This business has lured you in, like it did me, with dreams of cascading profit margins and high-artistic value locked forever onto a screen-printed tee. Of course by now you may have learned that, while high profit margins are possible it take much more than a price tag to add value to a product.  Furthermore, artistic value occasionally happens, but the truth is you’ll likely be, more often than not, printing t-shirts for plumbers and restaurants more than anything else. And the artsy stuff - fun when it happens! - isn’t the bread and butter of this business. Still, screen printing is a fun and satisfying venture (when everything works the way it’s supposed to), and the market, by most accounts seems to be strong -even in this economy.

But screen printing’s got its downside for new screen printers - and it’s a big one: screen printing is fricken’ hard.

When I first started I was lucky. I had my buddy Randall who is a seasoned screen printer. And even though to some degree we were competitors he didn’t hesitate to help me with the many crisis’ that slowed me to a crawl.

But What about you? Do you have one of those friends?

If you do, great, but what if you don’t? What happens if it’s 3:00am and a job due at 8:00am, but it’s going south fast? What do you do then?? I’ll tell you what I did. I prayed. That doesn’t mean my jobs got done on time, but I felt a lot better. My God gives serenity, even when my customers are pissed at me.

One of the last instances I had like this was a job that I did (luckily) for a friend. There were only 55 sweatshirts, but it took me almost a month to complete them!  The problem was that the ink was getting trapped in the screen and gumming up to mesh.  Furthermore the ink was hardening to a degree making it very difficult to clean once the clogging occurred. I couldn’t even get one clean stroke in before the ink would gum up, and ruin a $15 sweatshirt.  As it turned out, was that I was using a poor quality ink and inaccurate off-contact.

This Blogger is Not A Genius

You’d think that it would be easy to figure all this out, and make the necessary changes during the job.  Except that I was new, and I didn’t have a past experience to draw upon. So I analyzed the situation to death, tested every theory known to screen printing (except the right one) until I finally realized that I didn’t have a clue how to solve this problem.

The final analysis of the whole thing is this: when this happened I would have done anything to have access to a web site like this one.

Mark Coudray has been doing this a long time. But longevity is meaningless if you’re not successful as well. Turns out he’s a pretty successful screen printer. So, he knows the business and is good at it. And to my weensy criteria of exceptionalism that more than qualifies him as a bonifed expert.

I don’t think there is a screen printing site like this one where you have exclusive access to one of the leaders in the industry. Sites like www.T-shirtforums.com are great, but at the same time, it’s hard to find good solid tutorial information locked inside the tag structure of an immensely popular forum like that one.

This might just be the ticket for new screen printers - unprecedented access to the enormous gourd sitting on Mark’s shoulders, at a price of course, but I’m not sure that you put a price tag on having the answers you need before you start this quirky business.

The only complaints I have of his site are that the videos are as dry as burnt toast (but still very informative), and the site itself is a little hard to navigate at times, but all in all, the axiom stands - outstanding content can overcome nearly any web design obstacle.

God bless, and good luck!

Here’s the link:  Click Here!

Step Wedge Test

Don’t pay $30-40 for a piece of plastic with graduated dots on it. Use this free Step Wedge Tester instead from SMR Software. They also provide a fine tutorial on how to properly use the wedge test here. SMR is also the maker of a very, very high quality vellum, which by their claim has better properties for screen printers, i.e. more transparent, and more durable than artists vellum. I use their vellum, myself, and while I can’t rightly say that I’ve vetted it in a one on one against artist vellum, I can say it works very well, and it is very transparent.

Raster Image Software (like Photoshop)

GIMP is by far the most available, and widespread open source raster image creation software. It works exceptionally well, and while not quite as robust, it certainly is an outstanding free resource. It works well enough that I prefer it head and shoulders above Paint Shop Pro. There is also a hacked version called GIMPshop, which rearranges the tools and interface to more closely resemble Photoshop. It makes the transition to GIMP much easier. GIMPshop is so effective that, many of the tutorials you find for Photoshop can be followed in the GIMP interface.

