One of the things that never ceases to amaze me with people just getting into printing Tshirts, is how difficult folk tend to make it for themselves ;-). You know, starting a Tshirt printing business really doesn’t need to be as difficult and as frustrating as many people make it, in fact it can be incredibly straight forward.

What it all boils down to, is very simple. It’s one word:

Focus.

Many people who come to me for advice on starting a Tshirt or other garment and/or gifts printing business, make things incredibly complex for themselves simply because they have no focus.

What – EXACTLY- do you want to produce?

Who is your target market, initially, and what products are you going to be providing?

If your answer to this (and I get this a lot) is “Tshirts, and lots of other items, to anyone” – then you have no focus, and as a result, it’s going to be very difficult for you to know whether you’re getting setup with the correct gear.

Let me give you an example of someone who does have focus, so you can see the difference.

Occasionally, a customer will tell me: I’m starting a business printing mainly one-use Tshirts for Stag & Hen / Bachelor & Bachelorette Parties & other events.

The rest of the conversation will go something along the lines of:

Me: OK, no problem. Are you going to be printing just text, single colour etc., or photographic?

Customer: Mainly photos & other designs, multi colour, some text too.

Me: OK, do you need to print on dark, or are you OK on white & light colours?

Customer: White & light colours are fine.

Me: Great, does it need to be cotton?

Customer: Doesn’t really matter.

Me: Do you need a big range of shirt styles?

Customer: No, as little choice as possible, I want to keep minimal blanks stocks.

Me: OK, I’d go for dye sublimation. Nice and simple, fantastic, permanent high quality vibrant prints onto white and light coloured polyester Tshirts (there’s a growing range of 100% polyester and specialist dye sublimation garments). All you need is a dye sublimation printer and a flat heat press. Set up cost from around eight hundred to a thousand, or more, depending on which heat press you go for – but dye sublimation is easy on the press, so you don’t really need anything fancy.  Also – if you want to add to your range in the future, with this same setup you can press onto a huge range of other dye sublimation blanks – and if you add a mug press, you can produce mugs too, which are a great seasonal seller.

This is just one example of someone who is starting out with some focus, so it’s clear which is the best print process for them starting out.

But here’s the way a conversation goes more often than not:

Customer: I want to start a business printing Tshirts and other garments, and lots of other items.

Me: What kind of markets are you planning on selling into?

Customer: Nothing. Tumbleweed blowing past.

Me:  Do you know if you’ll be wanting to print onto cotton garments, or polyester?

Customer: Both? I’m not sure.

Me: Do you know if you’re going to want to print onto dark garments as well as white and light coloured garments?

Customer: I’m not sure.

Me: What’s your budget.

Customer: I’m not sure.

The issue here is that the customer doesn’t know who their target market is, so they can’t know what they’ll want, they don’t really know what they want to produce – so I really can’t advise them on a way forward. Sometimes folk getting into printing, vastly underestimate the startup costs of certain processes too.

One customer recently told me all of the things she wanted to do – which was more or less everything and anything you can think of, including garments & homeware items of all shapes & sizes.  My honest answer when it came to what she needed to get setup, was probably a couple hundred thousand dollars budget, a fairly large factory, and at least half a dozen staff. She was blown away, as she was wanting to do this on her own with a budget of a few hundred.

So what I said to her, and what I say to many, many people – is that you’re better off taking a step back, and focusing initially on one particular type of customer, to whom you’re going to sell one particular type of product.

Figure out who they are, what they want exactly, how you can reach them, how much they’ll be willing to pay,  what the competition is missing when it comes to this particular market that you can take advantage of, and get started focusing purely on this market, with one type of printer, one main type of garment, and then grow your business from there.

When you’re this laser focused, it’s very easy to know exactly what set up you need, as you’ll know exactly what kind of garments you need to print.

For example, if you’re focusing on shirts for small independent rock bands who will be selling them at gigs, you’ll probably want black cotton Tshirts & hoodies.  This really narrows things down when it comes to what equipment you’ll need.

If you’re focusing on one use Tshirts for parties & so on, you’ll probably want white & light coloured garments, and there probably won’t be a huge sway towards cotton, so dye sublimation will probably be the best way forward.

It also really helps to have a good understanding of what business model you’re going for too as well as knowing who your customers are.

For example, you may be planning on selling large volumes of Tshirts wholesale – but are you shipping stock  to the customer – or on a drop ship basis, large volumes but split up into individual orders being delivered directly to the end user with their own unique design? This would change which print process would be suitable, if it was the former then screen would be the obvious choice, but if it was the latter, you couldn’t really go the screen route as you’d need a new screen to be exposed for each individual order.

It all comes down to having properly planned  what it is you’re about to do – you know the old saying “failing to plan is planning to fail” – it’s a cliche, but it’s a very true one.  If you don’t know exactly who your target market is before you start, you’re leaving everything to chance, you may well end up with completely the wrong kind of setup. Even more importantly, if you don’t know who your target market are, how are  you going to promote your business? I can tell you from personal experience, even if you have a physical shop on a popular high street – “build it and they will come” is an utter myth.

So if at this stage you’re not sure what gear you need – just take a step back, and as yourself “who, exactly, are my target market?”. If you know the answer to this, then you can figure out what they need – what kind of garments, what do they need to be made of, what base color(s) do they need to be, what kind of designs will they need, basic one and two colour, or full photographic? Once you’ve gone through this process, you should have a far better idea of what kind of kit you’re going to need to get started – and then as your business grows, you can also target other markets and invest in adding other print processes as strings to your bow if required.

So you know there are two main styles of heat press, right? Swing away, or “swinger”, or “swing head” – and clamshell, or “clam”.

There’s a third style, which isn’t quite as well known, which I’ll discuss shortly, but most of the presses you’ll be looking at will probably be swing away or clamshell.

I’m guessing you know the major difference?

Clamshell heat presses open like a clamshell. Swing away heat presses lift up, and then swing away.

This is all very well and good, and you’ve probably read this or been told this multiple times by potential suppliers, but unless you’ve actually experienced a full demonstration of clamshell heat presses vs swing away heat presses, you  may be struggling to understand what the pros and cons are of clam heat presses versus swing heat presses, and as a result, you’re not sure which way to go?

This is very common, in fact I’d say nearly everyone who buys a heat press for the first time, struggles with this one initially, whether to buy a swing or a clam press, even once they theoretically understand the difference.

To demonstrate swing away Vs clamshell, put your hands together…

No, I don’t mean give me a round of applause for this amazing blog about heat presses and T shirt printing, although you can if you want, I won’t find it strange ;-).

I mean, put your hands together, and then open up your hands as if you’re imitating a crocodile’s snap.

What you’ll find, is four things actually.

First, you’ll find that it’s not comfortable to get your hands a great distance apart while your palms are touching, anywhere close to 90 degrees will start to feel uncomfortable, unless you’re some kind of flexible freak ;-).

Second, when you close your hands, you’ll find that your hands are almost touching at the point that they’re parallel, there’s not a big gap.

Third, you can clap your hands together pretty quickly from this position, it doesn’t take much effort to open and close your hands when your palms are touching like this, does it?

Fourth, the only space used in this operation of opening and closing your hands is the exact footprint of your hand, you’re only using vertical space, there’s no space required to either side of your hands.

Oh, another thing you’ll find, is that if you’re doing this in public, you’re getting some strange looks right now.

But, joking apart, in this little exercise you’ve demonstrated to yourself the main pros of clamshell heat presses.

The main pro being that there’s not much operator effort involved in opening and closing a clamshell press, so from a production consideration, this is good.

The other important pro for clamshells is they take up very little space. You only need to consider the footprint of the press. For instance if the press is 12″ wide by 16″ deep, this is all the space you need, except for the space in front of it where you’ll need to stand while operating it.

You can also experience the cons of clamshell presses with this exercise, too.

Not being able to open your hands past 90 degrees represents one issue with clamshell presses, which is that the heated top platen is always fairly close to the operator.

Depending on the clamshell press in question, the top platen will open somewhere between 40-50 degrees. This doesn’t give a great deal of clearance between the back of your hands and the heated platen, when you’re loading the bottom platen.

I have no problem at all working with clamshell heat presses, it’s something you have to get used to – and I can’t remember the last time I caught the back of my hand on the heat platen. It can be a pain, though, when you’re getting started, and it reduces the time you have to work on the bottom table before the edges of the transfer or vinyl starts to curl with the heat.

How close your fingers are to each other at the point that they become parallel, represents one of the other main cons with clamshell presses vs swing away presses, and that is the maximum substrate thickness.

With clamshells, you’re usually looking at around a third of an inch, to maybe an inch maximum in terms of max substrate thickness, depending on the clamshell heat press in question.

Not all clamshell presses are the same, though, when it comes to maximum thickness.

While many clamshell presses will have a maximum practical item thickness of around .25 – .75 inch, the Stahls Hotronix Auto Open presses will take items up to an inch in thickness.

Sticking with the hands, we can also demonstrate the pros and cons of swing away heat presses.

If you put your hands together, and then raise your top hand a couple of inches, and then pivot your top hand around to your other wrist, you’re imitating the way a swing away heat press works.

You’ll instantly recognize one of the main pros vs clamshell presses, that there’s a lot more space in between your fingers when you lift your top hand away from the bottom hand.

Swing away heat presses can generally take much thicker items than clamshell heat presses.

The Geo Digital Knight Swingers (DK20S, DK25S, DK20SP, DK25SP) are the swing away heat presses on the market with the biggest maximum thickness, at around 2-2.5 inches, which makes them popular for pressing thicker hard items including ceramic tiles & wooden blanks.

The Insta 256 isn’t too far behind, with a max thickness of approx 1.5 inches.

This exercise also points out one of the main cons of swing away vs clamshell heat presses.

If you do the same motion again, you’ll note that your fingertips  on your top hand come out all the way around your bottom hand towards the back, meaning that you need the length of your hand free to the side and the back of your other hand.

What this represents is how much more space you need in order to operate a swing away heat press vs a clamshell heat press. With swing away heat presses you need enough space for the full length of the platen to swing out to the side and all the way around to the back of the press.

