How many of you are screenprinters?

Antiseen75 - 5-9-2005 at 11:16 PM

Just curious since this is how I put food on the table and I know music folk make up a large majority of the screenprinters out there - basically started a shop in the garage a little under a year ago and have been covered up in business. I've done some stuff for bands, stuff for local businesses and some just straight up special orders/requests from folks.

My layout is as follows:

CAPS 6 color/4 station floor press

12 Newman Roller frames - 4 w/110 Mesh, 3 with 160 mesh, 1 with 180 mesh and 4 with 305 for 4 color process work (which I've found is very very little of my jobs - most people prefer one and two colors over a bunch of colors - my biggest requests are white ink on dark textiles) - also, I would never go back to wooden or non-retenionsable frames after getting used to these Newmans - these are fucking GREAT. I retension between jobs and after several jobs, the mesh will hold it's tension without having to be retensioned again.

1 homemade exposure unit - I followed the blueprints given to me by Roger Jennings (www.rjennings.com) - he's probably one of the most helpful and qualified of any screenprinter that I know. Anyways, this unit cost me all of $35.00 to build and it works amazingly well on half-tones, fine lines and intricate detail. The only downside is that it takes a little while to burn the first couple of screens for the day (around 10 min.) but after it gets warmed up, a screen will burn well in 5 min. Some days if I'm lazy, I'll simply use the sunlight method. A lot of folks warned me against that when I first started, but I haven't had any noticeable problems using sunlight to expose a screen thus far. I dont use it often, but If I need to expose 4 screens pretty fast and can only fit one on the exposure unit at a time, I'll put the other 3 out to bake in the sun.

I have an R Jennings flash dryer with temperature control which I always set on dial 4, which is the medium setting (cuts on the energy cost and enables me to flash cure and full-cure without warping platens or scorching shirts)

I use Ulano QTX or QX1 (actually just switched to the QX1 as it's cheaper and it's easier to coat a screen with) emulsions.

I usually order my garments from Broder Brothers. They usually give me some great bundle deals.

For my positives, I generally use copy machine transparencies in an HP laser jet (your basic Office Depot brand will do just fine IF you DOUBLE your transparencies so they're very dark). I haven't tried Vellum paper yet as I've not had any downfalls to using cheap transparencies using the double-up method.

Other than that, I have some old wood screens laying around with some images burned into them I'll pull out when someone requests a shirt (some old Misfits designs, the Johnny Cash middle finger shirt, etc. etc.) and I have a little cheapo pressure washer from Lowes that I need sometimes to get rid of hard ink and to wash my scoop coater and my squeegees. But that's my basic "shop" layout.

I've learned some incredibly useful things from a lot of email and phone conversations with Roger Jennings - he's helped me in ways that I can't imagine where I would be at right now if I hadn't of talked with him and learned his little tricks of the trade.

When I first started, believe it or not (and if you don't screenprint, this seems like it would be the easiest aspect of it) the hardest thing in the world was getting images lined up 100% straight and center. I about beat my brains out figuring that out. I found that a T-square was sufficient to line up one color jobs fairly quickly, but a person really needs a registration guide of some sort for multi-color jobs (I built the one Jennings uses, which basically eliminates need for micro adjustment on each arm - you basically just have to move the screens in the lock-in either to the left or right a peice or two and you'll have a 4 color process job set up in no time flat).

Up til now, I've only done textile shirt printing, but I hope to expand and start printing caps, signs, bumper stickers, etc. etc. in the coming months. As busy as I stay with shirts however, that might be awhile if ever.

defstarsteve - 5-10-2005 at 01:13 AM

yo man I have been printing for over 10 years...
been running my own thing for just about 3 years now
2 almost full time employees other then myself and my wife/business partner... and I still do 18 hours a day 7 days a week.

if you want some tips on stickers or any of the other stuff feel free to ask..
my list of equipment is way to extensive to list, but you seem to have some good stuff going on man.

I am all about the punk and hardcore community taking care of thier own needs, be it thru labels, distros, merch production, clubs...
why should we give our hard earned money to people who will take that money out of the scene and spend on golf, or mini vans, of adult contemporary music...

if you support those who support you we can continue to work at making this thing of ours, bigger and stronger...

Antiseen75 - 5-10-2005 at 03:01 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by defstarsteve
yo man I have been printing for over 10 years...
been running my own thing for just about 3 years now
2 almost full time employees other then myself and my wife/business partner... and I still do 18 hours a day 7 days a week.

if you want some tips on stickers or any of the other stuff feel free to ask..
my list of equipment is way to extensive to list, but you seem to have some good stuff going on man.