Vector Image Software (Like Illustrator and Corel)

Inkscape is bar none one of the more robust pieces of vector software available - free or not. It is unique into itself, as they are NOT trying to emulate Illustrator or Corel, they’re trying to compete with them. It more closely resembles Corel than Illustrator, but that’s where the similarity stops. In the past Inkscape users (like me) have complained about text manipulation, and with the latest version they’ve shown that they’re listening by giving much more control to the user in how the text looks pairs, kerns, and resizes to fit the frame. They’ve also finally given us the ability to convert text to curves which has a whole host of added benefits which weren’t previously available in free software.

It’s missing some things I love in Illustrator CS3, like live tracing, but it’s well enough for me to save the extra money. Besides go here and look scroll down the page to look at some of the fabulous vector art that’s being created with this software.

StarOffice and Google Pack (Alternative to Microsoft Office)
I love StarOffice. It comes with an excellent spreadsheet, database, word processor, as well as a very nice animated presentation package like PowerPoint, a very unfortunate piece of vector software. With the exception of the vector tool, it is overall one of the best alternatives to MS Office available. As part of a joint promotion with Google, you can download it with the Google Pack, and get it for free. Other wise it’s an $80.00 piece of software worth every penny - but don’t pay if it’s free from Google!!! The Google Pack also has some other cool features, as well, but you can pick and choose what you’d like to download or skip entirely.

Leave A Comment Recommend a New Resource!

So, you might be asking “how do I bridge the gap between quality and price?” That’s the same million dollar question that has been asked since the advent of the free market. And it’s even more difficult to pinpoint in the world of web development. For me, it’s easier to discern good design if I first figure out what I’m looking for - and what I’m not looking for. That’s why I like to go over to www.WebPagesThatSuck.com. It’s always heartening to go there and see some of the worst web sites ever. Many of these sites cost tens of thousands of dollars to build, and the end result was a gaudy, hard to navigate web site loaded with just enough bells and whistles to make a visitor experience miserable - and singular - as they’ll never be back.

I do get asked quite often about setting up web sites, and I think I’ve got a few rules and suggestions to follow. The goal is simplicity, affordability, and quality.

Rule #1 Do not use your web host’s web site creation tool.

You know the ones like over at GoDaddy, which promise you’ll have a professional site up in just a few minutes. What they don’t relay to you is that the sites are lame, outdated, cheap looking templates combined with a featureless content manager - anything but professional. They certainly don’t inspire confidence in your visitors. They make you look like you’re nothing more than a garage/basement screen printer - which you might be, but you don’t have to look like one!

Rule #2 Avoid Web Designers unless their credentials can be verified

If the goal was just to have a presence, then you could ignore rule #1, and have a crappy web site. But why pay a designer, sometimes thousands of dollars, if the end result is a similarly crappy web site? About 90% of web designers have no idea what it means to design to web standards. They have no idea what SEO (Search Engine Optimization) entails. They do not know how to build a web site that is Google/Yahoo/MSN friendly. So, my advice to you is don’t get a designer to build your web site unless you are beyond doubt that he/she knows the science of web design, and has applied it -verifiably - well to their clients.

The bottom line is that if you don’t know what you’re looking in a web developer, you’re likely to be sold by a developer who will not be able to deliver the goods. If you’ve verified the credentials of the developer be prepared to pay out the nose for the design. It may be worth it. It may not be.

How should I, the lowly screen printer, set up my site then?

Suggestion: Run the site yourself.

In the world of the one-man entrepreneurship, self sufficiency is key, even on the Internet where technology changes so rapidly. But the tools are there for those who know where to look, and what to expect. I’ve already said avoid the Content Management portals offered by companies like Go Daddy and Yahoo. And I’ve already said that high quality design will probably cost too much much. So what are we the shoestring budgeteers to do? There are three components to your web site: The Domain Name, the Web Host (where you’re web site will be housed), and the web site itself. We’ll start with the site, since it is the hardest part to pin down, and is by far the most important.

Try Wordpress with Thesis Theme from DIYthemes

Wordpress is a free (love that word) open source, blog/content management engine which was created in collaborative efforts by some of the worlds most gifted developers. It is lightweight, simple to install and manage, and leaves you, the one-man-band, to manage what is important – the content.

The look and feel is determined by a separate component: the theme.