This means that while you can push a clamshell right up to a wall, or tuck it into a corner, you can’t do the same with a swinger press, it needs to be stood proud of any walls behind and on the swing side of the press.

If space isn’t an issue for you, then of course this isn’t a problem.

What if you don’t have the space for a swing away press, but you need the features of swing away?

Drawer operated presses.

I mentioned at the beginning of this post that there’s a third style, and this is drawer operated presses, also known as “slide out” presses.

With these kinds of presses, the lower table pulls out from under the top platen, to be loaded and then pushed back under the heat platen. This clever style of press combines some of the best features of both swing away and clamshell heat presses.

Heat press nation offer a range of drawer operated heat presses.

There’s an Italian brand called Transmatic which makes two drawer presses, the TS2M which is a 20×16″ press, and the  TS74M, a 29×20″ press (74cm x 50cm hence the “74” in the model name).

One of my favourite heat presses, the Stahls Fusion, is a dual style heat press, it swings away, and it’s also a slide out drawer press, so you can use it however suits you best.

What about cost?

Cost is the only pro/con vs clamshell and swing away heat presses that can’t be demonstrated using hands, but it’s a very simple one. Swing away heat presses cost more to manufacture, and they’re usually quite a bit more expensive than clamshell heat presses.

This isn’t to say there aren’t lower cost swing away heat presses, there are of course, but leading brand swing away heat presses are higher cost than leading brand clamshells presses – except for the light use/hobby presses offered by some brands such as the Geo Knight Jet Press range,  and Hix SwingMan Hobby Lite.

Clamshell Vs swing away, conclusion.

I hope this has helped you to get a better understanding of the main differences between swing away, camshell & drawer operated heat presses, so you can decide which is the best style of heat press for you. If you need more help, I’d recommend speaking to one of the friendly folk at Heat Press Nation.

The company was started by George Knight in 1885, and first made industrial heat presses & die cutters primarily for the shoe manufacturing process.

Geo Knight has been one of the leading T shirt heat transfer press manufacturers in the USA for decades, and their heat presses are popular world wide. I’ve had a lot of hands on experience with their heat presses over the years.

I owned a DK20SP for a few years, such a good press. Prior to that, I worked for one of their main dealers, so I was involved in demonstrating, selling and supporting Geo Knight presses.

They make good old fashioned work horse heat presses, built to be serviced, and to last for decades. If you’re looking to invest in a serious business machine, I don’t think you can go wrong with Geo Knight Presses.

I visited the Geo Knight factory in Brockton MA many years ago & was given a tour of the factory by the VP, Aaron Knight. One of the things that struck me during that visit, was the older heat presses that were in for service and repair. Another was the amount of passion that Aaron and the other people I met that day had for their heat presses.

By the way, the heat press supplier I recommend is Heat Press Nation. They’re a very well known & reputable supplier, based in Fullerton, CA, and they stock the most reputable brands including Geo Knight, Hix & Insta.

I do earn money from Heat Press Nation, as an affiliate. In other words, they don’t sponsor this blog as an advertiser, instead I earn an affiliate commission when I refer someone to their website who goes on to buy equipment from them.

This allows me to earn money from the blog in return for the helpful content I create, but without filling the blog with annoying intrusive ads, and it also allows me to only recommend a supplier that I would genuinely & wholeheartedly recommend.

The Geo Knight Jet Press Range

These are the budget, hobby presses or “light use” heat presses made by Geo Knight.

The JP12 is a 9×12 inch press, while the JP14 is 12×14″. They’re both swing away heat presses.

I really can’t knock the Jet Press range,  they’re not the heat presses that I’m used to working with, as they’re really intended for the hobby market or light use, rather than the printing business. But as far as hobby presses go, I think these are great machines.

They don’t have an integrated digital control panel, that you’ll find on the other Geo Knight heat presses. They have a timer which is stuck to the top platen, and they have an analog thermometer as opposed to a digital one. The heat is adjusted via a mechanical dial.

Being very much the entry range heat press from Geo Knight, this press doesn’t have any bells or whistles, but if you’re simply looking for a well built press from a reputable manufacturer, for light use or home use, then the JP12 or JP14 are worth considering.

The Jp12 is $279, and the Jp14 is $495, at HeatPressNation.

See ending soon auctions for Geo Knight Jet Press heat presses on eBay.

The Geo Knight DK16 & DK20

The DK16 and DK20 are clamshell heat presses from Geo Knight. The DK stands for Digital Knight, if you were wondering.

The DK16 & DK20 are very popular commercial heat presses for T shirt production, as are the auto open variations, the DK16A and DK20A.

There are a few key reasons that this is such a popular clamshell heat press.

Wide Opening.

The DK clamshell presses offer more space for the operator to work than with many clamshell presses, due to how wide the gas strut assisted platen opens, it’s a particularly wide opening for a clamshell press.

As you can see from the photo above, there’s plenty of space free between the platens, a lot more space than there is available on many clamshell heat presses.

If you look at the space available towards the back of this clamshell heat press below (which is similar to many cheaper clamshell heat presses available online) you will see what I mean.

Threadability

Threading, means draping, or “dressing” the garment or the bag, etc., over the bottom table. This means that you’re only pressing one side of the garment or bag, vs having apply heat and pressure to both sides of the product.

Not all heat presses have the drape space required to make them threadable, the DK16 & DK20 are easily threadable from the front, with plenty of space below the bottom platen.

Light Weight

For such a substantial heat press, with solid steel framework, capable of heavy pressure and serious production, the DK presses are relatively lightweight (the DK16 is 83 lbs, and the DK20 is 103 lbs).

Interchangeable tables

There are Interchangeable bottom tables available for the DK16 & DK20 to allow for easier pressing of smaller items, particularly useful for pressing baby clothes, children’s garments & bags.

Warranty

All of the Geo Knight DK & DC heat presses come with life time element warranty. There is a three year warranty on the digital control panel, and 1 year on the rest of the press.

The DK16 is $1075, and the DK20 is $1325, and both are available as Automatic models for $175 extra at HeatPressNation.

See ending soon auctions for Geo Knight DK16 & DK20 heat presses on eBay.

The Geo Knight DK7 Cap Press

This is the 4×7 inch cap press version of the DK range.

It features the same quality framework & the same digital controller as the DK16 and DK20, but with top and bottom platen for caps.

It’s a great cap press for the money, at $595 on HeatPressNation.

It’s also available as a twin head version for enhanced production, as the DK7T.

See ending soon auctions for Geo Knight DK7 cap presses on eBay.

The Geo Knight DK8 Label Press

This is the label press model from the Geo Knight DK range.

A very handy heat press for transferring onto specific areas of garments and bags, the DK8 is great for pressing onto bags, collars, sleeves, socks, and much more.

The small platens allow the user to avoid pressing any area of the bag or garment other than the specific area that the transfer needs to be applied to.

The DK8 comes with three interchangeable tables, 6″ x 8″, 3″ x 5″, 3″ x 3″ – and for just $695 on HeatPressHenry.com including all the tables, I think the DK8 offers great value to anyone who needs to press targeted areas of bags & garments.

As with the DK7, there’s also a twin head version for increased production, the DK8T, which is $1,075.00.

See ending soon auctions for Geo Knight DK8 label presses on eBay.

The Geo Knight Digital Combo DC16

The DC16 was, as far as I’m aware, the world’s first full combination press.

This press comes as a 14×16″ swing away heat press, and without the attachments, it’s basically the smaller sibling of the DK20S. The major difference, though, on top of the platen size, is that the DC16 has a number of different attachments available, for pressing mugs, caps, cubes & plates.

I’ve had a lot of experience with the DC16, and I think it’s a great heat press as a stand alone 14×16 swing away heat press. I’m not a big fan of the combination press idea, to be perfectly honest.

If you’re mainly pressing Tshirts & other garments, and there’s no other items that are important enough to warrant buying a stand alone press, then the DC16 wouldn’t be a bad idea in theory, if it represents a big saving on having a separate machine.

The issue I have with combination presses, is that if the item (such as caps, or plates) aren’t important enough an item to warrant spending a few hundred dollars more on a stand alone press for that item, are they an important enough item for you to stop your garment production while you swap the attachment over just to produce one or two of the other item such as caps or plates?

My issue with the DC16 when it comes to using it as a combination press, is that I don’t think the savings are significant enough to make sense.

The cap attachment is $300. Heat Press Nation’s signature series cap press is only $30 more than this, and even the Geo Knight DK7 cap press is only $295 more than this. Having  a stand alone cap press would allow you to press caps and Tshirts at the same time, rather than stopping your Tshirt production to press caps.

The mug attachment is $400, which is nearly $300 MORE than the M Press mug press, and $10 more than the Heat Press Nation Signature series auto mug press, so for me the mug attachment doesn’t make commercial sense at that price.

My problem with most other combination presses, is that is the savings are significant vs buying separate machines, but they’re unbranded and often unreliable and poorly built machines, which is a recipe for disaster when you have one heat press for all of the items you’re going to be pressing.

The only combination heat press machines I would consider if I was looking for a lower cost combination press, would be the HPN Black Series 8-in-1 heat press, and the HPN Signature Series 8-in-1 Multifunction heat press – these are own brand heat presses offered by a reputable heat press supplier with great customer service & support.

But as I said earlier, as a slightly smaller swing away heat press than the DK20S, I think the DC16 is a brilliant option.

The DC16 is $1295 HeatPressNation. and the attachments are between $300-$400.

See ending soon auctions for Geo Knight DC16 on eBay.

The Geo Knight Digital Combo DC16AP

This is the air operated auto version of the DC16, so it’s basically the combination or multi-function version of the DK20SP.

Everything that I said above also goes for the DC16AP, except for the fact that as far as I’m aware the DC16AP is the only pneumatic combination press on the market.

I used to own the DK20SP, a brilliant heat press. The DC16AP is smaller at 14×16 inch vs 16×20 inch, and is roughly $250 less.

The DC16AP is $2300 at HeatPressNation. and the attachments are between $300-$400, as with the DC16.

See ending soon auctions for Geo Knight DC16AP on eBay.

The Geo Knight DK20S

The DK20S is one of the most popular swing away heat presses on the planet, having sold in countless numbers all over the world for decades.

