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I've always sub'd out my screen printing work.. and for the last few years I've considered buying my own equipment and doing my own. I don't get a lot of calls for it (mainly because I don't push it) but once I got set up I know I'd be busy enough because I know how I am and I'd be pushing it a lot more..
That being said.. What's the best way to go? Get a new complete set up like from Signwarehouse or other retailer? Shop used and save a few bucks? Can anyone recommend decent first set up? I realize prices range from $3k on up.. I'm not looking to make 500 shirts a week.. but rather 24 or possibly 72 unit runs.. I just get tired of sending people down the road..
Help a brotha out..
-------------------- Gonzalo Curiel Peewee Signs & designs Oroville Ca 95965
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The first thing you need to decide is whether you want to print t-shirts or you want to make money.
The Press Even the most inexpensive press can be used to produce an acceptable imprint. The things you want to look for in a press is...
A) Quality of construction. How heavy duty is it. A well built used press is better than a cheap new press.
B) Does the press have micro registration? A lot of low-end presses don't have this feature. And if you have to print a design that involves tight, accurate registration, trying to adjust by hand can be a nightmare. An for the record, a hammer is not a registration tool. If the budget is tight, look to buying a used high-quality press with micro-registration instead of a low-end cheap press.
C) How many colors will you be printing? 1 color? 2 colors? A lot of shops can print simple one and two color prints. And because of that, there is a lot of competition and extremely low prices.
I recommend nothing less than a 4 color press. A 6 color press is greatly preferred. Being able to do multi-color and specialty printing (discharge, high-density, gel, simulated process, and process) are much more profitable and there is a lot less competition to deal with.
D) How easy does the carousel turn? The pallet carousel and screen carousel should turn effortlessly. Trust me, after printing a 3 color design on 75 shirts, your arms are going to be tired.
E) Deflection. When you press down on the screen and pull the squeegee, does the pallet deflect downward or does it remain ridged and unmoving? A good press should have little or no deflection. The less, the better. This means that your prints will remain in register and less effort on your part to move the ink through the screen with the squeegee.
Curing the Print: Contrary to popular belief, the press is not the most important piece of equipment in your set up. Its the dryer.
There are all sorts of ways to screen print a garment. A lot of them are even done without a traditional press. But no matter how cheap or how nice a press you have; no matter how tight your screens are and how nice a print you achieve, none of it matters if the print isn't cured properly.
If the ink doesn't reach 320 degrees all the way through, its not cured. It will eventually wash out and you'll have an unhappy client and quickly develop a bad reputation.
Don't use a flash unit to cure your prints. It's a slow and inconsistent process that will eat up your profits. Over-flash the print and you'll end up with scorched shirts. Instead, invest in a quality dryer, preferably with an internal fan to keep the air moving.
Film Positives: How will you produce the film positives? I recommend using acetate sheets over vellum. Acetate sheets are not affected by heat and humidity. Vellum will shrink and expand which will cause problems with registering multi-color designs. Most screen printers today use a dedicated inkjet printer with a RIP to print on special acetate sheets designed for inkjets.
[Screens]: Screens come in a lot of different flavors - wood, aluminum and roller. All of them work well provided you maintain a certain level of screen tension. Most low-end setups use 20"x24" frame. The screens need to maintain a minimum of 14 newtons of tension in order to get a clean print with minimal effort. A loose screen will result in poor print quality, a distorted image and requires a lot more effort to move the ink through the screen. The tighter the screen, the better your print will be and less pressure will be needed to move the ink through the screen. Your arms and shoulders will thank you.
Getting the design onto the screen: Do you plan to use a capillary film or a liquid emulsion to coat your screen with? Both work well. Both have their pros and cons.
Where will you store the screens to dry? You need to have a dark dry place to store your screens so that the cap film/emulsion can dry thoroughly. I keep mine in a small dedicated room with a dehumidifier to keep the humidity below 50%. If the humidity is too high, I risk the photosensitive capfilm/emulsion falling out of the screen when I rinse the screen after burning the images onto it.
