I was picking up an odd ball shirt at CVS one day and the girl mentioned that her and her husband do transfers at soccer tournaments.

They go and take pics of the team, go back to the hotel and print out a transfer for each team.  They then go and give the shirt to the main soccer mom with order sheets.  She said they go nuts and turn out some SERIOUS money in just a weekend.

Seems feasible for sure... you catch them in that impulse frenzy and soccer moms usually have money to burn on stupid things like that.

[tonypep]

If I remember right Jon Weiss has an auto in there

[3Deep]

Had a customer of mine a few years back had a sports action photo biz, what they did was setup at baseball,softball,soccer etc and take action photo,s of the kids in action and print the photo's as posters or whatever the custy wanted right on sight.  He said they could make pretty good money on those events especially the 3 day tourneys...and I'll have to say the guy could take some very nice action pics, he could catch every detail.

Darryl

[Orion]

If I remember right Jon Weiss has an auto in there

They sure do have an auto in there. Check the link:

http://jamforums.com/jf/?p=325

[Rocfrog]

Doing a little more research there seems to be a billion different angles to go with this. I definitely see a market for this and could be a GREAT weekend gig, Just need to figure out all the details of how....

Nick