I hate being at someones mercy

[rmonks]

VENT, VENT.....I just hate being at someones mercy when it comes to getting my embroidery work done. I have tried three contract shops, and I am currently waiting for some jackets that took me a week to get from the supplier, and now they set at my current embroidery contractor shop. They have been there 2 weeks and 3 days, they said they would be ready today. They are for a customer that does thousands of dollars in business with me, mostly screen printing, but they have embroidery request also. I would love to be able to do these 30-50 pc. orders myself, but dang it I don't know crap about embroidery. You got to start somewhere CORRECT. I'm going to start looking into this side of the business and looking for suggestions from people who have been down this road also.

[Denis Kolar]

Where are you located?
There are a bunch of contract shops that have 3-4 days turnaround time.
More than two weeks is unheard of.

[royster13]

Are you using a true contract shop or a retail shop that pretends to do contract work but it is really a sideline to their retail business?.....

[rmonks]

Located Tulsa, OK , Yes this is a contract shop several machines

[GraphicDisorder]

What was the promised turn time? 

[mimosatexas]

I have the same issue with embroidery.  Turnaround times and lack of quality control piss me off.  The costs seem to be all over the place too.  One shop quotes 50 for digitizing, one quotes 150, per unit costs have similar ranges, turnaround is all over the place.  ugh...

[rmonks]

Let me ask this question. I would like to consider doing my own embroidery. What is an expected start up cost. I know when I bought my first auto there was screens air compressor etc. what about a single had machine. What else is needed

[Denis Kolar]

Let me ask this question. I would like to consider doing my own embroidery. What is an expected start up cost. I know when I bought my first auto there was screens air compressor etc. what about a single had machine. What else is needed

Thread

And a place to put it.

It depends how much work you get. I have two single heads and sometimes I outsource too. It depends on the logo size. When i was short on money and I had my brother here, we did 300 hats with one single head. 2200 stitches, but it took us 3 days, few hours a day.
If you have room and you are serious about embroidery, used 4 head machine would be great.

[GraphicDisorder]

Let me ask this question. I would like to consider doing my own embroidery. What is an expected start up cost. I know when I bought my first auto there was screens air compressor etc. what about a single had machine. What else is needed

Machine, Thread, SOFTWARE (most forget this one and if you do it right its not cheap), and someone to man it all day if you want any sort of production on it.  If you did nothing else and the design was super low stitch count you could do maybe 150 hats on a machine in a day.  If it's like some hats that may have 10+ minute run time, you will get 4-6 a hour, good luck.  If you make $5 a hat, that's just $20-30 a hour on days like that with 10+ minute run times.  Now take out cost of thread, labor, machine cost, etc.  You will struggle to make that pay but at least you will have the control.  But first time someone rolls in with 15 minute run time hats and they got 500 of them, your life will be over for awhile. 

Depending on what you are outsourcing (how many hats regularly) I would consider a 2-4 head from the word go. 

[Denis Kolar]

And a lot of different backing. Forgot that

Brandt is right, software too. That can be from few hundred to a few thousand. I just sold used copy of Forte for $1100.

[GraphicDisorder]

Wilcom, spend the money for it.  It will cost you more than a single head though unless you catch it on sale.   We snagged it for 3k, but it's priced at like 15k I believe. 

[dsh]

Here are some specific $ numbers.  I picked up a 2008 Toyota single head from someone that wanted to get out of the business.  I picked up a butt load of thread, backing, tools for around $9200 w/ shipping.  Shipping was me going to pick it up.  It came with "Forte" program, which is a bit out of date, but was very easy to learn.  I spent a day watching videos from the distributor Pantograms and youtube instructional videos.  Text is easy, and for detailed designs, Someone on the forum mentioned a digitizing source, and I get less than 24 service when sending something to them.  I only do small prints like left chest and hats, but it has made my service more complete.  It's easy to do a shirt order and a couple hats that makes the customer happy.  You can screen print a shirt order, and throw in a hat for free.  Quite often that turns into a dozen hat sale.  I did 140 raised letter hats for the local youth baseball league in 3 days.  We had a job that required 2 rounds on the auto, so I'd reload hats during the 2nd round. 

[rmonks]

GREAT info. Thanks , I have heard many say that if you can, go with more that one head. I was actually thinking of having my sister do the work, she is home bound with an autistic child, it would be good for her she, has ask before if there is anything she could do to help me. This would help both of us

[Homer]

I picked up a single head machine for 3k, software was 800.00, cables were 25.00....I digitize everything myself, I'm no expert but I can hold my own...took a while, lots of trial and error but I like that stuff.. -big runs or anything that the math doesn't make sense on, goes out to Sam....

[jvanick]

We've been thinking about adding this to our lineup as well.

what's a decent used single head machine that doesn't cost a ton to get started with?

I look on digitsmith and the barudan's and tajima's are out of our price range.  And not knowing anything about embroidery the rest of the brands of machines don't really mean much to me at this point...