That is where DIYthemes comes in. DIYthemes is a company started by the owners who run www.Pearsonified.com, and www.Coppyblogger.com, some of the best known and trusted design and content blogs out there. Their flagship theme offering is Thesis, and it is in my opinion one of the most technically sound, beautiful themes I’ve ever seen. It is fully customizeable, and exceeds SEO and web standards of development. You could pay thousands of dollars and not exceed the standards this theme achieves. You could match them, but you couldn’t beat them.

Furthermore, since it is laid over top of the Wordpress Engine, it is able to be managed even by web novices with just a little instruction. It truly does offer something that no other out of the box web portal can offer; a gorgeous theme which sells your product magnificently, is exceptionally Search Engine Friendly, and pretty darned affordable! The quality of the theme alone means that code structure of your site will be better than 90% of most other web sites out there. I’m serious.

When I installed the Thesis theme on my company site I was surprised by how easy it was to customize the theme. Granted I’m tech savvy, but I know good design when I see it. Using Wordpress with the Thesis theme, is in my opinion, is one the smartest things a new screen printer can do to maximize their web presence.

Here is a link to showcase sites built with the thesis theme: Thesis Showcase Gallery
It truly is amazing how with a few simple changes the theme can altered in so many beautiful ways.

The Thesis theme meets my standard of inexpensive, and high quality, and that’s why I have agreed to promote it.

Get the Hosting and the Domain Name

These parts are easy; as long as you know that the company you’re working with has an excellent reputation.  For me,  Anhosting.com is the only hosting company I deal with.  They keep their servers, their script packages, i.e. Ruby, Python, MySQL, PHP, etc., up to date with developers, and have a long history of providing affordable, dependable hosting. I prefer www.anhosting.com, as they are by my own experience, and their own reputation one of the trustworthy, sound web hosts out there – oh, and it’s only $6.95 per month!

Good Luck!

Not for the Faint of Heart. Not for the Start-Up, Newbie Screen Printer.

This is the first and only screen printing press I have ever owned. I have grown to love it, in spite of it’s many flaws. If I had it to do over again this is probably not the press I would have bought, nevertheless, since I invested deep, deep, deep into this particular machine, it became incumbent upon me to learn it’s many nuances, and flaws, and then workaround them.

Most of them, I eventually discovered, came from many of my own shortcomings, along with a few flawed misconceptions on my part. Some of the problems, however, reside solely in the heart of this machine, which in my opinion, while mechanically sound, could have undergone a few more years of R&D before it was sold with such hype, as it has been.

Perhaps the most damning of my mistaken beliefs was this one: Great (expensive) equipment can make even a novice printer (like me) excel in this business. What I have since learned is that there about 500 different variables in the screen printing process, any number of which can crop up and snake-bite you in the butt long before you ever press a single stroke of ink onto the shirt. No, the right equipment cannot make you a great printer. But over-hyped equipment (like the R&H line) can break your spirit right down the middle, and even make you hate the screen printing process.

Let’s start with the positives about the R&H printer line.

You Look Marvelous!

First off it’s pretty. I know that doesn’t sound like much of a benefit, but let’s own up to some human weaknesses. If it looks good, we tend to like it. I don’t know how much thought went into the overall design aesthetics of this machine, but my guess is there was a lot. Even though I am now aware of just how flawed this piece of machinery can be, it is still makes me feel good when I stand next to it ready to print. It has the feel of a much more expensive machine. It looks like a mechanical wonder, and when it works right, I believe it really is.

One of the problems though, is that R&H designed this printer to be a great entry-level rotary press, and maybe it is, for a savvy printer. It might just kill the novice printer though, as it almost did me.

Platens, Platens, Platens!!!

The platens are one of the single most important parts on any machine, and these are constructed with extraordinarily high quality in mind. I love - LOVE - the platens. They’re some of the best I’ve ever seen, and quite frankly one of the most expensive parts to replace on these machines. That doesn’t bother me. They’re high quality, and that does make up for a lot of problems with the press. The only downside to the platens is that you have to watch the base on the bottom to make sure the screws are tight. They tend to loosen every now and then, which can be detrimental to a job where tight registration is needed. I took all my screws out and injected epoxy into the screw-holes, and replaced the screws. That problem is solved for now.