There is a lot more to screen printing than most people realize. How you are setup is critical to making money and to screen print trouble-free.
Some good sources of information can be found at t-biznetwork.com, texsourceonline.com and ryonet.com just to name a few.
Most screen print suppliers will have used equipment available at really good prices.
Just as in the sign business, get the right tool for the job. Cutting corners will only cost you more money and more headaches.
posted
Ditto to what Glenn said: the only difference is that I use a laser output instead of an inkjet...
Ultimately you will have to decide if the investment will be worth what you are wanting to do- how much money can you save on those 24-72 shirt orders to justify the entire process and cost?
when I started my own printing business 13 years ago, I decided that I would just find some good used equipment, keep my cost low, etc...
I found a great used press and dryer for a fraction of what a new one would cost- the equipment was paid for within a few jobs.
I would recommend buying used (based on what you are looking to do)- the only thing new might be a dryer, but a good one is not cheap and a cheap built one is not good.
There is a ton of used equipment out there for sale because people jump in with a large investment expecting to be rich in a few days- by the time they realize it involves WORK, they have lost interest... here, there is a full print shop for sale that has been bought and resold in our town at least a dozen times in the past 10 years... kinda like a bad penny.
I will ask some of my friends who print- they always have something for sale- I'll pass it along.
For example- I have a 4-color CAPS brand table top printer ($1500 new) that I am looking to sell- my intent was to modify it (mount t-shirt platens on it) to be a portable press that I could take on location. I also have a small 4ft long conveyor dryer ($1800 new) that uses a flash unit heating element as the heat source (also intended to be a portable setup)- I'm looking for about $800 for the pair- they both have a lot of miles on them and they are a little beat up, but $800 may be better than $3000+ for some people.
-------------------- Michael Clanton Clanton Graphics/ Blackberry 19 Studio 1933 Blackberry Conway AR 72034 501-505-6794 clantongraphics@yahoo.com Posts: 1736 | From: Conway Arkansas | Registered: Oct 2001
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Jim, my former employee who retired last Christmas, has a shop he is cleaning out to sell- I know he has some used equipment in part of it- I'll talk to him and see what he has and it's worth ...
-------------------- Michael Clanton Clanton Graphics/ Blackberry 19 Studio 1933 Blackberry Conway AR 72034 501-505-6794 clantongraphics@yahoo.com Posts: 1736 | From: Conway Arkansas | Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
I spoke the Glenn on the phone he brought up some valid points. One thing he did mention was out-sourcing. Similar to what I now do with Signs365.. My biggest problem now is when I out-source locally they try and steal my customer.
Anybody out there have any good leads to a wholesaler? If so how does it work? Honestly I have plenty on my plate and would really hate to add another job and lose a little more life :-/ thanks for all the suggestions so far..
-------------------- Gonzalo Curiel Peewee Signs & designs Oroville Ca 95965
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Peewee, if you google "ASI screen printer" there are a lot of screen printers who provide special pricing to the trade and they won't try to pilfer your customers. This link might be helpful....
posted
Glenn's post has a ton of terrific advice. There's also a very good forum- screenprinters.net I think, or usscreen.net-use Google to take a look anyhow.
Also, I'd recommend getting Scott Fresner's book about screen printing t-shirts for fun & profit-it mentions a lot of stuff worth considering, particularly explaining the differneces between simulated process, process, spot colour & halftone printing-if you're not conversant, plus dot gain & bleed issues, and the importance of sharp squeegees and off-contact settings & flood coating.(humongous learning curve there-but good fun if learning doesn't stress you out!
We seriously started with a pair of hinges screwed to a desk, and some bungee straps screwed to the ceiling to lift the screen back up. We then made a 'carousel' with a lazy susan bearing, and we had two screens going at once.
