UV Printing: Questions and Answers Session

Number one it really allows you to stretch your imagination. Back in the early days, everyone who called us to use direct to garment printers also wanted to print on something else.

This allows you to take your creativity outside of standard wearable items. You can take constructed items and decorate them.

Cell phone cases are a perfect example. There’s a huge market for custom cases.

Because it’s instantly set you don’t have a gas out period. When you would print cell phone cases before, with solvent-based solutions, you had to let those solvents gas out.

We think of Direct to Garment printing (DTG) as digital screen printing. This is digital pad printing. But it’s full-color pad printing so to speak. Which really ups the game when it comes to printing on rigid goods.

You can do multi-color pad printing, but I don’t even think you can do four colors. It’s just not practical, especially with short to moderate runs. That’s the areas where UV printing really starts to expand.

Don: A lot of the stuff we thought we knew about printing – saying if it’s a black box versus a yellow box it costs more. Customers didn’t understand why. Yellow is just yellow, whereas black is a mix of colors.

When you look at it in UV you can see those layers. That’s how we can raise letters up in signage to do textures.

Don: We all know the days of identifying ourselves as ‘a screen printer,’ ‘an embroiderer,’ ‘a trophy guy’ are fading. I always use the Walmart analogy. You can go into Walmart, pick up some toilet paper, get some eggs and milk, there’s probably a McDonalds in there. It’s one-stop shopping.

It’s just logical that we would get it all done in one place. You have customers that are coming into you for t-shirts or hats. They have other needs in most cases.

Very rarely if someone is buying shirts that they can’t add something. That’s where the opportunities are for traditional t-shirt guys.

If you go back into the sign industry 15-18 years ago, it was the people who were leading edge who had large formats. Now if you don’t have a large format eco-solvent printer you are not in the sign industry.

More and more screen printers are now bringing in the large format technology to do signage. Back in the day, all you could do was put magnets on cars, now you can wrap a car to make it look like a pizza.

We’re seeing more and more companies being full-service. You’ve already done the graphics work, that’s the thread that goes through all of this. Why not take those graphics and put them out in every direction and method you can?

Sublimate it and put in on coffee mugs. Put it on a mouse pad. Print it on a t-shirt. Print it on a banner. Let’s give them promotional items – thumb drives, pens, signage for their operations.

Everyone you’re dealing with has more to their business and graphic than just the t-shirt you’re printing. Those are the areas that are low hanging fruit.

Your existing customers are buying this somewhere. You’ve already spent the sweat equity and marketing money to build the relationship. It’s always easier for me to sell a customer their second machine. All I’ve had to do is take care of them for that period.

You must put money and effort into new customers. This is an add-on that you can start selling immediately to your other customers.

The other side of the coin is that the word gets out and you start marketing this new product. You’re also going to find customers that need your core business – t-shirts, hats, etc.

Those are the applications where it fits in. And getting out of the mindset that “I am screen printer.” You can go broad and say I’m an apparel decorator. Or you’re solutions people.

We’re here to get ideas out to people. That’s what this is about – expanding your reach to your customers and giving them the opportunity to be as creative as they can. Using their logos to grow their business.

Tell us a little bit about some of the markets and market segments this technology is growing in. How’s it replacing some other printing technologies?

Don: I see the most potential in, is easy to get into, and has a ton of business is the Coroplast sign market. Down here in Florida we call them bandit signs.

There are lawn service companies who have signs with stakes in the ground with all their information right on the sign. The process is you take your eco-solvent and print out the sign, which must be gassed out (which is usually an overnight process). Then if you want it to have an extended outdoor life you need to laminate it. Then you must mount it on each side of the Coroplast.

With UV, you’re printing right onto the sign blank, it’s immediately dry, it’s immediately deliverable. Your ink costs are about the same on UV as they are on the eco-solvent per square foot. You don’t have the cost of the vinyl. You don’t have the cost of the laminate. And you don’t have the cost of labor.

That’s just a huge marketplace where you can step up with this piece of equipment. Whether you’re a t-shirt guy, signs, trophies and awards, anybody, and they’re immediately making money and giving the customer a quick turnaround.

I went up to one of the major large-format company’s sites to get an estimate for printing – two-sided 18x24”. It was about $2-3 for vinyl and ink. That sign in our estimate was $0.72 per side.

That was a savings of $1.50 just in materials. You don’t have the labor or the cost of lamination.

There are other opportunities as well. Etsy is crazy. A lot of the stuff up there you’ll see customization.

A lot of it is hand painted/decorated and it can be easily simulated on a UV Printer.

You can print on wood or metal, which can give an antique look to items. That is another area where we’re starting to see growth, especially wood decoration.

One of the more common ones is in the ad specialty marketplace. If you have a small business you don’t want a thousand pens printed, you can get 50 – full-color, no set-up fees.

We have one of our customers we’re working with who has a multipurpose tool of sorts that’s flat and the size of a credit card. He’s making them his business cards.

It’s replacing pad printing and traditional sign printing. I didn’t even touch on how you can do metal signs and outdoor signs as well.

Don: People go by and see activity at a house, you look towards the house. We call them 50-50 signs. They’re meant to be seen 50 feet away at 50 miles an hour.

You’re able to give them full color. Big lettering with the name of the company and website or phone number.

Importantly for your customers in the t-shirt industry, they don’t have to learn a whole new application technique. It’s direct to substrate.

The real secret to signage is application technique.

Don: Anything that’s high color, anything that you would put on t-shirts, put it on other objects.

Our machines allow for variable data. Allow us to do barcoding. Allow us to do sequencing.

You can do highly customized, high-color work that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to do.

Don: When we think about rigid goods, we are often thinking about goods that aren’t white.  We’re thinking about things in the trophy and awards industry.

With UV printing, most UV printers have 6 color channels. You have your traditional cyan, magenta, and black. You have white and a varnish or clear – which gives you a better build up for textures. The clear can be used for over-coating or highlighting.

You can also do effects. If you have a soda bottle you could do a water droplet effect.

Most things you print on won’t be white, so all of this is huge. You can use the software to create the under base.

You can print on the back of clear objects.