Assembly? Snap Fingers. Done.

The machine is mechanically very simple to assemble, disassemble, and maintain, which is important. I put the entire machine together by myself in about an hour and a half. I only needed help lifting the spindle on top of the base.

Smooth, Baby

The screen hinges are extra-ordinarily smooth and easy to control. The motion when dropping the screens down between the registration pins is firm, but smooth, and I’ve had no problems with jerkiness that can come from overly tight springs. In fact, the entire spindle from rotary to screen clamps is very sound indeed.

The Ugly

Consistent Registration is for Losers – Business Losers That Is!

Bottom line on the dirt? This thing loses registration – a lot. And I still haven’t figured out exactly why. I’ve discovered that, if I spend more time on off contact it happens less. But not less enough.

I recently did a four color job which required extremely tight registration, with none of the colors touching, but were just outside of a 1/16 of an inch of one other. It took me about 45 minutes to get all four colors registered in, and I was ready to print. My first print went smoothly until the fourth color. On my first shirt the fourth color was now inexplicably off by almost 1/8 of an inch!

This whole process cost me about two hours of cleaning up the ink to re-registering the screen. It wouldn’t have taken that long, but when things like this happen it opens up the door to human error, so I made a few boneheaded mistakes, which cost me time, as well. I don’t know what your hours are worth, but mine are worth quite a bit to me. If this happens on more than one job it adds up pretty darn quickly.

Registration Guides are for Losers, too!

Most of this presses problems seem to come in the area of registration, which ain’t good. I’ll be printing along, and getting into a good groove, only to discover that one of my screens will no longer drop down between the registration pins! It just hovers above the platen and you can’t even force it down. It seems that, for some reason the off contact has changed so drastically that it will not let the screen fall where it should. Agh!! This *&$## machine!!

I have since discovered that two of my screen clamps seem to be slightly damaged - they were delivered that way, as I have babied this thing. The bottom part of the c-clamp seems to be angled downward by a little less than an 1/8 of an inch. There is nothing I can do to adjust for this. This keeps me from having a consistent off-contact with the platen, which is especially important when printing light ink on dark garments. It has a similar effect to using a warped, wooden screen. The screen never quite engages the platen the same way twice, which eventually causes an inconsistent shift in registration. In fact, you may lose registration on one print, only to get it back on the next. That’s bad. What’s worse is that you may find that your screen will suddenly not even go down between the registration guides, which means you have to readjust your off-contact bolts, which means you have to re-register at least one color. That’s terrible. For a machine that costs $2000 (after shipping) that’s unacceptable.

By using extra-straight, aluminum screens (spend the extra cash on roller frames, you won’t regret it) and spending a lot of extra time on the off contact, especially on the bad print heads I’ve helped to negate this problem. But I can’t promise you that you’ll be able to do the same. It has taken a lot of trial and error to figure this out. A friend of mine has the exact same press, and the exact same problem, and we still haven’t figured out why his does the exact same thing.

Joysticks are for Video Games.

I love and hate the Joystick registration. I love it because it’s so simple to setup simple registration jobs, and I hate it because it is so difficult to set for tightly registered jobs. The joystick is basically a flat slab of steel set between two other slabs, with a range of motion covering about two inches. The problem is the precision movement of the platens depends almost exclusively on the amount of personal muscle control which you may, or may not be in possession of.

If you need to move a 32nd of an inch in any direction to get the job into registration then good luck. That kind of control just isn’t possible without some extra hacking. The best way I’ve discovered to do this is to do this: fiddle with the joystick until you’re as close as you can get it, then tighten down the registration knobs just to the point of where they are snug against the primary slab. Then use a small tack hammer to tap the slab in any direction you need it to go. This is only necessary with ultra-tight registration, and is by no means ideal.

The joystick is much better for simple registration jobs, but it’s a beast where real micro tuning is required. Personally I would like to see a combination of the two.