I am all about the punk and hardcore community taking care of thier own needs, be it thru labels, distros, merch production, clubs...
why should we give our hard earned money to people who will take that money out of the scene and spend on golf, or mini vans, of adult contemporary music...

if you support those who support you we can continue to work at making this thing of ours, bigger and stronger...

Wow - impressive bro - 18 hours a day/7 days a week - I bet you're making some serious $$$ and still managing to give great deals price-wise. Very impressive.

Are you still using a manual or have you moved up to automatic press level? Also curious, where do you buy your tees and how much are they? I can still turn a small profit charging bands 4 bucks a shirt for black shirts or a tad bit under for white tees. Not much of a profit AT ALL - but I want the bands to make good money on the merch and I'll charge more to other "regular" people and businesses. I also do a lot of specialty shirts that make me good money (a lot of underground 80s metal shirts and NWOBHM band tee's - I'll do up a print of 5 or so shirts and get about $15.00 a piece for them from the small circle of super die-hards). I did a 10 shirt run for the old metal band Witchfinder General and those things went berzerk - I think I got $20 a piece out of all 10. Had a few offers that were ridiculously more but 20 is the most I'm gonna accept for a shirt - I told some of the folks that didn't get one I'd do another 10 tee run soon.

Do you do work for a lot of bands? I'm getting in good with the heavy metal market, but the punk/hardcore market seems very well cornered.

Discipline - 5-10-2005 at 03:38 AM

Not to be a dick but isn't that copyright infringement. I only ask because if I was in a band I wouldn't want people printing up my logo and shit without me knowing it.

Antiseen75 - 5-10-2005 at 04:50 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Discipline
Not to be a dick but isn't that copyright infringement. I only ask because if I was in a band I wouldn't want people printing up my logo and shit without me knowing it.

I attempt to get in contact with any and all bands that I print shirts up of, in almost EVERY case they are ecstatic that I'm doing it and encourage it and the only thing they ask is that I send them a few shirts for themselves and other band members.

However, to reply to your comments about "if i were in a band I wouldn't want anyone printing my shit" blah blah.......sorry to STRONGLY disagree with you on this issue, but I would fucking LOVE to see people making shirts of my band and ripping my bands albums to file-sharing prog.'s like Soulseek. It's nothing but FREE promotion. You take a band such as Metallica that bitched and whined like a bunch of little girls over Napster - they would have LOVED for that to have happened when they were spreading demos around in 1982! Why should it be any different now? Just because they made a ton of money along the way, should that be a legitimate reason to become a bunch of whiners and change their ethics 360 degrees? Didn't they advocate and take avid part in "tape trading"? I know I'm talking about downloading here which is a different thing, but the same basic principles apply. I would never do shirts up of a band that was on the road and depending on merch sales for gas and food to make it through their tour, but for bands like WG whom have been inactive and silent for 2 decades and are not doing it on thier own accord - really, what is the harm? If I were a 50-some year old former metal-band member, I would THANK whoever was out there keeping the name alive and making merch!

One of the bands I work for (actually 2, but King Fowley is the main-man in each group) - October 31 and Deceased actually have encouraged me to "bootleg" their stuff - I do, however refuse and just tell them I would rather supply them for a tiny bit above my cost and let them reap the monetary rewards. King owes half a million dollars in hospital bills, so I'll do whatever I can to see that he can make some $ and pay towards his bills.

I would never willfully take the food off of someone's table, but lets get real - peter steele isn't going to be having Carnivore shirts printed anytime soon and he's not starving by any means, so what is the real problem of printing up 5 Carnivore shirts for 5 die-hards that request such a shirt? Bad example maybe, because I have made contact with Mr. Steele and he agrees with me 100%, but a person can't always find contact info for every underground late 70's/80's metal band that might have 100 hardcore fans left, ya know..............

GabeTexasGAMC - 5-10-2005 at 05:28 AM

Ok... look here dude.
I need you to email me a list of what you have, or when your gonna do some more runs of heavy metal shirts.
The tattoo shop I work at is also a record Store. The dude who owns the record store is OLDSCHOOL as fuck, played with bands like Devestation and looooves that shit.
If you had a RUNNING WILD shirt, hed piss his pants.
PLEASE let me know if you have some shit coming up.

