What next better maual or decent auto

[mikee440]

Hello TSB ers.  I have been gleaning useful info on the boards for years and am hoping to finally get to my 10th post. Thank you for all the help.  I have been what most would consider a hobbyist, not necessarily by choice, but more so because of diverse interests and a lack of focus.  All my business is currently word of mouth. Recently I have been consolidating my interests / financial endeavors.  As a result of these musings I realize I want to focus more on my screen printing as a source of income.  Currently I have a comfortable enough garage space. My press is an M&R Kruzer, which I feel owes me nothing, but inherently I feel is not enough (4 station / 6 color). My question to the various seasoned veterans on TSB…what would you do next?  Should my next step be upgrading to a better quality manual press, or would the leap to an automatic be more prudent. At this point 80% of my jobs are single color.  Since I am in a residential neighborhood, my thoughts for an auto are the Anatol Volt (all electric). How many colors / stations?  If you think a higher quality manual is a better choice what would you choose?  Thanks for sharing.

[Sbrem]

If you upgrade to an auto, you'll most likely have to upgrade your dryer, and space, and it goes on and on. It's no use having an auto feeding a 20" belt moving very slowly. I worked in a shop way back where if we had a long run, pre-auto, we would put 3 operators on a manual; a printer, (lower the screen, print, lift the screen) an unloader, and a loader. 300+ per hour. If you are printing 2 colors, then a single unloader/loader would work. This increases our output obviously, without changing your footprint. That being said, once you use an auto, you probably won't want to go back. Even if you're still doing 1 color work. At this point though, you need a dryer that can handle your output. We printed 9,000 2/0 on white shirts once with 2 manuals over a weekend, our dryer was a 48" wide belt, or it wouldn't have happened.

Steve

[Homer]

If you upgrade to an auto, you'll most likely have to upgrade your dryer, and space, and it goes on and on. It's no use having an auto feeding a 20" belt moving very slowly. I worked in a shop way back where if we had a long run, pre-auto, we would put 3 operators on a manual; a printer, (lower the screen, print, lift the screen) an unloader, and a loader. 300+ per hour. If you are printing 2 colors, then a single unloader/loader would work. This increases our output obviously, without changing your footprint. That being said, once you use an auto, you probably won't want to go back. Even if you're still doing 1 color work. At this point though, you need a dryer that can handle your output. We printed 9,000 2/0 on white shirts once with 2 manuals over a weekend, our dryer was a 48" wide belt, or it wouldn't have happened.

Steve

on the flip side to this, I'd rather run 30 shirts/hr on an auto than print manually @ 200 shirts/hr. I hate printing though so take it for what it's worth

but what Steve said is so true, the press is the cheapest part of the equation. If I had to do it all over again, I'd keep a smaller set up like you have and then broker the larger orders. You create the monster, you need to feed it...

[Prince Art]

Dial in the other parts of your process before you try to jump to an auto. You can gain a lot of efficiency in almost every other area with far less expense. Pre-registration, workspace flow, reclaim, office mgmt, SALES etc. Do that first. Once everything else is running as efficiently as possible, then (and as an owner-operator I've yet to take this advice, but it's still valid) look at hiring printing help. After that, if the manual really can't keep up with your SALES, then maybe an auto. (But only after your other equipment can keep up, as Steve said.)

The idea of an auto and the end to the tedium of printing, with the very loose notion of "I'll make more money if I print faster" is alluring. I couldn't get that dangling carrot out from in front of me for a long time. Took a long time to learn that having your other ducks in a row should be addressed first.

[paradoxsc]

I agree with all of the above.

We tried to go auto in a residential. Here's what happened:

Air compressor pissed off neighbors, we had to move into a commercial space, quickly realized it was too small. Had to move to a larger commercial space. Had to hire another employee. Had to buy a bigger dryer. Power bill tripled. Had to go legit and get our company legal (municipal/state/federal). Had to deal with fire marshal and osha. Had to start buying ink by the 5 gallon bucket. Had to get a bigger exposure unit. Had to get a pre reg system. Had to buy 100's of larger screen frames at around $40/ea. Had to become a salesperson to keep it all running. It goes on-and-on. 

It's a lot of work going full time in a commercial space. It's nothing like printing from home with almost no overhead. The bills are endless and keep coming, every month its a new cycle of several thousand dollars we owe to all of our overhead costs/vendors. You ready for that?

If your sales are not 100k/year+ I wouldn't jump into it. You need to have the client base and sales to cover your costs.