My Final Thoughts

Here is the blurb for R&H’s web site:

Generally, a press that is inexpensive enough for someone on a budget…doesn’t work well, and usually winds up killing a shop. We’ve decided to end this NOW! The Win Series is a line of presses that have too much quality, and too little price. They are made to be purchased once, and its designed to be used for many years. They are truly a wonderful piece of work. They feature fully cast and machined arms, with Joy Stick Registration. The wheels are CNC laser cut, CNC bent, and welded. They have a 2″ solid center shaft, and similar oversized, low-drag bearings like its Aero Series brothers. Featuring a sturdy round tube base, with solid, adjustable feet, these presses will give both you, and your pocketbook the grins!

The copy writing on this equipment should tell you something. Typically, ad copy should “sell the sizzle not the steak”. In other words, sell how good the steak will taste on your taste buds, show how it looks flamed up on the grill. Make mouths water. Few people actually care what kind of cow the steak actually comes from. The sizzle in this ad, is that it’s inexpensive, and sturdy. The rest is all details about how the machine is built, and what is used to build it – all steak and no sizzle. The part that kills me though is the “grinning” part. You won’t be grinning much with this press if you’re a newb, like I was. If that’s the case make sure you’ve boned up on God, or alcohol, which ever you use most to calm your nerves.

I recommend God. He’s a lot less expensive, has better benefits, and there’s no hangover.

I can’t, however, completely recommend the R&H Win Series press for new printers. It’s just not worth the hassle. Experienced printers will love most likely love it. But not new printers. Buyers use caution.

Time to Print

In the print dialog don’t do anything fancy. Select your paper size and print. I have my default Epson driver set to “Draft” settings which lays down very little ink.

If you’ve ever printed through one of the RIPS then you know what it means to wait a while for your film to print. If the image is particularly large even AccuRIP, which is the fastest that I’ve used, can take 10 minutes or more, per color. When printing through the Espon driver the process flies. It takes about twenty seconds to print out a moderate coverage image. Even though it’s faster, the image quality is still excellent! Remember folks, these are high-definition printers, even the C-120. They’re designed to give crisp, highly detailed photographs! Shouldn’t it be able to give yo crisp, clean lines in black? It doesn’t even have to be super opaque black, which I’ll touch on later.

Now that you’ve printed the image hold it up to a bright light to see how it looks. It may be blackish purple with some banding through the image. Now is a good time to test the finished product on your screens. You’ll be suprised by the results. Rarely, it does happen that some of the banded lines are actually separated enough to allow the light through, and tiny, tiny little line gets exposed. If you find that this is happening to you consistently, then you have an option. Run your film through the inkjet printer twice. Just make sure it’s dry and that your paper guide hugs the film through both runs.

I recently spoke with Bill Hood of www.screenprinterstore.com and he cleared up for me, why this works so well. I’ll paraphrase. “When we’re exposing film the purpose isn’t to make sure the unexposed stays unexposed, but rather to make sure the exposed area hardens properly around the unexposed area. So the light-source type, and light-source position, as well as exposure times, coating process, and emlusion type are all more important than the film we use!

If you’ve ever used a laser printer to do your film then you know what I’m talking about. Even after you spray it down with toner enhancer, hairspray, whatever, you know that it is not very opaque at all. yet it works. It even works without toner enhancer. Don’t get scammed by add-ons, like toner enhancer, and scorch remover. Use peroxide for scorch remover. Use aerosol hairspray for toner enhancer. Works just as well.

RIPS work, for the most part, but as I become more and more accustomed the traditions, and proper workings of the screenprinting world, I’m finding that RIPS, like a lot of the stuff sold by some of the vendors out there, cause more problems than they solve, and simply sound sexier than they actually are. My film process, now, without a RIP, has every bit of the quality without the hassle and expense of RIP software. The only thing I recommend AccuRIP for is if you’re interested in doing stochastic process color for your full color images, instead of halftones. You just don’t need it for spot color printing. Period.

I recently sent my RIP back to Ryonet, and now I have a $595 credit to spend on something else useless. Score one for the lousy businessman!

Bless you all!

Coming Up Next - Halftones!!!!!!!

You’re gonna need some supplies and equipment to do this. But it must meet the criteria of being cheap, effective, and simple.
1.) You’ll need a printer. I tested this on three printers: The C-120, the R1400, and my R1800. It works very well on all three, though the ink was not quite as dense on the C-120, it still worked plenty well enough to block the UV, and it gave me an excellent- EXCELLENT stencil.