This is a 16 x 20 inch heavy duty swing away heat press, made from industrial grade solid steel framework, it’s truly a work-horse heat press that you can expect to be able to rely on for many years, probably decades!

As with the DK16 & DK20, the DK20S comes with a lifetime element warranty, three years on the control panel, and a year on the rest of the heat press.

One of the things the DK20S is known for, is it’s high max thickness, you can press substrates up to two inches thick on the DK20s, which makes it a popular press for tiles, wood, and other thick items, as well as being a popular T shirt press.

I’ve had a lot of experience with the DK20S, including working with models well over ten years old, they’re such well built, sturdy & reliable work horse machines! These are industrial machines, don’t expect perfect and pretty aesthetics, these presses are built as heavy duty commercial heat press machines.

The only issue I ever had with a DK20S, was I came across a model that was roughly 15 years old, which had some kind of issue with pressure. I simply emailed the support email address on the geo knight website, and received an email the same day telling me how to fix it, and that fifteen year-old press was back to work, probably for another decade or more!

I think the DK20S offers incredible value for such a reliable and high quality heat press, it’s just $1575 at heatpressnation.com, which I think is a brilliant price for this industrial grade press!

There’s a jumbo version available, the DK25S, which is the same press but with 20×25 inch platens, and includes the DK universal stand, for $3,575.00.

See ending soon auctions for Geo Knight DK20S on eBay.

See ending soon auctions for Geo Knight DK25S on eBay.

The Geo Knight DK20SP

This is the air operated version of the DK20S. I’ve owned this press myself in the past, and I can certainly vouch for the DK20SP as a  brilliant, super easy to use industrial grade heat press.

Everything I said above for the DK20S is true for the DK20SP, the major difference is that there’s no effort required to open and close the DK20SP, being air operated.

It’s a bit more expensive, but I still think it’s great value for money at $2,550.00 at heatpressnation.com.

As with the DK20S, there is a jumbo version, the DK25SP at 20×25 inches, which includes the DK universal stand, for $4,550.00

See ending soon auctions for Geo Knight DK20SP on eBay.

See ending soon auctions for Geo Knight DK25SP on eBay.

The Geo Knight Maxi Press

The maxi press is a wide format or “over-sized” manual clamshell heat press, available in two sizes, 32″ x 42″ and 44″ x 64″.

If you want to press sportswear panels, large aluminium panels, large floor mats, carpets or other large items, the Maxi Press is a great option at a relatively low price for such a wide format heat press.

It is a surprisingly effortless process to open and close the maxi press given that it’s such a large platen size, thanks to the design & the gas shock counter springs.

The 32×42″ option is $8950.00, and the 44″ x 64″ is $14,250.00 at heatpressnation.com.

See ending soon auctions for Geo Knight Maxi Press on eBay.

The Geo Knight Maxi Press Air

This is the air operated version of the Maxi Press, so it’s push button operated vs manual open & close.

It’s available in the same two sizes, 32″ x 42″ and 44″ x 64″, and it has all the same benefits as the Maxi, but with the added benefit of being automatic, no effort required – other than the pressing of a button.

The 32×42″ option is $12,250.00, and the 44″ x 64″ is $19,450.00 at heatpressnation.com.

See ending soon auctions for Geo Knight Maxi Press Air on eBay.

Geo Knight Triton 931

This is a wide format pneumatic heat press designed for high volume production of multiple piece items & large sheet materials.

The Triton 931 is available in platen sizes from 4 x 7 feet, to 8 x 12 feet, and is available in various formats; manual single station, manual twin station, auto shuttle single station and auto shuttle twin station.

This is serious production heat press suitable for garments, banners, mats, carpets and other thicker materials including plastics & sheet metal. Also suitable for foiling, laminating, hot stamping & heat sealing.

The Triton is an air bag Pneumatic press, which provide a great deal more pressure than rotary heat presses. This kind of heat press is also self-leveling.

In short, this is a serious press for serious production!

The Triton 931 is priced from $30,750.00 – $ 51,750.00 at heatpressnation.com.

See ending soon auctions for Geo Knight Maxi Press Air on eBay.

If you’re considering inkjet transfer Tshirt printing, or CYMK laser transfer printing, and/or contour cut heat transfer vinyl, then you’ll probably be wondering which is the best cutter plotter to go for.

You may have heard about the Silhouette Cameo, in which case you may be wondering whether the Cameo is the best contour cutter for you, or whether there’s another cutter you should be looking at? 

Do I actually need a vinyl cutter?

I’d recommend starting out asking this question, and this comes down to understanding which Tshirt printing method or methods you are going to be employing.

If you’re planning on only printing via dye sublimation printing for example, then you won’t need a vinyl cutter potter – just a dye sublimation printing set up and a heat press.

If you’re going to be using bought in transfers, or bought in embroidered heat transfer appliques, all you’ll need is a heat press.

You don’t need a cutter plotter for Tshirt screen printing, or DTG printing, or for self weed laser transfer printing with a white toner laser printer.

If you’re going to be using either CMYK laser transfer printing or inkjet transfer printing, you’ll need a cutter, especially when it comes to printing on dark garments. You’ll need the contour cutter for cutting out the unwanted background.

You can get away without doing this for white or light coloured Tshirts if you prefer, although if there is a lot of white background in a design, cutting and then weeding it out will enhance the handle of the garment once the transfer has been applied.

You’ll also need a cutter plotter of course, for Tshirt transfer vinyl.

You’ll buy the vinyl either on the roll, or in sheets, then cut it using a cutter plotter such as the Silhouette Cameo, before finally weeding out the background, and heat pressing onto the Tshirt, hoodie or sweatshirt.

There is also self weeding Tshirt transfer vinyl or flex, for which you don’t need a cutter. You print the text or design in black, using a CMYK laser printer, and then heat press the media to create the transfer, and during this process, the text or image automatically becomes separate from the background, which is known as “self weed”.

Is the Silhouette Cameo machine, the best vinyl cutter plotter for Tshirts?

If you’ve decided you’re going to be using a Tshirt printing method which does require a cutter plotter, the next question would be, what is the best vinyl cutter plotter for Tshirts, and is it the Silhouette Cameo?

The first thing I would say, is that in my opinion, whether you’re going to be using Tshirt vinyl, or cutting out the background on laser or inkjet transfers, the Silhouette Cameo will do the job fine.

However, whether you should go for small desktop cutter, would depend on the width of the media you want to use.

If you’re mainly going to be using Tshirt vinyl on the roll – a desktop cutter probably isn’t the best choice.

On the face of it, it would seem that when it comes to Tshirts, a small desktop cutter plotter like the Silhouette Cameo, would be fine – with a max cutting width of 12″, and a max length of 10 feet, without a cutting mat.

Surely this is more than enough for Tshirt printing?

It is, but the issue comes when you want to buy Tshirt vinyl on the roll, as a lot of the suppliers of vinyl sell it on rolls at 15″ or above, meaning they’re too large for the Cameo, and other small desktop cutter plotters.

It’s not that you can’t get 12″ rolls of vinyl, you can – it’s just that you’re restricted to who you can buy from, if you want to buy on 12″ rolls, and it’s likely to cost you more.

The most cost effective way to buy vinyl, is usually on the roll at 15″ wide or above. You can cut the rolls down to 12″, or have them cut down, but then you’re losing 3″ or more of the roll width, which means your vinyl cost increases as a result.

You can buy Tshirt vinyl in smaller rolls and sheet form, you’ll usually find the cost is higher, although, you’ll need to compare the cost to the cost of vinyl on the roll once it’s cut down, to know whether you’re better off buying rolls or sheets.

If you know that you’re going to be mainly focusing on Tshirt vinyl – for this reason, you may be better advised to look at a 15″ or 24″ vinyl cutter, such as the popular Graphtec CE600 15″, or the same 24″ version of the CE600.

In terms of which is best 15″ or 24″, again it mainly comes down to the roll width of the Tshirt vinyl you’re going to be purchasing. If you find that some of the vinyl you want to work with is sold on rolls wider than 15″, then going for a 24″ cutter would make sense.

Decent 15″ cutters such as the Graphtec, will set you back around $1,200 new, and 24″ around $2,000.

If you don’t have the budget, then I’d consider looking for a used top brand cutter plotter, vs going for a brand new no brand cutter, the same advice I offer when it comes to heat presses.

Don’t have the budget for a bigger cutter?

If you don’t have the budget, and you don’t want to go for a used cutter, then starting out with a desktop cutter such as the Silhouette Cameo and being restricted on roll width, isn’t the end of the world.

It may make your costs a bit higher when using Tshirt vinyl, but when it comes to the overall impact it will have on your profit margins, it’s unlikely to make much of a difference, especially when you take into account the monthly depreciation value of the more expensive bigger cutter into the equation when doing your profit and loss.

So whether the Silhouette Cameo is the best cutter for you, it really depends on your intended use, your budget, and whether or not it will cause you much of an issue to not be able to load the larger rolls of vinyl.

The Cameo has a max width of 12″, meaning that you could create maximum text or image height of just under 12 inches (realistically probably about 11.5), with a max width of 10 feet (without a cutting mat).

So it’s plenty big enough for most transfers for Tshirts and other garments.

If you’re planning on creating larger stickers, or using the cutter for other applications, then just pay close attention to the maximum cutting size & work out whether the cutting size of a smaller desktop cutter plotter such as the Cameo is going to restrict you from doing what you were planning to do.

The best desktop vinyl cutter under $300

I think it’s fair to say that the Silhouette Cameo is one of the most popular, best selling desktop cutter plotters, for home use, for crafting, for t shirts, particularly for startup businesses or anyone with an entry level budget.

The Cameo is very popular for the craft market, it’s a very well known machine within the crafting community, the current version at the time of writing, is the Silhoutte Cameo 3.

If we’re talking about the best cutter for vinyl period, or for Tshirts period, without taking into account budget or size, then it’s probably not a fair contest given that many of the other cutters we would need to take into consideration, would be much bigger, more industrial cutters with much higher price tags.

But if we’re asking whether or not the Cameo is the best vinyl cutter at this price range, then I do think it’s very fair to say that the Silhouette Cameo is a contender for title of the best desktop vinyl cutter under $300.