I finally decided to go auto after we got a 14000/pc order on our 6 color manual and managed to pull it off in 2 weeks. It was hell at the time but now we could do that job in a few days, no sweat. Those orders don't come in all the time though. If you are processing mostly 50-100/pc orders then a manual should be fine. When you start doing 500+ pcs per day you might want to start shopping autos.

Also, a new all servo a/c press is going to run you about 40k+ for 6 color. Plus the dryer 15-30k. etc. How's your relationship with the bank? That equipment payment is going to be like another rent payment every month. Can you afford 3 rent payments a month? (home/shop/loan).

Just something to think about.

[mikee440]

Sorry been missing in action...tornado like conditions here in Connecticut....lost power, computer an a few days of work.

Sbrem: Its just me for the moment, so I was thinking an auto would help in regards to saving physical energy and /or the cost of employees. 
Currently I believe my press is the weakest part of my set up and was just wondering if a more expensive / better press would be worth the upgrade or if I should just save for an auto. I have an good flash, and a 30" electric belt dryer both from Vastex.

Prince: Absolutely right on dialing in the process. Recent small changes have improved my quality and process for essentially no cost. Still have plenty of room for improvement  and yeah I feel the tedium is taking away from the creative, marketing and organizational things.  I guess bigger toys don't cover for lazy excuses.

Paradozcs The Anatol Volt is all electric which is why I would be interested in that press. Your chain of thoughts makes a lot of sense. I didn't consider the snowball reaction. I think your metric of 100k is a good place to start serious consideration.  I calculated my theoretical max sales would be about 250k not factoring in the tedium or potential for burnout or additional time spent with additional customers
Thanks printers a lot of good advice

[Frog]

mikee, what makes the Kruzer press the weakest part of your setup? What are you hoping to improve?
I think that the Kruzer can produce the same quality as any manual. Hell, when I think of the old presses many of us started on, we put out high quality prints with rubber mallet fine adjustment tools to dial in registration!
If it's to increase production, then it's not the width of the dryer that you need to consider, but the length to match what the press (and the press operator) can do.
If it's merely to save your back, that's a different issue, as you can run an auto as slowly as you need to.

[abchung]

Single person set up from FarmBoy Graphics

https://youtu.be/m93qmWzpakA

[royster13]

Single person set up from FarmBoy Graphics

https://youtu.be/m93qmWzpakA

And what great exercise.....

[Rockers]

Sorry been missing in action...tornado like conditions here in Connecticut....lost power, computer an a few days of work.

Sbrem: Its just me for the moment, so I was thinking an auto would help in regards to saving physical energy and /or the cost of employees. 
Currently I believe my press is the weakest part of my set up and was just wondering if a more expensive / better press would be worth the upgrade or if I should just save for an auto. I have an good flash, and a 30" electric belt dryer both from Vastex.

Prince: Absolutely right on dialing in the process. Recent small changes have improved my quality and process for essentially no cost. Still have plenty of room for improvement  and yeah I feel the tedium is taking away from the creative, marketing and organizational things.  I guess bigger toys don't cover for lazy excuses.

Paradozcs The Anatol Volt is all electric which is why I would be interested in that press. Your chain of thoughts makes a lot of sense. I didn't consider the snowball reaction. I think your metric of 100k is a good place to start serious consideration.  I calculated my theoretical max sales would be about 250k not factoring in the tedium or potential for burnout or additional time spent with additional customers
Thanks printers a lot of good advice

Get an automatic press and if you have enough small change left after that get some other toys too. Then follow this guys example. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vtxyaw8sDyg&feature=youtu.be

[blue moon]

some of those solutions are something I'd never do, but. . . I have different goals. In order to know which one works for you you will have to set your goals first.

pierre

[mikee440]

I think I have an answer...thanks to all.  The first thing I am going to do is write up a business plan. Second, I am going to paint my shop a more optimistic color (in the spirit of being frugal, I combined leftover paints and that always leads to a mucky, brownish color). Third I will work on streamlining my process and unblocking bottlenecks (that auto screen cleaner is wow). So we will be sticking with the manual until I am almost overwhelmed by business and readt for that auto

[GraphicDisorder]

Knowing what I know now I would have never bought a single manual press. I had 3 before buying my first auto and I think I wasted years of time doing that.

But your space, your finances and so on would determine if that is possible.

[avogel]

Knowing what I know now I would have never bought a single manual press. I had 3 before buying my first auto and I think I wasted years of time doing that.

But your space, your finances and so on would determine if that is possible.

Agree with this

[blue moon]

Knowing what I know now I would have never bought a single manual press. I had 3 before buying my first auto and I think I wasted years of time doing that.

But your space, your finances and so on would determine if that is possible.

Agree with this

it depends on your goals. . .

pierre