2.) Now you’ll need to get yourself some after market ink. Pigment inks, like the OEM Epson Inks, probably will not lay down a dense enough ink cover to work properly. I have not tested this though, so maybe someone can help me out with that. For me, I can get Premiere Ink for my R1800 about $5.00 per cartridge. Now the great thing about cheap, after market inks is that, for the most part they’re all made of dye, instead of pigments. As long as you’re not printing inkjet transfers you’ll never notice the difference. For film, however, dye inks make a tremendous difference in the level of density you can achieve.

The best place in the world to get your aftermarket inks is www.inkjetcarts.us. You can get a whole set of replacement, refillable, spongeless cartridges very inexpensively.

They’ll try to tell you that you need to setup your printer to print only black inks, which involves putting cleaning fluids in all but one of your cartridge trays. Not so. Get the ink, don’t do anything fancy. Set yourself up to do some full color printing.

3.) Next, you need a film substrate.  I use two different kinds. For everyday spot colors I use Screen Printer’s vellum from www.SMRSoftware.com, I also use Ryonet’s R-film for highly detailed images. R-film is much more expensive than the vellum, but it works very well, and is cheaper than most other film brands.

There is another reason I recommend fast drying film: if you’re not using fast ink you’ll have to be careful when your film comes out of the printer as it is very prone to smudging. The film itself facilitates a faster drying time. This isn’t a problem with the vellum however. It dries pretty fast, as well.. This does work on regular transparency paper, but it takes about ten minutes for the film to completely dry up before you can use it. You’ll also have to be very careful when handling it, or it will smudge all over the place, or even run.

That’s it. That’s your supplies. Move on to part three to learn how the process works.

DO NOT SEPARATE YOUR ARTWORK INTO SPOT COLORS. USE A RICH BLACK PROCESS INSTEAD.

Whether printing on paper, or on a t-shirt, the success of your spot color work depends a lot on how you setup your black images. All film, regardless of the final, printed color, must first be put to film as a solid black image. When you send your spot colors through a RIP, which is controlled by a postscript driver, all color information except black is automatically removed.

We don’t want a SPOT COLOR. Instead, we want a RICH BLACK process color. If you have more than one color, and they touch, you may have to set your colors up up on different layers for ease of use. In Illustrator or Corel, open up the respective color control pallet, and slide all colors CYMK, to 100%. We want our Epson Inkjet printer to open up the floodgates of each cartridge and lay a good layer of ink. If you’re printing from Photoshop, just make sure your image is setup in RGB mode, and that you’re blacks are the deepest, richest black you can find on your color picker.

In Illustrator, your color will look like this:

This is how it will look in Photoshop:

Close-up of the Photoshop Color Picker:

When I first bought my R1800 printer with FastRIP I paid approximately $1200.00 for it, with financing interest more like $4,500.00. *Cough*. I was told by my vendor that you cannot achieve a good enough black image without a RIP, which lays down enough of a “special” ink to completely block the UV light during exposure. As it turns out, I was either mislead, i.e. sold, or I was dealing with someone who didn’t have all the information.

Not only can you get clean, crisp images with excellent UV blockage, but you can do it without using the overpriced “special” ink!

More on halftones and spots later. Let’s talk about RIP software. RIPs are the same in any printing industry. They typically serve their purpose very well, but are extra-ordinarily overpriced. Very basically, without a detailed explanation, they take your image and run it through a process of extremely high resolution, which is then typically burned to some type of film. There are also photo-rips which serve the same purpose, but he end result is that a full color image is printed.

The same holds true for the screen printing industry. We have our own RIPS, many of which work amiably, but are either overpriced, overfeatured, or ridiculously complex. As in a lot of other industries, many of them require dongles, which can fail (like mine eventually did), or are just so bloated that it takes as many process cycles to keep them open, as it does for them to process an image.