Dual Carriages

The Silhouette Cameo has two carriages, which means it is able to both sketch and cut at the same time, meaning you don’t need to stop and change from pen to blade if you’re cutting and drawing at the same time.

This isn’t going to be of much use for Tshirt vinyl, or inkjet or laser transfers, but if you’re using the cutter for other kinds of products, such as tags and labels for example, being able to sketch and cut at the same time is a great feature.

Autoblade

One of the really clever things about the Silhouette Cameo, is the autoblade, which means that the blade automatically changes it’s length depending on what you’re cutting.

This is such a great feature, oh and by the way, if you do go for the Silhouette Cameo and you seem to be having cutting problems, usually with the blade cutting to deep, just make sure you have the auto blade pushed all the way in, if you look at the blade and notice there’s maybe a 1mm gap around the ridge, that’s not right, there shouldn’t be any gap. You need to push it down so it’s properly locked in. This seems to be an error many people make. See the video below for more info.

Silhouette Studio

One of the great things about the Cameo, is the software, Silhouette Studio. As with the Sawgrass Virtuoso dye sublimation printers with VPM and creative studio, Silhouette Studio is a tool which is designed to make life as simple and easy as possible for the operator, so it’s a great thing for beginners.

While you can bring in text and images from other programs including Photoshop, Silhouette Studio has plenty of fonts to choose from, and if you want to buy templates & designs rather than making your own, there are masses available at the Silhouette Design Store, and they’re really not expensive (at about $0.50 each).

It’s really straight forward to create your own designs including text, using Silhouette Studio.

Cheaper Vinyl Cutters?

You can get cheaper, non branded cutters, but as with other machines including printers and heat presses, it’s not necessarily the best idea to buy based purely on price, especially when the difference is fairly insignificant.

The Cameo has a lot going for it, including Silhouette Studio, IMO this alone is worth the $50-$100 that you could save on going for a cheaper small desktop cutter.

What about Cricut?

There’s another small desktop vinyl cutter brand on the market which is also very popular, called Cricut. Cricut do a few models, but the one which is closest in terms of price and features to Cameo, is the Cricut Explore Air 2.

Wins for Cricut Explore Air 2

• Capable of faster cutting (although you probably wouldn’t use the fast mode for Tshirt vinyl).
• Slightly more precise when cutting more intricate designs.
• Much more cutting power, 4Kg vs 210g (wouldn’t make much difference for Tshirt vinyl or transfers)

Wins for Silhouette Cameo 3

• Bigger max cut when cutting out printed media.
• Bigger max cut length, of 10 feet (without a cutting mat) vs 23.5 inches
• Silhouette Studio, from what I can gather, is a design space which is easier to use.

Just to explain the bigger max cut with printed media. This is probably one of the most important wins for Cameo 3 Vs Cricut Explore Air 2 when it comes to Tshirt printing.

If you’re cutting vinyl, then the max cut size with the Cricut explore Air 2 is 12 x 23.5″, Vs 12″ x 10 feet with the Silhouette Cameo 3. I doubt this would be an issue for you for Tshirt printing, it’s doubtful many Tshirt printers would need to produce transfers larger than 12×23.5″.

For me, though, the potential issue with the max cut with printed transfers, which restricts the size of printed transfers that the Cricut Explore Air 2 will cut, which depends on which browser you’re using.

• Google Chrome: 5.5 x 8 inches
• Mozilla Firefox/Safari/Internet Explorer/Edge: 6 x 8.5 inches
• iOS apps: 6.5 x 9 inches

For more on this, read this post on the non crafty crafter.

If you’re just starting to research setting up a T shirt & giftware printing business, one of the things you’ll need to decide on is the heat press, and one of the questions you’ll come across, is swing away vs clamshell heat presses, which one is right for you?

The difference between swing away and clamshell heat presses.

They both deliver heat and pressure, they both achieve the same end result in terms of heat pressing transfers to T shirts & other items. But they do it slightly differently.

Swing away heat presses

Swing away heat presses work with the top platen remaining parallel to the bottom table, and the heat platen then swings away (hence the name) around the back of the machine.

As you can see by the photo to the left, of the Geo Knight DK20SP swing away heat press, you need to swing the top platen all the way out to the back, in order to have full access to the bottom table.

Clam or clamshell heat presses

With clam presses, the top platen opens and closes like a sea shell, hence the name.

So the heat platen lifts up, not remaining parallel to the lower table as with swing away presses, but with the heat platen facing the operator.

As you can see on the photo on the left of the Geo Knight DK20 clamshell heat press, operating a clamshell heat press is just a case of opening and closing the press.

The Pros of Clamshell Heat Presses.

• Cheaper
• Lighter weight & more portable
• Faster production
• Space saving

Cheaper

While you will find some budget swing away heat presses (Geo Knight offer the Jet Press hobby/craft presses, and Hix have  the SwingMan Hobby Lite) generally speaking, clamshell presses are less expensive than swing away.

Usually if you’re looking at a range of heat presses from the same manufacturer, you’ll find that their clamshell presses are the cheaper presses in the range.

This is true with Geo Knight, the DK20s swing away is $250 more than the DK20 camshell. With Stahls, their Hotronix Fusion swing away heat press is at the top end of their range at $500 more than the Stahls Hotronix auto open 16×20″. The Hix Swingman 16×20 is around $400 more than their HT600 clamshell, and the Insta 256 swing away is $300 more than their 158 clamshell.

Lighter Weight

Again, there are exceptions to this such as the Geo Knight Jet Press 12 and 14, and the Hix SwingMan Hobby Lite but swing away heat presses are usually a lot heavier than clamshell heat presses.

An example of this is the Geo Knight DK20s is 200lbs, and the DK20 clamshell is 103lbs. The Stahls Hotronix fusion is 137lbs vs the Stahls Hotronix auto open at 87lbs.

Faster production

With clamshell heat presses, all you need to do is open and close the press, while with swing away heat presses you need to open the press and then swing it around the side and to the back, and then back again. So the process is slightly quicker than operating a swing away heat press.

Space Saving

As clamshell presses are operated vertically, they don’t require any more horizontal space than their footprint, while swing away heat presses require the depth of the heat platen all the way to around and to the back of the heat press.

This means that you can push a clamshell press up to a wall, or into a corner for example, while with a swingaway press you’ll need 20″ (or whatever the depth of the platen, to the right and behind the heat press.

See, clamshell heat presses available on heatpressnation.com, eBay & Amazon

The Pros of Swing away Heat Presses

• Heat platen is moved completely away from the operator
• Press thicker items

Heat platen moved away from the operator

This is probably the no1 reason that many people prefer swing away heat presses over clamshell presses.

With clamshell presses, the heat platen lifts up to face the user, or more specifically, to face the back of the users hands, wrists and forearms while working on the bottom table.

With some of the premium clamshell presses including Geo Knight and Stahls, you’ll notice that the top platen does lift up higher than with others, while many of the cheap imported clamshell heat presses don’t open up quite as far, meaning the heat platen is fairly close to the back of the operator’s hands.

Press thicker items.

Due to the way swing away heat presses open, with the top platen lifting up while remaining parallel to the bottom table, you’ll usually find that swing away heat presses have a larger maximum item thickness.

This wouldn’t usually be an issue with T shirts and other garments, but if you’re wanting to press onto thicker items such as wooden blocks, signs, acrylic panels, tiles, etc., then just double check, if you’re thinking of going for a clamshell, that it will take the thicker items you’re wanting to work with.

It does change depending on the brand and the model, but as a rough rule of thumb I’d assume a max thickness of around 3/4 inch to an inch with clamshells (around 2-3cm), and around one to two inches with clamshell pesses. 

Remember this is just a guesstimate, if you need to press an item of a particular thickness, then make sure you check with whoever you’re buying your heat press from, that it’ll take the item.

See, swing away heat presses available on heatpressnation.com, eBay & Amazon

So you now know the difference between swing away vs clamshell heat presses. Also see heat presses FAQ, Cheap Heat Presses? The Pros and Cons, Best Heat Presses For Tshirts.

The fact that you’re searching the web for a used Geo Knight heat press for sale, means you know at least something about Geo Knight heat presses. You may have heard that they’re a great heat press brand. You probably know that these heat press machines are almost bomb proof, they’re really built to last, and that even if you’re buying one a few years old, it’s likely to have many years in it yet, maybe even decades. 

In my humble opinion, from experience (I’ve had a great deal of experience with Geo Knight heat presses, including used Geo Knight heat presses) if you’re on a budget and considering buying a new cheap heat press machine, buying a used known brand heat press is a good alternative, and buying a used Geo Knight heat press is probably one of the best decisions you can make. 

Built to last!

The reason I think Geo Knight presses are such a good idea to buy used, is they’re such workhorses, they really are built to last!

These are proper, good old fashioned commercial heat presses, built as business machines. They’re built to be serviced, to be repaired, and to last a LONG time.

These are not the semi disposable heat presses that you’ll find being sold by box shifters all over the web, which often end up as scrap metal within just a year or two.

If you buy a Geo Knight heat press a few years old, the chances are it will still have many more years of life, and will outlive most of the brand new cheaper imported presses that you may also be considering.

I visited the Geo Knight factory in Brockton MA many years ago, and was given a tour by Aaron Knight (very nice guy). One of the things that amazed me while I was there, was the number of really old heat presses that were in for servicing.

It became clear to me that these presses aren’t made to last a year or two, they’re literally made to last decades, they’re made to be serviced, to be repaired when needed, and it’s very unlikely in opinion, that any Geo Knight DK heat press is going to end up as scrap metal in anything under ten years, most will probably las a lot longer.

There are many Geo Knight presses across the country, and the world, that are fifteen to twenty years old, or even older, that still have plenty of life in them, so these really are heat presses that are made to last.

Built to perfom

Geo Knight heat presses are also built to perform, they’re relied upon by printing firms all over the world, they have to perform well.

These are not heat presses that are designed for the hobby market (with the exception of the Jet Press range).

These presses are made for industry, if they didn’t perform well, Aaron Knight and his team would have a real problem on their hands – so you can trust that if you’re buying a Geo Knight heat press, not only is it likely to last, it’s also likely to not give you issues in terms of performance.

