Does Supacolor Belong in a Screen Printing Shop?

Video Transcribed Below:

Hey guys Kev from Veteran Screen Printing, today we're going to go over no other than Supacolor transfers are they or should they be in a screen-printing shop well we're going to dive into it go over the numbers go over the cost. All right so we've been getting asked a lot about Supacolor transfers so we've ordered some now they do have a minimum of 20. We ordered 50 to get a better price point see exactly how you know it will turn out they came out pretty good looking and we're going to show you how easy it is to actually heat press them on and give you our thoughts on how they feel; we've already pressed them up we've already washed them to give the durability test and we'll let you know exactly how that is. Today we're going to be using a next level 100 ring spun cotton which is the 3600 model which is again one of our premier shirts that we love to print on for screen printing.

Let's go over I got the heat press the heat press is already up and going that 325 degrees is set for 15 seconds now I don't have a drawer to pull out or anything this is just from amazon for $200 so very cheap but it gets the job done and we only really bought it for to do this video. As I do these shirts so I’m going to load it how I would normally load it on a screen press just because I'm so used to that. Now it's 100 cotton so we're going to take our parchment paper we're going to press it down for about five seconds six seconds and the reason why is these are 100% cotton so you want to get all the moisture out of the garment before you do any type of heat transfers. Now that it's already done, we're going to grab our transfer this is a back design put it in the middle four inches down from the collar parchment paper put it back down for 15 seconds so we're running the cost on this and Supacolor actually came out less expensive as what we would actually charge to screen print. It came out just a little bit cheaper but not by much.

It's a hot peel type of application so take it peel back and if you have issues like how it is right now, it's okay because guess what you didn't ruin it! You take this down press it again. Now what I would do is I would just press this again for the whole 15 seconds and you do get this from time to time. I've only had about two out of 50; well I've only printed about maybe 30 of them and I've only had two happen like this and it could be because I was talking and I didn't do a hot peel right away because again it does need a hot peel right away. All right now that it's on there, I'm going to do one more press and this is a pre-press afterwards and this is going to go for about 10 seconds and this is going to make sure that the image is actually embedded into the garment; make parchment paper go back so there's the shirt this is third battalion fifth marines now let's go over this a little bit in detail.

It's has a real soft to the touch feel. Now I had another marine in here earlier picking up some shirts and I had him fill one of these and he actually said that he would actually love wearing this. Probably instead of a big patch of spring printed it's pretty soft to the touch it doesn't feel heavy at all it feels like if I was to screen print and then after screen printing and curing process coming over to the heat press and matte in my ink all the way in that's kind of what it would feel like a little bit of the stretch test. Nothing cracking nothing peeling; again, I have already pressed a whole bunch of these and I took some back to the house and washed them about three four times it stayed intact no peeling no cracking still vibrant colors

So, should Supacolor ultimately be in a screen print shop? Well this depends if you have a design say like this that multi-colors you know you'd have your red your yellow your green your white under base and then if you want to do black overlay instead of the black shirt you know you're looking at minimum four colors, five colors depending on if you want the black. Now say you only have a one station four color press could you get away doing this probably not, you would need a bigger press but could you get away with it if you did Supacolor yes you could. Is there room for you to make a little bit of money still as a screen printer if you did Supacolor? Yes, you could. I'm in San Diego so I still have to compete somewhat with the LA garment district which has the stupidest cheapest prices around. So being in San Diego we still kind of have to compete with that because somebody will drive for an hour and a half just to go there to get garments but like I said I ran the numbers and Supacolor actually came out a little bit cheaper than what I would be charging to screen print this same exact design.

So as a screen printer you could still use this and get done with the job because this many colors means you got to do at least five screens then you got to set up five screens and then you got to print them and throw them through the dryer so if it's only you I guarantee, I promise you if it's only you in your screen printing it on a 6x4 with a conveyor dryer flash dryer the whole nine yards I guarantee you just the back design is probably going to take you at least two minutes maybe about a minute and a half per shirt and then as well as the front is going to be at least a minute and a half to two minutes as well so you know it's going to take you a couple of minutes to spring print this up your margin is going to be more but your time is going to be longer in the screen printing versus heat transferring this over with Supacolor.

Again, this depends on how you guys want to go about this in a screen-printing shop. You got some customers that actually would love this over screen printing. I found that out today and this was a one of the marines I was picking up unit t-shirts that I printed for their unit so that just opened my mind up a little bit more what else could you really offer as a screen printer that is actually a little maybe a little bit faster unless you had an automatic than screen printing you know this would take me about maybe a minute for a front and back fully done margin's not going to be as much as screen printing but my time is a little bit more worth you know times money right everybody says that so I probably get done with an order faster than I would on a screen printing press a manual screen-printing quest. Now what if I had two of these and they're a little bit better quality

than just amazon you know I bought this just to do this video and print out a couple and see how they actually come out but you know what if i went and got a one with a drawer that opens up and automatic open and I got two of them I could be doing two shirts at once and it's going to definitely save on time. So, again in my opinion could Supacolor be used in a serene pruning shop? Definitely. I would recommend using them

They have a wash test at least of a 50 minimum before it does anything and you know that could be you wearing a shirt once a week for a whole year straight and washing it once a week so that's actually pretty good.

So, this is Supacolor guys I'll leave a link below where you can go check them out this is not sponsored by them they don't even know I'm doing it um and I just want to give you my opinion because there's been a lot of people asking about Supacolor it's been a hot shred lately about Supacolor and what  does everybody think of them; especially in a screen printing shop. So, for maybe you know a premium type shirt it came out pretty well but if a premium type brand wanted these it just depends. But you know this is probably a new feature that you can offer them so I would definitely check it out if you're a small-time screen printer and you only have a four-color press this is something that could help you build up a little bit more money faster so you can get a bigger and better press,