PowerRIP is probably the cheapest coming in at $399 just for the software. However, for me the interface is a more confusing than is necessary. So it may be cheaper than most, and produce fine quality - but it isn’t bonehead proof, and it doesn’t come right out of the box ready to go. It will take quite a bit of getting used to. Probably the greatest thing about PowerRIP is the enormous selection of printers to choose from. You can use nearly any Epson Printer from the C-120 on up. If you get an R1400, which is Epson’s replacement for the 1280 series, you’ll be coming in at around $700.00.

I purchased my RIP combo, an R1800 with FastRIP for $1200. Up to now it has been a nightmare, and probably the most inconsistent tool I purchased from Ryonet. As a matter of fact they’ve all but shifted the attention off of the FastRIP combo, directly onto another option which I will talk about in a later paragraph. The problems with my setup start with the R1800. For starters it’s an ink hog. Which, actually, is about the only bad thing I can say for it. The images are magnificent. It just isn’t a very economical printer as far ink goes.

Enter FastRIP with the proprietary FastINK, which is supposedly black enough to block out the UV light. I don’t have enough bad to say about FastRIP, and FastINK, so I’ll just narrow the list down to a few fundamental complaints. First off, the FastINK causes banding throughout the image. Which shows up on the burned screen. This problem would reoccur no matter how much tech support I received, which they were very helpful. I have nothing bad to say about the company. They always returned the calls, and stayed on the line until the problem was solved.

Sometimes FastRIP worked, and when it did the results were great. But it was never consistently dependable. Worse, if the printer sat untouched for a week or so, the FastINK would gum up the print head requiring two or three headcleanings to clear. Not good.

I eventually upgraded the FastRIP to AccuRIP, which is hands down, the simplest, best RIP software that I have used. Probably the most impressive thing about AccuRIP is that it has the ability to print FM dots, i.e. stachastic dots as well as halftones.

Stochastic dots print much, much clearer than halftones, and make for a much finer image without the worry of moire’ patterns. They take a little (or a lot) of getting used to if you’ve been printing halftones, but once you get the hang of it, the results are outstanding.

There’s only one other piece of T-shirt software which does FM dots, and it’s a photoshop plugin from Squaredot.com. My problem with them is that you can’t even download a trial version to check it out. They’re so tight about keeping the software unpirated that they won’t even let you see the user interface. Myself, if I’m paying $800.00 for something, ($2,400 after we apply my business skills to it), I want to see it in action.

So, for me, AccuRIP serves amiably, and makes beautiful image-setter quality film. It has no dongle. Has an extremely small hard drive footprint at 48 megs, and it does the raster process outside of the print driver, so it will work with ANY printer!

That said, AccuRIP, for the new, spot color screen printer, is the best value. The price is $499.00 for the software. Ryonet is offering a RIP combo package of the R1400 with a copy of AccuRIP for about $1050.

There is an alternative. If waiting for your vendor to show you a cheaper, more reasonable idea - you’ll be pissing and moaning about it on your death bed, when you’re old and gray because it ain’t gonna happen.

That’s coming up in Part 2.

You see, I had this crazy notion that I was borrowing money; $5,000 to purchase equipment. Not so. They don’t care about the equipment or the $5,000. They want the payment. With a finance company, they purchase the equipment, on the agreement that you pay them for x amount of years, so they can profit an insane amount. Like an idiot, I signed up for a high interest rate, over a long term. It’s a fair deal if you like getting screwed. Yeah, yeah, I know, read the fine print.

Already tired of the payment, I called them to find out how much it would cost to buyout the remainder of the loan. In a cheerfully evil voice the nymph on the other side of the line told me that to buyout the loan would cost $11,500.

After the room stopped doing it’s vomit-spin, I said “What?”. I meant shout the word loudly, and angrily, but it came out more like the sound a mouse makes after its skull has been crushed by the high velocity snap of metal. Like the mouse, the lure of cheese lead me into a trap from which there is no real escape. I’ve heard of mice surviving the metal, but they live on for a short while without their noses. So that will be me. My escape will not be without its permanent scars.

It’s funny. It’s a mistake that I was aware of, as it pertains to other types of purchases. I always said that I would never be upside down in a car loan. For those of you unfamiliar with the term “upside down”, it’s when you owe more money on an item than what it’s actually worth. I’m upside down in my equipment by about $6,000, given the cost of a buyout. I’m upside down by about $15,000 if I go the life of the loan.

