I will not tell you how I was inspired by the story I read of this young Marine. I will not condescend to tell you how this kid should be in inspiration to you. You don’t need me to point out how thankful you should be. There will be no pontificating on this young man’s life, the honor of his duty… his sacrifice.

How could I do that? The truth is, after reading this story, I’m quite certain that, in spite of the fact that I am not burned over 90% of my body, (the way Merlin was) my life pails compared to the one he lived. I am not even a tenth of the man that Merlin German was.

You don’t need me tell you how good you have it. Some of you, and you know who you are, will read this and be thankful that it was him instead of you - even while there will be a lingering gnaw on your gut that tells you how poorly your life has been lived. This is what it means to be compared to a real man who holds the heart of God. You don’t need me to tell you that you are weak. Like me, you’ll learn that much better by reading his story and coming to that conclusion yourself.

This kid embodies what it means to be held by God. And I’m thankful to have met him through this story. God bless the German family, and God welcome home our son.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24805978/

If you haven’t read Part 1 You’ll have to Read it now or you won’t know what I’m talking about.

For a few people the road seems to be an easy road to follow. Successive victories get built up on top of one another until they stand atop the mountain waiting for the upstarts to charge up and knock them off. For others, most in fact, the road to success is paved with failure after failure, but tempered with dogged persistence. For some… it isn’t even paved. It’s not even really a gravel or dirt road. It would barely pass as a deer trail, and even then, most of the deer on this path have already been eaten. That is my road. It isn’t boring. It’s frustrating, it’s mind numbing in its strangeness, but unfortunately, not boring.

All the things my expert didn’t do, which she should have.

1.) Preshrink your nylon. Nylon shrinks when heated up to around 230 degrees. It shrinks a lot. Some estimates say that it might shrink as much as 20%, but I think that’s overstating it. It’s probably more like 5%, which is still a lot when you’re trying to register artwork. So, first things first. Pre-shrink your nylon. Even if you’ve ordered preshrunk. Send it through your conveyor at least once. Twice for posterity. Let it cool down, and then print it.

2.) Nylon Additive must be used. Nylon and other mesh substrates like rayon, burn up very easily. They will burn under a flash dryer after about 25 seconds. That’s not enough time to cure ink. If the Nylon begins to shrivel it’s over. That’s it. Once it starts it melts fast and there’s no saving it.

You must have an additive in your ink to make it cure faster, and Nylabond (or similar additive) will do the trick. But, be warned, once the agent s mixed in the ink is ruined. You can only use it for nylon products, and nothing else. Mix the ink and additive in parts in a separate container if you want to preserve the rest of your ink. Ryonet also sells a great kit for this. It’s a quart of ink with just the right amount of Nylon bonding agent to get the job done.

2.) Special care must be taken with setting up the screens and artwork if you’re printing multiple colors on darks. When printing color onto dark T-shirts, typically you have to have a white flash plate underneath the color so that it will show up. However, due to the nature of nylon this is a bad idea. You have to flash the white ink so that it can be printed, and even preshrunk ink can still shrink more when its reheated. In other words if you use a white flash plate on dark nylon, YOU WILL LOSE REGISTRATION.

Set up your screens for dark nylon like this instead. The artwork should be set up so that none of the colors touch. This way you can print each color successively BEFORE it’s reheated. This will keep any residual shrinkage uniform across the printed artwork.

3.) Special Care must be taken when printing the ink onto the nylon. Ryonet has a crazy suggestion for how to screen print nylon. They suggest using very light squeegee pressure even though you don’t actually get much ink onto the jackets on the first pass, then flash the ink and print another thin layer. Do this over and over, with very brief flash times, until you the vibrant image you need.

I tested this out, and it works, pretty well. Truth be told it works about the best of any method I tried for small print runs. The problem comes when you have a large order. If you’re using metal jacket clamp as your platen, it retains the heat from flashing, and gets hotter with each successive print. Eventually, even if you have multiple platens, it may start to cure your catalyzed ink in the screen, since it now cures much more quickly than regular ink. It may also facilitate jacket shrinkage, even if it has been preshrunk.

Should I print nylon at all? Sure! Nylon jackets are very lucrative, and your markup on them is significantly more than what you’ll make on T-shirts. But, every article I write here is geared toward helping new printers avoid making the mistakes that I did. So, do not take nylon jobs UNTIL YOU ARE COMFORTABLE SCREEN PRINTING ON NYLON.

My suggestion is to make a circuit trip around all of your thrift stores, and buy any and every scrap nylon jacket you can afford. Get a few screens and start practicing. Ruin a few of them on purpose to learn how long you can flash nylon before it burns. After the ink is cured, let it cool down, and then see how easy it is to peel off the jacket. It should be difficult. Wash the jackets after they’ve cooled down, to see if they’ve lost any of their body. They shouldn’t be any easier to peel off than before.

Don’t do what I did. Don’t see the dollar signs, take the job, and create an unhappy customer. In the end you’ll be glad you didn’t.

Here are some more informative links on printing nylon than this simple article:

• Ryonet’s Tutorial
• International Coatings Mesh and Printing Tutorial
• US Screen Printers Tutorial

Never trust an expert unless (A.) you have first hand knowledge of his/her expertise, or (B.) have enough time and resources to eventually verify (A).

This would have saved me $4000.00 and a huge heartache. We have discussed in other articles the unhealthy levels of my (possibly psychotic) optimism. I may even be Pollyanna herself - in a guy’s body of course. But this was beyond the pail.

It was my SECOND job in service to AAA Screen Printing, and it was huge. Too big for me. I should have said “no!” I knew I should have, even at the time. This isn’t like 20/20 hindsight. This was knowledge at the time I was well in possession of. And yet, “I’ll do my best.” I said instead. I’m sick of regret.

