Impressions - September 2015 - 53

Tracy Ritchey removes
a one-color print from one of the
company's manual presses.

TURNING UP THE HEAT

But as Ritchey's customer base began
to grow, he knew it was time to take his
business to the next level. Disheartened
by ever-increasing rental rates, he and his
wife, Tracy, left their small shop in San
Francisco and moved to their current
warehouse in Harrisburg, Pa., to start Hi
Voltage Productions.

PRESSING CONCERNS
While Ritchey retained many of his
West Coast clients, his business began to
expand nationally. "Our customers are
everybody," he says. "Rock-and-roll bands,
theater groups, car clubs, bars. Everyone
wants T-shirts."
In addition to running an automatic
press he purchased from a friend, Ritchey
used a six-color/four-station manual press

Investing in new equipment also meant
Ritchey could significantly reduce registration
time, resulting in more accurate results and
higher output volume.

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from his old shop. Business was booming,
but his outdated printing equipment
couldn't keep up with demand and began
to falter. "I used to do four dozen pieces,
and suddenly we had requests for 1,200 of
this and 1,500 of that," he says. "I was running older presses that weren't well calibrated, or expandable in any way. We'd be
here until [3 a.m.], one print would come
out perfect and [suddenly] the registration would wander off, and the next print
would be off an eighth of an inch."
Ritchey soon purchased a Vastex sixcolor/six-station V2000HD manual press
and later upgraded to an eight-color/eightstation model within a year. Two more arms
and pallets increased the shop's output and
allowed him to run multiple jobs simultaneously. The configuration also worked well
with his two other screen-printing presses.
"With three presses, we are bouncing
around from one to another," he says. "It
really helps production because I don't
have to wait for a press to be available to
put the next job on."
Taking the plunge and investing in new
equipment also meant Ritchey could significantly reduce registration time, resulting in
more accurate results and higher volume.
"I can register a simulated process [job]
in eight minutes, which would take me an
hour on the other presses, and the registration would wander," he says. "We do a lot
of art prints for bands, and they want crazy
graphics. If we didn't have perfect registration they would look terrible."

With upgraded presses, Ritchey soon
realized the shop needed a better dryer, as
its 40-year-old model couldn't accommodate production rates. He bought one with
a 30-inch-wide belt and digital temperature control.
"My last dryer didn't have digital
technology, so the temperature would be
[unreliable]," he says. "We were either
undercuring shirts or burning them." With
the new dryer, Ritchey cures 150-200
T-shirts an hour - and has cured as many
as 350 in that timeframe.
With the upswing in production,
Ritchey still needed to turn up the heat, so
he bought a second dryer with a 30-inch
belt that cures up to 130 pieces an hour.
"With just one dryer, we could only run
two presses at one time, and there were
plenty of times I'd have to go to my office
and wait for the dryer to become available," he says.
The second dryer paid for itself in less
than two weeks and has increased Hi
Voltage Productions' productivity by 30%.
"With two dryers I can run all three
presses at the same time," he says. "That's
where the profits lie."
Ritchey doesn't plan to stop there. He
hopes to replace the shop's old six-color/
four-station manual press with a newer
six-color/six-station model in the near future, estimating it will increase production
another 15%-20%.
Ritchey says the future investment
should preserve Hi Voltage Productions'
profitability. "Any printer will tell you
when your presses are spinning you're
making money."
Mark Vasilantone is owner of Vastex
Intl. Inc. and builds on the legacy of his father, Michael Vasilantone, the company's
founder, an inventor and pioneer in mass
producing screen-printed T-shirts. For more
information or to comment on this article,
email Mark at mark@vastex.com.
September 2015 | Impressions

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Impressions - September 2015

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