Ditching the manual?

[Gilligan]

I printed 150 shirts on our manual yesterday to make a big customer happy.  1 job, a few hours of time and there was no way to print the job on the auto while still keeping another big customer happy.  This scenario may only play out a dozen times per year, at most, but I can't quantify the benefit of having ours and keeping a good customer from taking a small job somewhere else and then realizing that they could start taking other jobs there too.  9 times out of 10 the other shop won't live up to what we offer but the one time that it does it could cost thousands, tens of thousands, and so on.  Cost benefit bla bla bla.

Now if you have multiple autos and at least one of those autos sits idle on a regular basis then my scenario doesn't need a manual press to work, it simply needs ANOTHER press.

You also have enough space to park a few cars in the shop while you work. :p

[ScreenPrinter123]

Had a 6 color Vastex and then went auto.   After our second auto upgrade we sold the manual because we never used it.  We have a 36 piece minimum and turn down all the work that we kept our manual to do.  If we kept doing the small odd jobs a manual would be ideal, but we simply decided that we didn't want that work and the associated headaches for what people were willing to pay.

[1964GN]

When we purchased our ROQ we sold our manual and have never wished we still had it. We have 2 autos now. The smaller one (all air DB) essentially replaced the manual press. We have a full set 4", 6", 12", and 16" pallets for the Diamond Back so all sleeves, tags, youth/toddler, etc jobs are done on the DB, all others on the ROQ.

If it was me, I would sell the manual and use that cash to buy more specialty pallets

[mk162]

I sold our 6 color manual and got a single color tabletop used.  Best choice for us.  I use it a lot of pockets and sleeve prints, or oddball items.  It doesn't take up much space thankfully.

I'd rather go big on the auto and small on the manual than medium on both.

[Itsa Little CrOoked]

I'm a smaller shop, and the print floor is pretty cramped. Even so, I could never see ditching the manual.

I have a Hopkins 6/4 that you'd have to shoot me to get. I still use it every week, some weeks every day. Oversized prints go on the manual, because I don't have currently another option. And with sleeves, weird placement jobs, low piece count....I usually pick the manual.

Hoodies with large white blocks of color--ESPECIALLY low quantities--that works better on the manual for me. By the time I get all the platens warmed up, different adhesive, ink all warm and happy....I just can't see setting up the auto for those little jobs at this point in my development. Your shop may be different.

But my auto is slow to setup (for me anyway) than the manual which is fast to setup and breakdown. I tape my squeegees for the manual. (SO FAST!) If I had a better way to clean winged floods and squeegees, and a pre-registration system that really worked, I might have a little different story.