Choosing
Choosing your print width —
and what it costs to run
Two questions decide which pattern printing machine suits a shop, and neither of
them is about print quality - that is the same across the range.
Width is offered at 24, 36, 42, 60 and 72 inches, and the rule
is the widest single piece you print rather than the largest garment you make. A blouse front, a
shirt panel or a sleeve sits inside the narrower rolls. A bridal lehenga panel does not - and
neither does a nested layout, where several pieces are packed together to save cloth. Nesting is
where the fabric saving comes from, and it needs width to work with, so a shop that intends to
nest should size up rather than to the single piece.
Length is not a constraint. The paper is on a continuous roll,
so a pattern is limited by the width of the machine and nothing else - a full-length panel comes
out in one pass instead of being printed in sections and taped, which is where accuracy is
usually lost.
Running cost works out at roughly ₹0.50 to ₹1.50 per
linear metre depending on how much of the sheet the pattern covers. Set that against what it
replaces: three to four minutes of printing instead of hours of tracing from master sheets, at
0.1mm notch accuracy, with every reprint identical to the first. The ink is the small number in
that comparison - the time is the large one.