What I Should Have Done?

I should have started small like I’ve been encouraging new screeners to do. I didn’t need $5,000 worth of equipment. You can read this post for more on my ridiculous startup mistakes.

Go With A Credit Union Instead - Preferrably A Non-Profit Credit Union.

Credit unions are the anti-bank, anti-finance company. My initial plan of action, until I made the heartbreaking discovery above, was to refinance the loan through my mother’s credit union. That’s what I should have done in the first place. They offer a low interest rate, about 10.5% based on my mother’s credit. The payments would have been about $150 lower every month, and it would be paid off in half the time.

Credit Unions have of the benefits of banks, and all the borrowing power (for small startups) of a financing company, but without the heart-stopping, money-grubbing, fee scheduling that takes place within both.

This post, like most other posts on this site, is geared for a certain start type of startup: the low funds, low experience screen printer. My preference for you is that you don’t purchase equipment through any type of financing. Use my screen printing cheapo startup buying guide instead. You’ll save yourself a load of headaches, even if it does take a little more time to assemble what you need.

If you do finance don’t go through a bank. Don’t EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, go through a financing company. Satan made them. He did. I’m convinced of it, and nothing will change my mind.

That’s just cutthroat business right? More power to him?

Normally, I would say yes, but then here’s where the line gets blurry. He’s a contract screen printer who is new to the business, and may not be aware of the damage he’s doing, not only to his competitors, but also to himself.

It was always my understanding that, with contract screen printing, you are essentially the printer for other companies and/or designers who want to sell t-shirts without the hassle of having a printer. (And we screen printers are a big hassle; a collage of mental disorder and deteriorated personal awareness on a frightening level.)

Why did he bid on the job in the first place? Furthermore, why on God’s green Earth did bid contract screen printing prices - And LOW contract prices at that??

I asked him.

“That’s my price for 1,000 shirts dude.”

I bit my tongue.

“Did any of the guys you print for bid on the job?”

“Not that I know of.”

“You aren’t sure?”

“I think *** Printing did. But I’m not sure.”

“What do you charge them, just out of curiosity.”

“$.60 per shirt at 1,000…” Then it donned on him. “Sh*t.”

Contract Screen Printing, or Retail Screen Printing? Choose one and stick with it. If you decide to do both, have two separate price lists for retail and contract printing. In my opinion it is unethical to offer contract prices to retail customers, if you also give those prices to other companies. My friend was low balling against his own clients who depend on him to help them get the job done. I don’t know if this is illegal, but it’s for sure unethical. Worse, you virtually guarantee that the market price in your area will drop to skeletal prices, especially if some other moron decides to start competing with you for pennies, and if you aren’t very careful about cost analysis, i.e. how much it costs you to stay in business every month, you may find yourself out of business, fast.

Contract Screen Printing Must Be A B2B (Business to Business) affair.

We’re all in this for the money, well OK, some of us are just stupid enough, and/or damaged enough to actually enjoy printing, but that’s not the case. None of us can do it without the money. You’re contract customers depend on you to give them the ability to sell excellent product at a reasonable cost. They also have a reasonable expectation that they do not have to compete with you. It’s a partnership, and if you sell to average customers at the contract price, in my opinion you ruin what should be a very lucrative market for everyone, including you. If you want to be an ultra low retailer that’s fine. At least then everyone understands what, and whom they are dealing with. At the same time, remember that charging too little is one of the biggest destroyers of new business.

Also, one of the benefits of being a contractor your prices are low, but you can count on sheer volume to keep the lights turned on. This also gives you the security of being able to print for several different vendors. So when times are slow, even if your respective clients are struggling a bit, you will still be doing pretty well.

In other words, if you’re a contractor protect your market. Deal with retail and contract opportunities differently. Remember, retail customers, even on the low end of the spectrum expect to pay, at least $4-15 (0r more) per shirt depending on volume, color, inks, shirt style etc., Wouldn’t you much rather make $6-7 per shirt on a hundred shirt order, as opposed to $.60?

If you said “no” then welcome to the club. Your brain is already damaged, as is the case with most screeners. Your only hope now is to take a drill and bore a small hole into the base of your skull to relieve the swelling.