Discipline - 5-10-2005 at 05:30 AM

I can see where you're coming from. The fact that you actually try to contact the bands first is fuckin cool.

As for the downloading thing, I am 100% against it. I like to support the bands I like and listen to by buying their albums. I will go onto a band or label's site and download one track if it is for the purpose of checking out something new. I'm proud to say that I have more then 700 cd's that I've spent thousands of dollars on. If I had more money I'd have 3 times that amount. I can't download music or buy bootleg shit after seeing bands looking for a place to crash cause they can't afford a room for the night. But that's just me. To each their own I guess.

Antiseen75 - 5-10-2005 at 05:44 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by GabeTexasGAMC
Ok... look here dude.
I need you to email me a list of what you have, or when your gonna do some more runs of heavy metal shirts.
The tattoo shop I work at is also a record Store. The dude who owns the record store is OLDSCHOOL as fuck, played with bands like Devestation and looooves that shit.
If you had a RUNNING WILD shirt, hed piss his pants.
PLEASE let me know if you have some shit coming up.

I'll drop you an email later today bro - I'm sure we can work something out.......

Antiseen75 - 5-10-2005 at 05:54 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Discipline
I can see where you're coming from. The fact that you actually try to contact the bands first is fuckin cool.

As for the downloading thing, I am 100% against it. I like to support the bands I like and listen to by buying their albums. I will go onto a band or label's site and download one track if it is for the purpose of checking out something new. I'm proud to say that I have more then 700 cd's that I've spent thousands of dollars on. If I had more money I'd have 3 times that amount. I can't download music or buy bootleg shit after seeing bands looking for a place to crash cause they can't afford a room for the night. But that's just me. To each their own I guess.

Like you said, each to his own, but growing up in the late 70's/early 80's, I now appreciate downloading 100%. I was mixed on it when it first came around in the mid-late 90's, but nowadays, it's EASYYYY to record an album - I could record an album and send it off to 10 labels tomm. and I guarantee you, someone out there would sign me and try to market it. That's the reality of computer recording. It's cheap, it's easy and lots of sub-par artists are doing it. Downloading has almost become essential in these modern times if one wants to keep from blowing all of his $ on CDs. I know what you're saying about downloading a track or two from the label or bands website, but unfortunately, labels are so many today, they don't give a shit if there's two good songs on an album and the rest is pure filler shit. If I love an album, you damn right I'm buying it, and in some cases (the new Ramallah of COURSE), I don't even HAVE to dload it to see if it's worth a shit - my order is coming in as soon as pre-orders are taken! But Rob has proved himself to be nothing but genuis. Same goes for his bro. Mark. I have all the Ducky Boys stuff and would buy a band with his involvement blindly. BUT - how do I know about the 4 guys from Morristown TN (just a loose ex.) that put together a new street rock band and signed to "beststreetpunkrecords" label (once again, just a loose ex.) and have 2 GREAT songs and 10 shitty ones on a CD? Answer is, I DONT unless I dload their album and spin it several times and come out with an opinion.

Like I said, there's WAYYYY too many bands/artists/labels putting out albums with one or two "good" tracks and the rest crap for folks to go out and drop their hard-earned cash down to give every release that comes out a chance. This isn't the 80's when you, if you were a metalhead, could go out and buy something on NOISE, COMBAT, ROADRACER or Metal Blade Records and be practically 95% sure you would be happy with your purchase. This is the modern age of computers and "bedroom" records in which any and all of us can throw something together and get signed.

Antiseen75 - 5-10-2005 at 07:41 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Boycott Christian HC

Quote:

Originally posted by Antiseen75

Quote:

No offence but aren't there enough bands that WANT to get shirts done? Today it seems like every band makes shirts before they even have a demo out.
And if you make shirts on your own initiative, shouldn't you contact the bands BEFORE you print stuff and discuss the idea with them? (I'm just asking, definitely not trying to pick a fight here...).

No offense taken, but obviously you haven't read all of my posts or otherwise you need to go back and re-read.........if I CAN contact a band (and believe you me, I DO have contacts a mile and a half long for some pretty goddamn obscure bands and then some) I WILL make contact and ask permission - if I CAN NOT make contact with the band, my practice is to 1. sell no more than 5 prints of said bands shirts and 2. keep AT LEAST TWO prints on hand in-case I, down the line somewhere make contact with the band members can give them a freebie. If I never make contact with the band members after a few more years, I'll have a couple of cool shirts on hand....one for me and one for a close friend of mine at the very least.