Gee we had some tough times-hard work, zero profit, lots of time wasted, screens blocked, shirts ruined, but I persevered, writing down a post moretem of every job on how we could have done it better in hindsight.
Later we bought a 6-colour 4 platen carousel-heavy duty, and I never knew it was possible to work so enjoyably, compared with the home made system. Sadly we don;t have micro registration & use the 'bump it with the hammer (or the palm of your hand) system '! Needless to say we don;t do much multicolour work, or tight registration work, without building some safeguards into it.
We also started doing corro signs and tea-towels, but they get tiring really quickly on a hand press like that. We went back to the hinges on the table method for a bit, then we were able to but a decent 'one-arm-bandit', which is about an 7'6" x 4'6" vacuum table on a slope, with micro registration, and weights to counterbalance the screens (big or small), and a squeegee carrier on rollers that lets you walk the length of the table squeegee-ing the print and flood coating it back. That saved getting your belly covered in ink as with the old system.
The influx of digital printers printing onto iron-on or heat-sensitive rubberised stuff that you heat-press onto shirts, and the direct garment printers, has put a fair few screen printers out of business over here.
For a while we did a lot of 1 & 2 colour t-shirts and sweat shirts-mostly for schools & kindergartens, and we still do a few runs of commemorative T-towels from time to time, or calico bags, and we used to do a few printed bumper stickers before digital printers became more prevalent, but MOST of our screen work these days is 3'x2' one & two-colour corro signs for real estate agents, or local rodeos, fetes, or whatever.
The vacuum press makes them a breeze. The quickest job we managed was two runs of 180, 3'x2' prints in one hour, including set up & clean up, and NO dud prints! (touch wood!) That was with two of us working -me loading the vac table and printing, (and topping up ink) and one of our sons taking the print out & stacking it to dry (on home-made racks). We were fairly flying. It makes up for the other times when something goes amiss in the middle of the job, and you have to stop, unclog the screen, clean the mess, clean your hands, clean them again, then double check them-you will have missed a blob of ink somewhere- and hope you still have enough blanks on hand to finish the job.
Do not try & answer the phone in the middle of a print run.
Over here there are two types of fabric inks-plastisols, and waterbased inks. Both require heat curing, preferable in a heat tunnell, which we do not have. So, we tend to use the waterbased fabric inks, which also have a cold-cure catalyst which you mix with the paint, and it will cure without heat setting. We also have an old Hix heat press for very short runs- but that's no good for curing greasy plastisols, only the waterbased inks.
From time to time we get orders to print satin show ribbons for local agricultural shows & fairs. That can be laborious if you don't quickly get a good routine going. I'm not convinced we have it as efficiently as 'the experts', but it enables us to do what some customers want, in-house, and that means a lot to them. I know we got a corro job last year, worth $2100, simply because we said we could do them here and would not sub them out.
We do some photosensitive emulsion screen coating, and expose with UV light, and we do some runs using vinyl stuck to the bottom of the screen as a negative, and some using vinyl as a positive, then we squeegee a pass of water-based blockout over the screen,(underneath) and then peel the vinyl off. That gives a negative for printing with non waterbased inks like corro or vinyl inks, though it has limited life compared with a diazo emulsion screen.
The learning curve, and piles of mistakes you'll make, makes for a challenging time. It would really help if you were able to voluntarily work for a printer for a week or so!
Have fun!
-------------------- "Stewey" on chat
"...there are no limits when you aim for perfection..." Jonathan Livingston Seagull Posts: 7014 | From: Highgrove via Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia | Registered: Dec 2002
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PeeWee, Go over to Rancho and check out a guy named Ed Moller, at 'Hot Dots' screen prints. He has done shirts for me in the past and maybe he would cut a deal since the economy has slowed. His place is off Sunrise...
-------------------- Jack Wills Studio Design Works 1465 E.Hidalgo Circle Nye Beach / Newport, OR Posts: 2914 | From: Rocklin, CA. USA | Registered: Dec 1998
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