Sorry for the late reply to this thread - been really busy this week and haven't had too much spare time for the boards (up till 3AM working on a project last night....ugh....)
We print what we call standard size (up to 16 x 18), jumbo (up to 20 x 28) and all over (up to 43.5 w x 40 tall) and have presses designed from the ground up to do this work.
Our main all over press (and secondary press with this capability) has wider squeegee and flood bar holders than a standard jumbo 20 x 28 type press and it single indexes to do the work - it is a 26 foot in diameter Anatol 8 color Trident. Our secondary press is a 16 color Pegsus II that has some custom feature built into it to allow this work with a single throw double index and a pivoting head allowing for a load and unload station when doing all over's that are separate from each other.
Everything about doing all over prints is more work and more labor and requires a fairly large financial commitment to do right - they are hard to do without establishing some minimums out the gate and you really need to understand your cost structure for them - which is also hard because your production rates will be lower and your labor in the jobs will be higher - this is true once you have them really figured out and WAY true in the beginning.
Our initial investment to do them was approx. 150K and really should have been a little over 200K, but we didn't have the money up front to do it all so we hobbled along for a couple of years before really buying a dryer that would allow us to maximize our production rates at this size. We currently run an 86 inch wide belt interchange gas dryer for these prints and use both sides of the belt for the one press. We are upgrading the dryer to 24 foot of heat soon though to allow the dryer to service another press.
Investment in the ancillary equipment to do the work - two 9800's Epson and a large format rip - large exposure capabilities and vacuum frame and very large sink (frames are 60 x 48), initial screen outlay was around 35 frames at an average cost of 300.00 - 350.00 per frame meshed. We looked at upgrading our newman roller stretching systems and frames for this, but frankly we just couldn't make it justify the cost and still have never done that. Starching machine was a couple of grand - didn't have it to begin with and simply used an HVLP gun to put starch in the garments, but the machine is the way to go as you can meter the starch used to be the minimum amount needed to do the job, increase customer satisfaction, and you will use less product with the machine.
We are successfully able to run the press and unload station with just two people (one for ea. station like a normal machine) and I have one at the end of the dryer (and they hump to keep up with them even at the slower production rates). Typical press speeds for us these days are in the range of 25-28 dozen per hour with actual production ranging in the 12-18 dozen depending on the complexity of the print - some designs print way easier than others and some of what you think would be the easiest jobs to produce are the hardest and vice versa. Registration is a slower process - the larger the screen the harder to dial it in perfectly, but I don't like them to be less than they can be. Ink use is much higher and you have to be careful to watch your waste with discharge.
You do want to use 'boards' to catch overprint, as Tony stated as this will help - no way to get good production without them and you need something to catch the excess ink that is economical, reusable to an extent and will go through the dryer safely. Two people on two shifts for starching (at least for us) and your typical day will be 450 - 600 units on an 8 hour shift starching once you have this process dialed in - again some shirts are easier than others and some of the most popular brands of shirts (and some that actually print fantastic) are the hardest to starch.
Lots of folks talk about loose registration and the like, and in the beginning I would recommend that, but we can successfully do up to 8 colors (when someone wants it bad enough to pay the rate) with fairly tight registration - 4- 5 colors jobs are common and registration is rarely off more than 1/32 of an inch - close enough to be perfect by most folks standards if they understand what they are getting - many in the run will be perfect.
It takes a long time to get good at evaluating what will print well - what won't and keep yourself from eating crow on a job you thought would be simple, it also takes quite a while to get your staff trained to do them and do them well. It takes some real effort to educate most every customer who wants them - think about how much education you do with the average customer and add about 3 or 4 times the complexity to that process - have good terms and conditions and really work to get your customers educated.
I would not discourage you if you wanted to go this route - it has been good for our business, but understand up front what you are getting into. We had almost no help along the way and most all of what we have learned has been school of hard knocks - those of us who have been through it don't really prefer to give away too much info - it's too much work and too hard to just give it away. I have probably given away more info here than I have had given to me from others in the full five years we have been doing them now (your welcome
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As to your original question about how big a frame to do 20 x28 - we successfully print a 20x24-25 through a 25x36 - if you want the full 28 inch print (which won't fit on most shirts anyway - we use a 25 x 42 or 43 (sorry don't remember exactly as we do few prints at this size surprisingly) for this and can get full bleed at the bottom. You won't really ever be able to do full bleed at the sides on all sizes of shirts nor will you be able to do so well at the top of the shirt though as long as you are over a board with the shirt, full bleed in these areas (sides and top) - you are entering into the all over world at this point to do this across multiple sizes and do a good job.
Not really trying to promote our services, but we do contract work for customers all over the country and we'd be happy to discuss helping out anyone that needs it or has the occasional request to do this. I wouldn't say we are 'cheap' but we are very reasonable for the amount of work, capital and effort that goes into printing these prints and being in Southern CA this is one of the most competitive markets anywhere - you might be surprised at the costs. Frog / Dan if I have broken a sacred rule please excuse me for having done so and you can edit this part of the post out.
If you have more questions or need more info - hit me up and I'll help out if I can and hope this info is at least interesting and enlightening to some. For anyone seriously thinking about getting into this market just understand up front that to do it well you are making a large commitment in many respects - time, money, time, resources, sleepless nights, and time
at least for a year or two into the process- if you weather this it means you have it figured out and then it becomes easier and you will have become smarter through the process
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Again - sorry for being late to the game on this - just wasn't around (here anyway) much over the past couple of days and dropped in before heading off to bed....which I should have done an hour ago
