Vent: Used to eyeball alignment on t-shirt presses for years

I ran a small custom print shop out of my garage for like 4 years. Just eyeballed every shirt placement. Figured close enough was good enough. Then last month I printed 50 shirts for a local brewery and 7 of them had the logo sitting a quarter inch off center. The owner noticed right away. Told me it looked sloppy. Now I use a laser alignment jig I built for $40. Takes 20 extra seconds per shirt but the registration is dead on every time. One bad batch made me change my whole workflow. Anyone else switch from 'that's fine' to measuring everything after one screw up?

2 comments

2 Comments

johnson.adam21d ago

You ever try making a quick template out of cardboard? I did that after botching a batch of 40 hoodies a few years back. Just cut a corner off a box so it fits snug against the platen edge, then mark where the shirt fold should sit. Takes maybe a minute to cut out and saves you way more than the 20 seconds per shirt you're spending now.

wesley_hart21d ago

That "close enough is good enough" mindset works until it doesn't. One bad batch of 50 shirts is all it takes to make you realize how much a tiny mistake costs you.