I had in my basement 209, high-quality nylon jackets which were $20 a pop, and I didn’t have the first clue how to properly print them.

I began doing research on the internet, because as we are all well aware of at this point: the internet is a fountain of truth and knowledge which can be trusted almost always. I read and read, and read, and read, until I could read no more, and still didn’t know where to start. I called Ryonet. They were helpful. But they spoke to me as though I were already in the know, and not wanting to sound like an idiot (which any newbie who wants to print $4000 worth of nylon absolutely is) I let the farce stand. They used terms I was only vaguely familiar with. I responded with affirmative answers, and spoke very intelligently about things of which I had no idea.

It began with more screen burning issues. I had finally figured out how to properly coat the screens, but I hadn’t yet fully tested my emulsion. Plus, being fast exposing it is already much more difficult to expose than the dual cure emulsions. With my inexperience it was almost impossible. The first night passed without a single screen, as did the second night with only one of four burned (two colors on two different size jackets). The third night saw more success when I switched to Saatichem, but only a little more. It took me eight screens to get the remaining three I needed.

Night four, I still hadn’t printed a single jacket. I had the jacket clamp. I had the ink, the Nylabond. I had everything but the reassurance that comes with firsthand knowledge of how to do something properly. I had a brain full of garbled knowledge from countless different resources, all describing the same process in vastly different terms, and levels of technicality.

It’s all rather funny now. I was learning how to print one of the single most difficult substrates, nylon mesh, from various vendors and websites. That’s not a terrible way to learn, along with trial and error, time, and a little effort, but when $4000 worth of jackets is on the line, and needed on a deadline, and you have about $20 in the bank… find a better way.

I had the lingering guilt that someone better, someone more experienced needed to be printing these. She, the owner of the company, called again to ask about progress. “I haven’t printed a single jacket.” I said. “I just don’t know how to do it.”

“That’s OK. I have somebody who can help. She’s been screen printing for 20 years. She’s an expert.” I breathed a sigh of relief.

Day five. She arrived. A God-send. An answer to my prayers. An angel who smoked Marlboro’s, and knew exactly how to print my jackets. I can look back now and safely say that God didn’t answer that prayer, and in fact, God was yelling to me to “Turn back! Swallow your pride! This is a disaster, from which I will not protect you!” God was trying to tell me through all those early hardships and mishaps that this job wasn’t right. At the time my motives were all wrong.

I took the job anyway. I hired the lady, Carol, we’ll call her. She printed all 209 jackets. The school they were printed for, upon seeing the job, refused all but one of them. My expert, my optimism had failed.

Part 2 will be up tomorrow.

We’ve heard of Handmade Screen Presses, but how about Handmade Heat Presses?? What world are we on? How did this happen? Am I still asleep? How can a handmade heat press even be possible? It sounds like an electrical nightmare. Doesn’t this stuff have to be vetted by the UL certification process? Are these the descendants of the aliens who built the pyramids??

Possibly.

Anyway. It’s called the Monkey Press and it is an outstanding piece of handiwork. As an added benefit, for about $500 less than you’ll pay for a standard Hicks Press you can get a Monkey Press which works just as well for about $200 after shipping.

The heating platen (genius) is made from a flat griddle (used for cooking grilled cheeses for my daughter) which you can purchase from Walmart. It can heat up to about 450 degrees, and is 10″x15″ which will meet most of your needs.

It comes in four flavors, with the low end starting around $149.00, and the biggest press coming at around $220.00 before shipping. There’s also a version which doesn’t come with the locking cam, which means that you’ll have to brute-force the pressure onto the shirts yourself. This is fine if you’re strong and/or fat. Not so great if you’re scrawny (and fat) like me. Spend the extra $20 for the locking cam.

They sell their presses almost exclusively on Ebay. Here’s the link. Click on their profile and read the FAQ. It’s priceless, and one of the reasons I love these guys so much.

Check Out the Monkey Press.

When I was a kid I wanted to grow up and be a professional breakdancer. The only problem was that I was short, pasty white, kind of chubby, and lacking a whole lot of body rhythm. I gave up on breakdancing after losing several competitions to this other kid - Todd Baker. He could do a body wave which started in his hands, wiggled through his feet, came back up and ended in his tongue - HIS TONGUE FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! How can I compete with that? Dejected, I walked away from breakdancing, and haven’t looked back. I do, however, still occasionally moonwalk around the house.

I’m quite certain that’s the same mindset that lead me into screen printing. And quite possibly nearly destroyed my efforts. I saw what everyone else around me was doing, and figured I had to do it myself. “To beat the best, you have to be the best” I’ve always heard. But in actuality, that’s the most detrimental mindset you can have.

You don’t have to be the best at anyting. In fact, you should strive for adequacy! There are only a few people in any given field of excellence who can truly be considered the best, and it’s usually in sports and or earnings reports where things are quantifiable, and not necessarily subject to the whims and objections of the final arbiter. Can anyone argue that Tiger Woods isn’t the best golfer in the world?

But in our world, the world of designs and printing. We, the new screen printers, can’t even be the best in our small markets, let alone the world. So why try? Why not strive, instead to give to the best of your abilities, and give the customer what they need, not pine and worry over what you think they deserve.

For me, I can’t be the best designer or the printer, and I don’t want to be. To my customers, I can be summed up in one word: Servant. And that is just fine with me.

Oh, and Todd? He’s fat now, and manages a furniture store. He never went on to be a pro breaker, and he couldn’t screen print a shirt to save his life.

Victory is oh so deliciously sweet.