For an example of the kind of support you can expect from Geo Knight, read this post on the T shirt forums.

In particular the used Geo Knight heat presses that I think represent the best potential bargains, are:

Geo Knight DK Clamshell Heat Presses, DK16 & DK20

These are the two small format T shirt sizes clamshell heat transfer presses offered by Geo Knight.

I’ve had a lot of hands on experience with these presses, and like all of the DK presses, they’re a very well designed and well made heat press, they work great, and they’re built to last.

The DK16 is 14X16″, and the DK20 is 16×20″.

They also make the DK7 cap press, and the DK8 “label press” which is a 6×8″ press popular for labels, and for bags. They also make a Twin version of the DK7 & DK8 for increased production speeds.

DK16 & DK20 Features

• All-Thread™ table loading design (great garment thread-ability, see the video above)
• Fully digital temperature control 32°-600°F range
• Automatic digital timer & dual pre-press timer
• Digital Pressure Bar Graph
• Super-portable light machine weight – 83 lbs !
• Extreme high pressure capability
• Hardened high-strength pivot points
• Interchangeable tables
• Solid Steel framework
• SuperCoil-Microwinding™ heater technology
• Self lifting gas-spring, & wide opening
• Temperature readout accuracy +-2°F – can show °C or °F
• User selectable end-of-cycle alarms
• Records number of pressing cycles done
• Teflon-coated 3/4″ thick heat platen
• Auto open upgrade available
• Stand available
• FREE LIFETIME Tech Support!
• Lifetime warranty on heat platen
• 5-year warranty on frame
• 3-year warranty on controller
• 1 year warranty on parts

DK20S

This is Geo Knight’s flagship small format swing away heat press. Again, I’ve had a lot of hands on with this Geo Knight swing away heat press, and they’re great presses.

Built like tanks, at around 200lbs they’re not a press you’ll want to pick up and move around much, they’re a brilliant performing heat press which will just keep on going.

There’s really not much that could go wrong with these presses, and if there was anything wrong, you’d just email or telephone

If I was looking now for a heat press on a budget, and if I didn’t need portability, I’d probably be looking at a Geo Knight DK20S or a DK20SP, and I wouldn’t be concerned too much with how many years it has behind it, these presses will just keep on going.

DK20S Features

• All-Thread™ table loading design
• Fully digital temperature control 32°-600°F range
• Automatic digital timer & dual pre-press timer
• Digital Pressure Bar Graph
• 70 Programmable presets
• Solid steel welded framework
• Instantly interchangeable & rotatable tables
• SuperCoil-Microwinding™heater technology
• Accommodates materials up to 2″ thick
• Temperature readout accuracy +-2°F – can show °C or °F
• User selectable end-of-cycle alarms
• Records number of pressing cycles done
• Teflon-coated 3/4″ thick heat platen
• Twin shuttle attachment available for increased production speed
• FREE LIFETIME Tech Support!
• Lifetime warranty on heat platen
• 5-year warranty on frame
• 3-year warranty on controller
• 1 year warranty on parts

DK20SP

This is the automatic, air operated version of the DK20S. In addition to the features of the DK20S, the DK20S doesn’t require any user effort to press, there’s no clamp, you just press the buttons on the side of the machine to press at the required pressure, and it auto releases at the end of the cycle.

I used a DK20SP for a couple of years with one of my previous businesses, brilliant press, great if you’re doing a lot of production.

Keep in mind that you need a compressor, so they’re really made for industrial environments, although you can of course get quieter compressors. When it comes to the compressor, remember that the larger tank capacity, the less often the compressor will need to kick in, so the compressor noise will be less of an issue.

Geo Knight Digital Combo

In addition to the above there is the DC16 Digital Combo, and the DC16AP, which is the automatic air operated version of this heat press.

I’m not the biggest fan of the combination presses. I wrote about this in more detail in the post 5 in 1 Heat Presses or Combo Heat Presses, but basically when it comes to the idea of using a combination press vs separate heat presses, I don’t believe that the potential saving is great enough to offset the negative aspects of using a combination press vs individual heat presses.

But with that being said, I still think the DC16 is a great heat press, forgetting the combination press aspect and just treating it as a 14×16″ digital swing away heat press.

At $1295 new, it’s not a cheap heat press, but it’s a very heavy duty well made swing away heat press, with most of the same features as the DK20S, including the ability to press items up to 2″ thick.

And here’s the really interesting thing about the Digial Combo DC16 for anyone setting up a T shirt printing business on a budget – you can pick them up for an absolute steal!

I’ve seen used Geo Knight DC16 heat presses selling, in good working condition, from a few hundred dollars.

If you have a limited budget, to me it makes a lot more sense to invest in used press of this calibre, than to spend a similar amount on a brand new cheaper imported press.

Simply because these heat presses are industrial presses, built to last and to be serviced and repaired, which isn’t always the same with cheaper imported machinery.

Geo Knight Maxi Press

It’s worth stating that for most people reading this, the Geo Knight Maxi Press will be way too much in terms of size and cost. However, there will be some people on this blog who’re looking at setting up on a bigger scale, and if this is you, the Geo Knight Maxi press are well worth a look.

Available as air operated and manual clamshell presses, the Maxi press is available with 32″ x 42″ platens, and 44″ x 64″, so we’re talking wide format here.

They’re serious wide format production presses, starting at $8,950 for the 32″x42″ manual, $ 14,250.00 for the 44″x64″, and the air operated versions start at $12,250, but you can pick them up used with plenty of life left in them, for fairly reasonable amounts.

Maxi Press Features

• SuperCoil-Microwinding™ heater technology
• Ultra thick heater block assembly
• Solid steel pressure bars
• Heavy steel frame structures
• Unique heavy duty linkage assembly
• Even & Adjustable applied pressure
• Adjustable platen height
• Solid lower platen base
• Self leveling heater block assembly
• Solid loading bed with ultra thick nomex padding
• Automatic start/stop/reset timer – hands free operation
• Heavy duty locking casters for easy movability and solid support
• Weightless ease of use due to gas shock hydraulic self contained springs
• FREE LIFETIME Tech Support!
• Full one year warranty on heating element, controls and entire press

If you’re thinking about producing a number of different kinds of products, including T shirts and caps, and/or mugs and other products, you may be thinking about going for a combination press, combo press, or a “5 in 1 press”, “6 in 1” “8 in 1 heat press”, etc.,

Are combination presses a good idea?

Simply put, no, not as far as I’m concerned.

In my humble opinion, the one kind of heat press that should be avoided if at all possible, is the 5 in 1 heat press, or combo heat press.

There’s one exception to this, and that is with just one combination heat press by Geo Knight, the Geo Knight Digital Combo DC16.

Please stick with me, and I’ll explain why…

There’s one very well known, very trusted US made heat press brand who make a digital combo press.

It’s $1295 new, just for the main T shirt press with the flat platen, and the other attachments are $250 and up, each.

This is the Geo Knight DC16, which is the original combination press.

The majority of the 5 in 1 heat presses, 6 in 1, 8 in 1 and so on heat presses which are sold as digital combo heat presses, are much, much cheaper semi disposable heat presses, made with much lesser components, far less reliability, far less durability.

There are two main negative aspects of buying a combination heat press, in my opinion, which are:

• Reduced Production
• Potential for a complete stop in production

Reduced Production

For me, the main negative is that having a combination press is a drop in production potential which comes from only being able to press one kind of product at any one time.

For example, if you had mugs and T shirts to produce, with a separate flat press and mug press, you can do both at the same time – same is true if you had an order for caps and Tshirts at the same time.

When you’re using a combination press, though, you need to do them one at a time, along with a bit of waiting time while the platen gets cool enough to handle, so your production capabilities are reduced quite a bit.

Potential for a complete stop in production

The other negative is that if you have a combination press and it has any kind of issue which requires repair, if the issue is with the digital controller or any other part of the main heat press assembly, and not an issue with one of the individual attachments, this means all of your production stops until the issue is fixed.

If we’re talking about a Geo Knight DC16, then I wouldn’t be too worried about this. The chances of having an issue in the first place are fairly slim. If you do, the Geo Knight support is great, they’ll do what they can to get you back up and running as quickly as possible.

If we’re talking about a cheaply made combination press made in China and imported, then in my opinion, the chances of having a problem are much higher, as are the chances of it taking quite some time to get the issue fixed, which will depend on the reliability of the aftersales service of your supplier.

Why I wouldn’t even recommend the DC16 as a combination press.

Even though Geo Knight are a great, reputable heat press manufacturer, and I highly recommend their heat presses, I wouldn’t even recommend the DC16 as a combination heat press, for most people.

The reason for this is that I don’t think the saving is significant enough to make it worthwhile, when offset against the negative in terms of lesser production capability.

The DC16 isn’t a cheap heat press at $1295 for a 14×16″ heat press, and then the mug press attachment is $400 extra, the cap attachment is $300, the plate attachment is $250 – so once you’ve added one or two attachments, it becomes a fairly pricey setup.

You could, for example (comparing all brand new prices) have a DK16 and a DK7 cap press for $1,670 – or a DC16 with the cap attachment for $1,595. Or a DK16 and a DK3 for $1825 – or a DC16 with the mug attachment for $1695 .

The one exception

There’s one exception, and that is – when available used for a bargain price!

As a flat press (just with the standard Tshirt platens) the DC16 is a great swing away heat press, with most the same features as the brilliant $1600 DK20S, including the ability to press items up to 2″ thick.

I’ve seen the DC16 sell at times on eBay, used, at prices which make them a brilliant option, especially when it comes to just using as a flat press with the standard flat platen.

Looking at recent sold items on eBay, one went for $300, another sold for around $400, and at these kinds of prices, they’re very difficult to beat.

Geo Knight presses are made to last! As I wrote in used Geo Knight heat presses, these presses are proper industrial pieced of equipment, made to work for decades – they’re not the same semi disposable machines that are made in the tens of thousands and imported to the US and other countries where they might last a few years before ending up as scrap metal.

So if you can get hold of a Geo Knight DC16 for just a few hundred dollars, you have a flat heat press that has the potential to keep you in business producing Tshirts and other flat items for years & years.

