Screen Printing Start-up, Part 1 - Buying Equipment - What I should have done

Since this is the first post in the start-up category, go ahead and ask yourself these questions: Is screen printing right for me? Am I the right kind of person to go into business for myself? There are a host of other resources that can help you decide whether or not you are the right kind of person to be in business. I have taken all the self-tests and have yet to pass even one of them. So maybe I’m not the right person to help you decide whether or not you are right for the screen printing business.

What I can tell you this: screen printing is a goofy business. It is unique in that it requires mastery of no less than 20 or 30 skills to do properly without having to use an outsource (artwork and film prep come to mind). There is also the actual screen printing process itself, which isn’t that easy to learn either. If you’re still deciding on whether or not you want to do this, and it’s only your third or fourth week of research - keep researching until you have all the information you need. If you’re like me, and feel like this is a divine calling requiring more faith than due diligence - get psychiatric help. Then do more research.

If you’ve already paid the shrink and have still decided, even after hours of therapy that, screen printing is the only business for you, then it’s time to take the plunge. Be fore warned though. This plunge will be a grossly cold, slimy experience if you don’t go in with your eyes wide open to the pitfalls which can kill you as a startup.

Among the first considerations for you as a newbie printer is this - equipment. It can make you or break you, but not in the ways you’ve magined. A lesson, like most I have learned, which came by virtue of the hardway.

Proper Equipment Will Make Or Break You. Don’t Let it Break You

“Beau! We’re selling all of our equipment! Do you want to buy it?” Those were the words that were said to me by the company I do artwork for, moments before I made the final decision to take my own frightening plunge into the emotionally unbalanced world of screen printing. I wish I’d never heard those words. More importantly, I wish I’d never said “Wow! Sure!”.

At that moment in time I didn’t even qualify as a novice screen printer. I had never stroked ink onto a shirt. I had never coated, burned, messed up and reburned a screen. I had never set up a two color job where you have approximately two inches of screw-up area before having to burn at least one screen again (2 minutes if you have a coated screen - 45 minutes if you don’t - 15 minutes if you have an expensive, climate controlled drying wrack). I had never loaded a registration job, not even one. I had never dealt with a screen clogging issues. I had never improperly cured ink onto a shirt. I had never destroyed $4000 worth of nylon jackets. I had never smashed a screen after hours of unsuccessful exposure attempts. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I, probably like many of you, watched a few videos on youtube and figured how hard can it be? I know the answer to that question now.

A.) Equipment - Don’t Buy A Used Screen Printing Equipment Privately Unless You Know What It Is tha Buying.

Had I known then what I know now I never would have bought any of that equipment. It’s not just old - it’s unusable old, and none of the most important
equipment, the press or the conveyor dryer, will fit into the space I’m using as my print shop. Worse, I over-paid for it. I agreed to pay $5000. It’s worth about $800-generously.

What I have since learned is that the company which originally made the press is no longer in business. So all the broken parts which turned up are - sooprise! sooprise! - broken forever. Most of the ink I got from them is pretty good, but a lot of it had been contaminated with nylabond by a disgruntled employee. So now I’m afraid to use most of it, and should probably get rid of all but the unopened containters.

I did get a few good things out of the deal, a great pressure washer, a nylon jacket clamp (which by no means qualifies me to print nylon as you’ll find out), a worn out Hat-Champ, which still works in spite of the rust which covers all of it. I got a decent light table which I never use. About 80 screens (10 of which are NOT warped). I also got some shelving, and other miscellaneous stuff. For what I paid that’s not good enough. The press and the dryer, the heart of the deal, and both too big for my space, which is totally my fault.

Bottom line: I was sold. And I’m an easy sell as it is. If had known then what I know now, I could have gotten so much more, so much better, for so much less.

In a pickle, committed to this business personally and financially, I did what I had to. I bought NEW Screen Printing Equipment! The answer to my prayers? Yes? Maybe?