If any of you do indeed see a problem in this practice, obviously we will just have to agree to disagree because to be 100% honest, I DO NOT. If I was in a band in 1979 and I released a couple of 7''s and an LP somewhere along the way, I would be ecstatic that some fan out there thought enough of me/my art to print up a few shirts! This is simply how "I" would rationalize this, NOT how EVERYONE will! I do, like I said TRY MY DAMNEDEST to get ahold of any and ALL band-members BEFORE printing! Sometimes, even with the hundred or more contacts I have, is NOT possible as sometimes these folks are dead or not online in any way, shape nor form! But I do ALWAYS keep at LEAST ONE extra shirt of each run for the poss. that a band member will someday discover the fact that I have done this.

Once again - you're talking about bands "today" which I take as meaning "current and touring and still playing" - all of the bands that I have EVER done shirts up of that I have not been able to make contact with haven't been active in at least 20 yrs. So your reply is pretty moot in regards to my practice.

GabeTexasGAMC - 5-10-2005 at 08:27 AM

YES!

BDx13 - 5-10-2005 at 11:19 AM

i worked at a screen printer when i was in high school and college; i fucking loved it. we had a 4 and 6 color press, a BIG fucking dryer, an automatic exposure unit (sweet), and a ton of other shit. just out of curiousity, do you guys use liquid or paper emulsion?

i also did garment dying for this company when i was home from college in the summers. that was cool, but the dye does NOT come off easily. TODD might remember that shit - i used to turn up at Starkweather shows with my arms dyed deep purple from the elbows down and kids would look at me like i was a crazy leper.

Antiseen75 - 5-10-2005 at 10:13 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by BIG DUANE
i worked at a screen printer when i was in high school and college; i fucking loved it. we had a 4 and 6 color press, a BIG fucking dryer, an automatic exposure unit (sweet), and a ton of other shit. just out of curiousity, do you guys use liquid or paper emulsion?

i also did garment dying for this company when i was home from college in the summers. that was cool, but the dye does NOT come off easily. TODD might remember that shit - i used to turn up at Starkweather shows with my arms dyed deep purple from the elbows down and kids would look at me like i was a crazy leper.

I use liquid emulsion due to the fact that I do a lot of small runs - paper stuff is like $3.00 per sheet at the place I get my supplies. Paper is easier to use and offers a consistent coat, whereas liquid each coat is a little different from the next, but the liquid stuff I get for $55.00 per gallon and it exposes pretty quickly and only takes maybe a couple of min. to reclaim (and that's without even using a pressure washer).

Screen printing is definitely fun and profitable, I'm actually surprised that more people don't do it. It does require a decent amount of $ to start up though. I think I got started on a little over 5K, but in retrospect, I didn't really need to spend that much - a person can get started EASILY for a little over 2K.

defstarsteve - 5-10-2005 at 10:20 PM

dude I started with 40.00 and a pair of jiffy clamps
sold my first job, and bought the screens emulsion, shirts and went for it...
but if you don't really love printing don't do it as a profession.
lots of stress when you really get going

Antiseen75 - 5-10-2005 at 10:50 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by defstarsteve
dude I started with 40.00 and a pair of jiffy clamps
sold my first job, and bought the screens emulsion, shirts and went for it...
but if you don't really love printing don't do it as a profession.
lots of stress when you really get going

Yeah, I had one of those "how to make your own press" guides and tried to build one a few years back but it never worked very well for me. I can see getting started for little to nothing - but I was at a shithole factory breaking my back and decided to just go all out so I could get the hell out of there. However, I definitely overspent what I needed to, but with this business, it seems the learning curve is never fully overcome. There's always something new coming up.

The biggest stress for me is the art - I use Corel Draw 10 and I'm self-taught with the program (meaning there's still a lot of shit that I don't know about the program) and sometimes certain images are just a bitch to deal with. Customers seem to think that any scan will work so I'm always getting low resolution jpg scans and having to almost rework the whole of the images in Corel. That takes time and even then, there are some images that can't be fixed. I have a girl who is a photoshop whiz and she's going to tutor me on that in August, so hopefully that will make things a little easier.

defstarsteve - 5-10-2005 at 11:55 PM

antiseen check your u2u...
and i use phtoshop...
self taught
if I can get a good picture of todays job I'll post it up
I did this one about a year ago, all they sent me was 72 dpi jpeg....
I had to redo all of it...

see I cheated though I worked in a print shop for quite a while and learned as much as I could that way.... after doing the punk thing for years before that...I love this game