If you’re thinking of also doing other items such as mugs, and/or caps, you could get setup with the flat press first if you can get hold of a used DC16, and then keep your eye out for a used DK7 cap press for example, and a used DK3 mug press, and end up with a great production setup, allowing you to produce all these items at the same time.

Just to explain the difference. Let’s assume that you jump into your woocommerce or Shopify orders page on Monday morning, or you login to your Etsy or Amazon shop, and you discover you have 30 Tshirts to produce, 6 caps and 10 mugs.

Depending on what T shirt printing method you’re using, each shirt might take 30-40 seconds in the press, so once you’ve prepared your transfers, you maybe have 30 mins or so of pressing to do.

Similar pressing time for caps, so you’ll only need the cap pressing tool for 5 mins or so.

The mugs will take more like 3 minutes each, maybe a bit more.

So if you had a flat heat press, a mug press and a cap press, you’d multi task, and complete the entire production run within an hour or so.

Compare this to using a combination press, you’d probably do the caps first, get them out of the way, wait a bit for the platen to cool enough so you can handle it comfortably with heat resistant gloves, swap to the flat platens, do the T shirts, wait again for the platen to cool, swap to the mug attachment.

If you’re only pressing the occasional T shirt, or the occasional mug, then this isn’t going to be much of a problem, but I don’t think you’re going to be bothering to invest in setting up a printing business just to do the odd one or two items?

If you’re hoping to be getting into some fairly reasonable profitable production volume, then I think you’d be far better off with individual heat presses vs a combination or 5 in 1 heat press.

If you’re thinking of getting into dye sublimation printing, you’ll be wondering which is the best dye sublimation printer for you to go for.

Do you go for an Epson, a Ricoh, a Sawgrass Virtuoso?

For me this is a very easy question to answer. Sawgrass Virtuoso, no exception, no doubt.

In my experienced opinion, nothing else comes close, if we’re talking about small format Dye sublimation printers.

Before I continue, let me assure you that I have nothing to do with Sawgrass, I don’t work for them, I’m not sponsored by them, I have no ulterior motive to say what I’m saying – it’s simply my opinion that when it comes to small format dye sublimation printing, there is no other sensible option but Sawgrass Virtuoso.

A short history about small format dye sublimation printers.

Going back to the early 00s, when I was fairly new to the Tshirt and gift printing industry, small format dye sublimation was all about Epson printers. Everyone back then was using an Epson, there was no alternative for small format dye sub printing.

When they worked, they were fine, but they were a bit of a nightmare to keep working – and to be fair to Epson themselves, this wasn’t just down to the printers themselves, but also due to the fact that they were open systems, meaning that they were mainly running with continuous ink systems or refillable ink cartridges, which could lead to problems.

The other major problem back then, was that if you had a problem with your printer, and phoned Espson for support, they weren’t interested once they heard that you were running dye sublimation ink, as they classed this as third party ink, which meant that they wouldn’t support you under the warranty.

Jump forward a few years, and Ricoh gel jet printers came along, the GXE3300N A4 and GX37110 A3, followed by the SG3110 and SG7110. (SG stands for System Geljet, by the way, not Sawgrass as some people assume).

These printers were like a breath of fresh air compared to dye sublimation printing with Epsons. Ricoh small format printers (A4 and A3) are brilliant workhorses, they just keep working!

I remember being amazed the first time I’d left a Ricoh with sublimation in, switched off during a vacation, to return, switch it on, and start printing straight away without even having to do one head clean!

There was some shock initially at the price per ml of the ink cartridges vs what people were used to paying.

People (me included, at the time) had failed to take into account the fact that this Gel ink is more efficient than standard inks, it goes further, and on top of this, there’s a lot less requirement to use ink for head cleans.

So, for the small format (A4 & A3) sublimation printing business, Ricoh printers were a brilliant development, and things improved with the next generation of Ricoh printers, the SG3110DN & SG7110DN.

The problems with Ricoh printers

The only real problem with Ricoh, was the same issue with Epson, which was there was no printer warranty for anyone using dye sublimation ink. If you had a problem with your printer, as soon as you phoned Ricoh and mentioned the fact that you were printing with dye sublimation ink, they didn’t want to know.

Other than this, if you were using cartridges, and therefore had a fully closed system (which is how printers are designed to work) then the only occasional issue with Ricoh printers is the banding issue, which is a very simple one to fix. It’s just a case of re-setting the head position, in the menu on the printer, with the up and down arrows.

There will be the occasional fault, too, of course, but it’s rare with Ricoh, they’re well made printers.

Problem Solved by Sawgrass

After this situation had been going on for quite some time, with the warranty issue on Ricoh printers, Sawgrass came up with a solution to resolve this issue while hugely improving things for dye sublimation printing businesses in one fell swoop!

They created a new improved A4 and A3 dye sublimation printer, using the same physical framework of the SG3110 and SG7110, but with upgrades under the hood.

At the same time, they developed the amazing Virtuoso Print Manager, which is like power driver (the previous Sawgrass print driver) on steroids.

As if that wasn’t enough, they also created Creative Studio, which is an online design suite specifically for garment and giftware decoration, and bundled this all together, along with… Fully inclusive warranty.

The warranty for everything, is all handled by Sawgrass. So if you have a problem of any kind, there’s just one place to contact, and you don’t need to worry about your printer not being covered under warranty.

What’s so good about the new Virtuoso printers? Aren’t they just re-badged Ricoh SG3110 & SG7110 printers?

This is a common question, and it’s a fair question.

From the outside the SG400 & SG800 look just like the Ricoh SG3110DN and SG7110DN printers but with a Sawgrass badge.

But there’s more to these new dye sublimation printers than meet the eye.

• More colors
• Faster printing
• Increased print resolution
• Increase print quality
• More economical ink usage

More colours

An increase in the color gamut of approximately 26%.

Faster printing

The Virtuoso printers print up to twice the speed of the previous Ricoh printers, at up to 156 prints per hour.

Increased print resolution

Maximum print resolution of 1200×1200 dpi, vs 600×600.

Increased print quality

The new XY drive system provides a higher quality print, thanks to improved dot formation and placement.

More economical ink usage.

The new HD inks are more dense, which makes them go further.

Game changer for dye sublimation printing!

I don’t think new dye sublimation printers quite appreciate how lucky they are to be getting into the business right now, with this fantastic fully comprehensive system available at such an affordable price.

I also don’t think many people who’ve got setup to print via dye sublimation within the past year or two realize quite what a bad move they made by avoiding the Sawgrass Virtuoso system in order to save a few dollars on the initial setup costs!

The benefits above are just the beginning of it, I’ve not even touched yet on the amazing power of VPM and creative studio…

Virtuoso Print Manager

VPM is more than just a print driver.

It has the simplicity and ease of use of a print driver, but with some of the features that would usually be associated with expensive commercial print rips, some of which cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars!

Including hot folders with customizable presets, image nesting, web to print workflows, advanced color management including spot colors…

Sawgrass are continually improving and adding to it to, I’ve seen a number of improvements since it was first released.

Creative Studio.

Creative studio is an online product design tool created specifically for dye sublimation printing, and there’s literally nothing else quite like it (or at least there isn’t, that I’m aware of, at the time of writing).

You simply select the product you’re going to be printing (or use the search tool), then add your image, if you’re printing your customer’s own logo or photo, etc., scale it, add text if required, select font, color, size, and then print.

Not only this, but there are hundreds of design templates ready for you to customize, and a huge and growing library of curated, copyright free images and fonts for you to use, all within creative studio!

For example, assuming that a customer comes along and wants a wooden trophy shield printing with a soccer theme. Instead of creating this from scratch, you can look for a template which you think works for the job, and then simply change the team name, and the text, change the colors accordingly, and create the design in a fraction of the time it would have taken you to create it from scratch.

Then, you can simply click on the mockup maker icon to save a product mockup of the design on the wooden trophy (or whatever your client has requested) to show them how it’s going to look, and gain approval prior to printing.

You can also use the mockup maker to create your own unique product images for online and offline use!

Warranty and support.

In addition to all the above, the warranty and support offered by Sawgrass is another reason to go for Sawgass virtuoso.

If you have a problem, you can get support from Sawgrass via phone, online chat, or email – and they have a remote support tool so you can give the support team access to your system if needs be.

The warranty in the US is one year, in the UK & Europe it’s 2 years.

Need to print bigger?

The bigger brother to the SG400 & SG800, is the Virtuoso VJ 628, a 25″ printer which has become particular popular with printers of large Chromaluxe Aluminum panels, with up to 8 colours, and a max print resolution of 1400×1400.

While the smaller two printers in the range are Ricoh based, the VJ 628 is manufactured by Mutoh.

Technically speaking, it’s still classed as a small format printer, but at a max print width of 24.4 inches, it’s the first “small format” dedicated dye sublimation printer which is capable of printing full bleed 24″ prints.

It’s not just about the print width, though. This is a seriously good printer in terms of resolution and color definition, and can be used with a range of different ink set options.

This printer uses Epson print heads, but unlike the small format Epson heads that were a pain to work with dye sublimation inks, these are the Epson DX7 print heads, the same heads that are used in many commercial level wide format printers including Mimaki, Roland and Mutoh.

The VJ 628 comes in two main configurations (there are a few more configurations, but most suppliers sell it set up for one of these two main ink configurations), dual CMYK (for faster print speeds), or 8 colour for the best colour definition.

Keep in mind that, of course, if you’re wanting to print at the full 24″ full bleed, to print on the 24″ Chromaluxe panels or other similar sized blanks, you’ll need a suitable size heat press, such as the Geo Knight DK25 or DK32.

What about cheaper sublimation printer?

When it comes to the smaller sublimation printers, there are cheaper options, which can look quite appealing, and which have sold very well on eBay and other websites for the past few years.

These are Epson or Ricoh printers, usually with a continuous ink system or refillable cartridges.

I’ll just give a few warnings about cheap sublimation printers before I conclude this post.

Greater chance of errors and faults.

Over the years, I’ve helped many people with problems with their printers. When it comes to Ricoh printers in particular, I started to see a pattern.

