It is possible to start a T-shirt decoration business with nothing more than an inexpensive vinyl cutter or a printer/cutter and a heat press — and a computer, of course. In fact, many people begin their business this way.
Vinyl Cutters
A desktop vinyl cutter, such as the Roland CAMM-1 Gx-24, simply cuts computer-based designs from rolls of colored vinyl material. Use a PC and Roland’s provided graphic software to create the shapes or designs you want and send them to the cutter. After the design has been cut out, you can apply it to T-shirts, sports uniforms, jackets, or other garments with a heat press. Once applied, it’s permanent.
Vinyl material is available in a wide assortment of types, colors, textures, metallic, reflective, glow-in-the dark, and patterns. Multi-color designs are easily created using software provided with the cutter or other graphics software of your choice, such as Corel Draw.
Some of the applications for vinyl cutters (and cutter-printers), other than for T-shirts and garment decoration, are the following:
- Vehicle graphics and signage
- Pinstriping
- Window tinting graphics
- Signs
- Banners
- Sports jerseys and helmets
- Decals
- Labels
- Stencils
- Templates for rhinestone transfers
Vinyl cutters are available in a variety of sizes and costs. The smallest desktop units can print material about 27 inches wide and cost about $2000 new. Used machines can be found for $1000 or less.
Printer/Cutters – The Next Step Up
A simple vinyl cutter is fine if you only need to do single-color designs (or multi-color with careful alignment of separate color cuts). However, if you need to do photo-quality graphics or complex artwork designs, you might need a vinyl printer/cutter which is a combination inkjet printer and cutter. Graphics are created in a single operation consisting of two steps. First, the image is printed onto the vinyl and second, it’s cut out. Mulitple “ganged” images can be printed and cut in one operation.
Like cutters, printer/cutters are available in a wide variety of sizes, speeds, and costs. One of the smallest and newest printer/cutters from Roland is the desktop VersaStudio BN-20 which costs about $8500 and can print on 20 inch material. This machine can be leased for as little as $178 a month.
Summary
Vinyl cutters and printer/cutters can be the base for a new T-shirt business or an established garment decoration business that wants to expand into signs, decals, vehicle graphics, and other areas that can’t be handled with conventional screen printing or DTG methods. Machines are available from Roland and Graphtec in a wide assortment of sizes, capabilities, speeds, and prices.
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