STARTING A T-SHIRT PRINTING BUSINESS.

After five nearly five years in the trade of printing funny t shirts, Women and Children I feel I have some good advice about equipment, suppliers and other topics related to starting a t shirt printing business. The advice I give in this article is based upon my own experiences in running a t shirt business. Below is some advice on equipment you will need and suppliers that you can use. You are not limited to just printing funny t-shirts with this equipment you can print on to hoodies, children's gym bags, hi visibility vests the possibilities are endless.

Cutters/Plotters

I think the first bit of advice I can give on buying cutter/plotter is DO NOT buy a cheap Chinese cutter as you very rarely get any support with the item. And getting parts for them is difficult, if you don't have enough money for the better brand cutters then I would defiantly say save your money up until you can afford it.

ROLAND CUTTERS

The Roland cutters are very popular in the t shirt printing business and I'm not surprised I have a friend in the business and his Roland has lasted him years now and very rarely goes wrong. They are very robust cutters and well worth the money, you can get them for around £1,400 including VAT, on sites like xpres.co.uk, creativetransfers.co.uk and signmaster.co.uk Support with these companies is usually very good as I have dealt with some of them before so I recommend using them if you are going to purchase a Roland cutter.

Above Roland CAMM-1 GS 24 cutter plotter.  

GRAPHTEC CUTTERS

I have had two Graphtec cutters the Graphtec ce5000-60 great little cutter I had it for 3 years with no problems then I upgraded to the Graphtec ce6000-60 with the new digital display and color it's a nice-looking cutter and operates very well also the Graphtec cutters are very sturdy robust machines I have not had any thing go wrong with the two Graph tec cutters that I have had that's why I would personally recommend a Graphtec cutter. I would recommend using "edwardmathias.com" as I got great advice and service from this company. New they are also around £1,400 including VAT.

Above Graphtec ce6000-60 cutter plotter.  

T-SHIRT HEAT PRESS

Well I made the mistake of buying a cheap t shirt press BIG mistake it only lasted two months and broke down so again I advise getting a half decent t shirt press. I purchased the following press, pixmax 50 x 50cm t-shirt press Purchased from "monsterdoodles.co.uk" the price for this press is £349.99 including VAT and it's been a very reliable heat press for us. With its 50cm heat plate it gives plenty of room for the larger size t-shirts like X-Large and XX-Large.

OTHER CONSUMABLES

There is no end of wholesale websites that you can purchase your t-shirts and vinyl from I use "absoluteapparel.co.uk" for my tees and "crativetransfers.co.uk" for my vinyl. Other companies you could try are "buytshirtsonline.co.uk" "ralawise.com" if you do a search for wholesale t shirts on google you will get plenty of choice.