Just about every time there was what appeared to be a terminal issue with the printer, when I asked them what ink they were using, it wasn’t Sawgrass ink, it was a cheaper imported non branded sublimation ink, and when I asked what kind of cartridges they were using, they were refillable.

I had supported many customers who were using the Ricoh printers with Sawgrass cartridges, and there was rarely a phone call from one of these customers with a serious issue. What became very common, however, was phone calls from people who couldn’t get support from where they’d bought their printer from, who were unable to print due to a serious issue, and who were using refillable ink cartridges.

What I came to believe, is that many of these problems are caused due to the fact that the use of refillable cartridges means it’s no longer a closed system, as it would be with standard cartridges.

Air, and possibly other things such as small particles of plastic from the stopper in the tops of the cartridge, or bits of dirt in the funnels used to refill the cartridges, could end up getting trapped in the pipes and then causing damage to the print head.

This, and/or an issue with cheaper poorly made sublimation ink, and/or cheap poorly made refillable cartridges (or a combination) are more than likely to be the cause of these kinds of issues, in my opinion.

Not Necessarily Cheaper Printing

As well as the cheaper purchase price, many people opt for a cheaper sublimation printing system with non-Sawgrass inks based on a potential saving in print cost.

The first thing to say about that, is that the print costs with Sawgrass Virtuoso printers, is much lower than many would assume, also, the ink cost is one of the smallest factors in the overall cost of sale of a dye sublimation printed garment or gift item. So to go for a cheaper system for the sake of a potential slight saving in printing costs, probably isn’t the best business decision, when you take everything else into account.

Plus, this potential saving that many think they’ll get with a cheaper dye sublimation printing setup, is often not quite what it seems.

Yes, the price per ml of some of the cheaper systems may be half the price (or even less), but as well as the potential for issues caused by cheaper, lesser quality dye sublimation inks, and refillable cartridges, there’s also the fact that…

Cheaper dye sublimation printer setups can use as much as double the ink

No, they don’t tell you that in the sales copy! 😉

You see, Sawgrass are a big company, with a lot of resources, and they’ve been doing this for a long time.

They have put enormous effort over the year into developing fantastic dye sublimation inks, to the highest quality standards, and they’ve also done a tremendous amount of work over the years on the color profiles.

The result of this, is that their systems produce brilliant results, with all designs, whether you’re looking for super vivid colors for a cartoon style design, or very realistic photographic printing.

If you haven’t got the resources to do all of this, which I suspect is the case when it comes to generic cheap dye sublimation ink being imported under various different names, how do you get around it?

The simple answer is, is with over saturated ink profiles.

Simply putting more ink down can hide a multitude of sins, but what it can also mean is that people have bought a system based on the ink costing half as much, and don’t realize that they’re actually using twice the amount of ink too!

Not only this, but systems like this may produce acceptable looking cartoon style designs, it is very difficult to get realistic photographic prints when you’re putting down too much ink.

I’m not saying there aren’t now other manufacturers of dye sublimation inks who also, like Sawgrass, produce brilliant inks and great profiles, capable of great results for all types of imagery.

At the time of writing, I’m not personally aware of anyone but Ricoh offering anything anything of this quality, but this doesn’t mean there isn’t anyone either now or by the time that you’re reading this. So all I would say is, if you are looking at an alternative to Sawgrass, just do your research and be sure you’re making a good business decision.

Over the past nearly twenty years, I’ve answered many, many questions about heat presses. So I decided to put this FAQ together with all of the more common questions about heat presses.

Can I use the same heat press for multiple different print methods?

Yes you can, but with a caveat – which is that if the process you’re using is particularly demanding on the heat press, then you’re likely to require a high performing, reliable heat press, vs a no brand budget press.

No weed white toner laser transfer printing, for instance, is demanding on the press, and you would be likely to struggle with a budget heat press.

Is there any reason to invest in a more expensive heat press, when budget heat presses are so cheap?

Yes, there are many, many reasons that it makes sense to invest in a premium heat press from a trusted brand, vs a cheap, non-branded heat press.

In a nutshell, cheaper heat presses mean cheaper components & cheaper build quality. With this comes potentially poorer performance, poorer reliability, and quite a few potential headaches.

For more see buying a cheap heat press.

Should I buy a clam heat press or a swing head/swinger heat press?

It’s completely up to you, both will work for Tshirt printing.

Swing head presses require more room to swing the head out and around the back of the press. But it means you can work on the lower table without the heat bearing down towards you.

Clam shell presses require less space.

They can be a bit easier to operated when you’re getting through larger production runs. You do have the heat coming towards you when you’re working on the lower table.

Some people don’t like the fact that they’re working close to the heat platen, with clamshell presses.

Swing away presses usually enable you to press thicker items. If you’re wanting to press onto particularly thick items such as wooden blocks or acrylic photo blocks, you’ll probably need a swing away press.

I want to print various items, are a combination or combo presses a good idea?

Combination heat presses which allow you to print onto Tshirts and other flat blanks, mugs and other cylindrical blanks, caps, and plates – seem like a good idea, in theory.

As far as I’m aware, the first combo press was created by Geo Knight, the “Digital Combo DC16”, a $1300 heat press.

Many factories in the far east quickly began to “emulate” this combination press.

I even remember that one of them had the cheek to copy and paste the Geo Knight sales copy from their website ;-).

There are now many, many different combo presses being produced and imported into the USA, the UK & Europe, and most of the rest of the world. Many of which are selling for just a couple hundred dollars or so.

The original combo press is $1300 without all of the attachments. The non branded copies are usually $200-$300 with all of the attachments. In fact, a single attachment on the DC16 costs more than most of the cheap combo presses sell for.

How anyone can possibly make combo presses so cheap, I’m not sure, but just keep in mind that if you’re relying on one press for various different kinds of items, that you really need a reliable press.

In short, I wouldn’t recommend any combination press, as I think they’re likely to be a jack of all trades and a master of none, but I certainly wouldn’t recommend one for a few hundred dollars, which probably represents under $100 worth of heat press!

Are vacuum heat presses the same as flat heat presses?

In a word, no.

Vacuum presses are meant for items which aren’t flat, and they were initially designed for “full wrap” phone and tablet cases. You put a blank phone case onto a metal jig, and then sublimate the case via the use of the silicone membrane and the vacuum pump.

Many people seem to be selling the vacuum presses based on their ability to press mugs with the use of oven clamps, using the internal oven part of the press.

If this is what you plan to use the press for, it’s a very expensive way to do it.

You can buy very inexpensive desktop ovens and use them to heat press mugs via oven clamps, for under $100. So buying a vacuum press for $500/$600 or more, to just use as an oven, doesn’t make sense to me.

Also, keep in mind that while you can use vacuum presses for flat hard substrates, it takes a lot longer then with using a standard flat heat press. This is because with Vacuum presses you’re relying on the item being heated up by the ambient temperature of the oven, rather than having direct contact with a heat platen.

Which are the best heat press machines?

In my opinion, the best American made heat presses are Geo Knight, Stahls/Hotronix, Hix & Insta. These heat presses are available in most countries. 

The best UK made brands are Adkins (in particular the Adkins Beta, also sold as Xpres and The Magic Touch) and Jarin Europa.

The best EU brands are Transmatic and Shulze, which are also available in many countries.

Apologies if I’ve missed out any great brands, and please feel free to contact me to let me know, if I have.

Many of the other presses you’ll find are the more generic imported non branded heat presses that people create their own brand names for.

Once you start doing some research, you’ll notice that there are LOTS of heat presses now with various different brand names which all look the same, which is a result of this.

If you’re thinking of buying a cheap heat transfer press machine, I just wanted to give you this quick warning.  At the end of this post, you still may well buy a cheap heat press, but you’ll at least understand the choice you’re making, and that’s Heat Press Henry’s goal. Hmm, I just referred to myself in the third person, I’m not sure what that means… Anyways.

I’ve been working with heat press machines for longer than I care to admit. I’ve had a lot of experience of a wide range of heat press machinery, from the cheapest heat press machines all the way up to the most expensive well known heat press brands.

So I know exactly what I’m talking about when it comes to the pros and cons of buying a cheap heat press.

Buying a Cheap Heat Press – Pros

There’s only one pro, which is that cheap heat presses are, of course, cheap – or “cheaper”, in comparison to known brands.

Other than cost, there’s no other pro to speak of when it comes to deciding to invest in one of the cheapest heat presses on the market.

Buying a Cheap Heat Press – Cons

Poor Reliability.

In my experience, the cheapest heat presses on the market are among the least reliable. When someone is manufacturing a piece of equipment with price and speed of production (of the heat press itself, not the production the user will be doing with it) being the main priorities, reliability is not likely to be particularly high, especially given that many of these heat presses are generic, the manufacture isn’t creating a brand that they need to protect by ensuring the reliability of their equipment.

Poor Durability. 

To make heat presses cheaper, you have to use cheaper components. Cheaper components are usually weaker than their more expensive counterparts, and as a result, the cheaper heat presses tend to be less able to put up with the knocks they’ll often suffer in transit, and also the general wear and tear from daily use. Generally speaking I’d expect something to fail on a cheap heat press much sooner than with a branded press from a reputable heat press manufacturer, made using better quality components. 

Potentially Dangerous.

I’ve had electric shocks from heat presses, I’ve seen some scary wiring inside cheaper heat presses, and it’s not hard to see why the cheapest heat presses could be dangerous. I’ve even heard horror stories of cheap heat presses setting on fire! The one that springs to mind was a mug press, the heater blanket errupted into flames, but thankfully the user was watching at the time and was able to deal with it before a fire was able to break out. 

Often Impossible to Maintain & Repair.

The reason for this, is that many suppliers of the cheapest heat presses simply “box shift”, they often don’t stock parts, nor offer any kind of maintenance or repair if the heat press has a fault. I receive many phone calls from frustrated printers, desperately trying figure out where to get a part for their heat press. 

I’m not saying don’t buy a cheap heat press

The first thing I want to make clear, is that I’m not saying don’t buy a cheap heat press. I’m simply saying do be fully aware of the choice you’re making. What many people do is buy a cheap heat press machine without even realizing that what they’re buying is actually one of the very cheapest heat presses. 

Let’s imagine that you didn’t know how much motor vehicles cost, and you bought a brand new Sedan for $5,000. Well, $5,000 is a lot of money isn’t it? If you didn’t know how much a reliable Sedan would usually cost, you may expect to be buying a well built, reliable vehicle that will look after you and your family. So when you’re on the expressway and your new Sedan makes a strange noise, and then comes to a halt – you would be shocked and upset, if you didn’t realize the risk you were taking when you parted with that $5k. 

But then someone in the know would say something along the lines of: You paid $5,000 for a brand new Sedan, what were you expecting, a Mercedes Benz? 

I’m not saying don’t buy a cheap heat press, it may be your only option, due to your budget, and you can of course upgrade your heat press later.

All I’m trying to get across with this post, is that if you buy a very cheap heat press, it would serve you to be fully aware of the choice you’re making.  

Understanding how much money has actually been spent on your heat press.

What many people don’t consider,  when it comes to heat presses, is that cheap means cheap. I think this is due to being unfamiliar with these kinds of machines. 

Take vehicles for example,  if you drive, do you own the very cheapest car you could possibly find?

Most people understand that if they’re going to buy a super cheap car, they’re making a decision based on necessity, which may well come back to bite them. 

You wouldn’t expect a cheap sub brand to perform the same as a BMW or Mercedes Benz.

You would buy a cheap car with the knowledge that you’re not going to have the same kind of comfort, power, safety, reliability & total mileage that you’re likely to get if you could afford to invest in a much more expensive vehicle. 

When buying machines that folk aren’t as familiar with, however, such as heat presses, people often don’t apply the same kind of logic. To many people, a heat press is just a lump of metal which applies heat & pressure, so it may appear that a heat press is just a heat press, and that paying for a brand name is a waste of money.

Anyone who’s experienced with heat presses will know that this isn’t the case at all. In fact, buying a heat press is  very similar to buying a car. If you buy cheap, you’re risking poor performance, poor reliability & potentially poor safety.

The reason that there are cheaper versions of any piece of equipment or machinery, is demand. There’s a demand for cheaper everything – and where there is demand, supply will follow. 

Historically, the way such demand for more affordable versions of any popular item has been met was with advancements in manufacturing processes. For example, Henry Ford revolutionized assembly-line  manufacturing in order to produce the first widely affordable motor car, the model T. 

In more recent history, though, the way supply tends to meet demand for dramatically lower priced versions of popular items, is lower cost production in the far east. Far east manufacturing companies are incredible when it comes to “emulating” popular products & manufacturing them at a much lower cost in order to meet the demand for lower cost versions of these popular products. 

This isn’t purely down to where the products are manufactured. Many of the most well known brands across most industries manufacture or at least partially manufacture their products in the far east. It’s due to what the goal is, when manufacturing such products.  

If the goal is simply to make the cheapest version of a product, without any focus on reliability, performance & longevity (which are the kind of things you would focus on if the goal was to build a reputable brand, but not if the goal is simply to make the cheapest version of a product), then what you’re going to end up with is simply the cheapest possible version of a product. It’s unfair to expect the resulting product to live up to the expectations of the more expensively produced product being replicated. 

A real life example of this is the Geo Knight DC16 Digital Combo heat press,  from one of the world’s best heat press brands Geo Knight, vs the many, many cheap copies that are manufactured in China & Taiwan. 

The DC16 is not a cheap heat press. It’s very well built, using high grade materials and components. The RRP is around $1500 even just with the flat platen, and the individual tools for mugs, caps, plates & cubes are between $200-$400 each – so with all attachments you’re talking about $2600.

The idea of having one heat press which is capable of producing Tshirts, mugs, plates, caps & other products – is very appealing, but the cost isn’t all that appealing – so it would have been apparent quite early on after the DC16 was launched, that there was a demand for a cheaper version.

I recall one of the first versions, it was such an unashamed copy that the Chinese supplier actually copied and pasted the marketing information from the Geo Knight website and simply changed the name. I’m not kidding! But it was substantially cheaper.

Soon after, there was competition for this copy, and within no time at all there were several competing versions, getting to as low as a few hundred dollars. 

Now, the cheapest versions of these cheaper combination presses, are between 8 and 9 times cheaper than the DC16 with all the attachments. 

But they’re not the Geo Knight DC16, they’re not made using the same components & materials. The DC16 is likely to out-perform cheaper imitations in all areas, including performance, ease of use, durability & reliability.

Here’s an exercise which should help to highlight my point.

Take the cost of the cheap heat press you’re looking at, which has been imported from the far east (which is nearly always the case with the cheapest heat presses).

Divide this price by five, and you’re probably somewhere close to how much money has actually been spent on building that machine.

The rest of the cost includes the profit of the manufacturer, the profit of the agent (there’s very often an agent involved), packaging costs, shipping costs, import duty etc.

So if you’re thinking of buying a $300 heat press, you’re actually considering running your Tshirt printing business using probably no more than $60 worth of heat press components.

Let’s say I’m way off, and it’s actually closer to $120, this is still nothing when you consider what goes into building a heat press, including the cost of the components, and labor.

We’re talking about steel platens, a heating element, a control panel, a thermostat, opening assist (springs or gas struts), power supply, framework, plus the labor costs of the people employed to assemble the heat presses.

With the leading brands of heat press, such as Geo Knight, Stahls, Hix, Insta and Shulze, just a single, fairly inconspicuous component used in the heat press could have a higher value than the entire build cost of cheaper imported heat presses.

Semi Disposable Heat Presses

The cheapest imported heat presses, are machines that are made to be used until they stop working, and then to be disposed of. They’re not made to be serviced & kept in operation for long periods of time. When the goal is to make the cheapest version of a product, period, then you’re likely to end up with a semi disposable machine, as opposed to a machine which can be maintained and serviced over a long period of time.

If you’re lucky, you may get a year of two of work from your cheap heat press – maybe more, but maybe a lot less, too.

If you’re unlucky, you may get a year or less from your machine before you need to replace it. Although, if you’re really unlucky, you may need to replace the press much sooner. You may have a warranty, but then it depends on who you purchased your heat press from and whether or not they honor the warranty. 

If you’re buying your heat press from eBay or Amazon, you need to be careful to ensure you’re buying from a reputable supplier.

“Box shifters” tend to pop up selling heat presses on websites like Amazon & eBay, who see heat presses and other equipment simply as a commodity to sell by offering the lowest prices – and what you’ll often find is that sellers like this aren’t around for very long. This means that many people find that their supplier isn’t around by the time they contact them with an issue.

I know this from experience, I received so many phone calls over the years from people who this had happened to, who were phoning to see if I knew where they may be able to source parts and support for their heat press. 

My stock reply was to phone the supplier they purchased their press from, and usually the reply was that they’d already tried that and the supplier doesn’t stock parts, or no longer exists.

The heat press is the most important piece of equipment for T shirt printing businesses.

The heat press isn’t just a piece of machinery that T shirt printers use. It’s the one piece of equipment that you can’t run your business without, regardless of what printing processes you’re using.

You could have a contour cutter, a CMYK laser printer & heat transfer papers, a dye sublimation printer – and they would all be completely redundant without a working heat press.

Given that this is the case, the heat press is the one piece of equipment that you should give the most thought about when it comes to splitting up your budget.

Consider which printing process you’re going to be using.

One thing you need to be aware of, when you’re considering buying a cheap heat press, is that some Tshirt printing methods are more demanding on the heat press than others.

White toner laser no-weed transfer printing, for example, is a process which demands heavy pressure which is consistent across the platen, and also very consistent heat across the platen.

It’s quite likely that if you try to use a cheap non branded imported heat press for this print process, you will find it very difficult to get consistent results at all. 

Dye sublimation, on the other hand, is quite a forgiving process when it comes to the heat press, you can get away with using a budget heat press, in terms of the process itself.

In fact, for most sublimation blanks, the quality of the finished, printed product will be no different at all whether you’re using a $300 heat press, or a $6,000 heat press.

The same is still true of dye sublimation printing, though, in that if your heat press stops working, your production stops, so reliability is important.

How to buy a reliable heat press, cheap?

If budget is an issue which is leading you to look into the entry level of heat presses, I would recommend considering two options. 

1. Buying a cheaper heat press from a reputable supplier.
2. Buying a used premium brand heat press.

Buying a cheaper heat press from a reputable supplier.

You’re not going to get quite the same low cost from a reputable supplier than if you buy directly from China, or from the cheapest supplier you can find on Amazon or eBay, but there are lower priced heat presses offered by reliable firms. 

The obvious example is the own-brand heat presses produced by heat press nation. This is a well known & reputable company, who also offer most of the most well known brands. While I’d be dubious about purchasing a cheap heat press from an unknown supplier (who may well be simply a box shifter), I wouldn’t have any qualms about purchasing a cheaper heat press from HPN, knowing that they’re one of the biggest heat press suppliers in the US, and that they offer a full warranty with all presses, and hold all parts in stock.

Buying a used premium brand heat press. 

The top brands of heat presses, including Geo Knight, Stahls, Hix & Insta, are often found on eBay for a bargain price.

Click here to see ending soon items for used heat presses on eBay.

If you’re UK based, then including the above brands, Adkins presses (a UK made heat press) are a great press to keep an eye out for on eBay, which also sell under the brand names Xpres and Magic Touch.

There are occasionally some incredible bargains to be found in the form of low priced high value Adkins heat presses selling used, particularly the Adkins Beta presses, which are very popular in the UK for white toner laser transfer printing.

Another UK made press you’ll occasionally find a bargain for on eBay are the UK brand Jarin – their mug presses, in particular, are a very well made press, which can sometimes be picked up on eBay at an absolute steal.

Conclusion – Cheap Heat Presses Have Their Purpose, But Buyer Beware

To conclude, I believe that cheap heat presses do have their purpose, in terms of allowing  startup T shirt printing businesses to get started on a shoe string.

But what I think is important, is that people understand that if they do buy a very cheap heat press to allow them to start their business on a small budget, it’s really only going to be a temporary solution.

At some point, a T shirt printing business that starts out using a very cheap imported heat press, needs to invest in more serious heat press machinery, otherwise it could have a negative impact on the growth of the business, including periods of stalled production, which is not good for a growing T shirt printing business.