(If you haven’t already read Part 1) and/or (Part 2)
What I Should Have Purchased Instead:
The whole shabang could have been purchased for well under $1,000, possibly less. That means I over-committed about $9,000 for those keeping track. More if you throw how much the learning curve has cost me. So, with 20/20 hindsight here is what I’ve learned, which will hopefully help you learn the same lesson the easy way.
For Artwork and Film Output:
Corel Draw X3 - Now that X4 is out, the price has come way down on X3. You can get it on Ebay for under $100, and it is darn fine software. If you don’t know how to do artwork then outsource it to someone else (like me) or don’t do artwork. Make it a prerequisite that artwork be finished, and ready to print. This will likely turn away a lot of potential business though.
Film Positive Output:
1 - HP 5000N or likewise laser printer which prints tabloid prints. The 5000N is about 10 years old, but is a workhorse of a printer, and does the job amiably. Print to Vellum. These guys claim to have the best vellum on the market for screen printing, but I can’t vouch for them, as I haven’t tested them yet. I will though. Finally you’ll need to get a container of toner enhancer to finish it off. You spray it on the finished film after its printed. It helps darken the final image. Depending on how successful you are at finding one of these printers either locally, or on Ebay you could pay as low as $20.00 for your printer.
The downside to laser film is, even though its cheap, the vellum can shrink a little (not often) which for tight registration jobs would be very problematic. But, as a new printer you can stay away from super-tight registration jobs until you’re ready for them. A lot of busy, busy shops use this alternative to great effect. One of the biggest shops here in the Valley only recently upgraded to the Epson 4880 to do their film. They built a multi-million dollar shop on the back of an Epson 5500 Laser printer. it’s identical to the printer above, except that it can also print color.
Possible Preferable Alternative: I’ve heard, but have never tried (BUT I WILL) that you can use an Epson printer, such as the new 1400 printer which replaces the Epson 1290, to print to one of the transparent films using regular OEM ink with no RIP, and then darken it with toner enhancer. If that works it would be an excellent alternative to laser for about $300.00. You’d be getting closer the finished RIP quality, and you wouldn’t have any of the vellum shrinkage problems associated with laser and vellum. You can also print your image twice, and then double them up. I have tried this one, and it which works very well. But it’s tricky and a little time consuming, which is why I don’t have it high on the list of alternatives.
The Press
1 Color Press - $100 - $400
The only reason I would have stayed with 1 or 2 color press is registration. This would be plenty for the new screen printer. If you’re serious about starting out with the capability of doing more colors then you can go with one of the 2, 3, 4, 5 or even 6 color presses on the low end. For instance you can get this 4 color, table top-press from Ryonet for about $363 (over $400 after shipping).
But… WARNING! WARNING! Anyone who’s been in the industry for some time will see a tremendous problem with this press almost immediately. No micro-tuning possibility. That means no fine forward back adjustments for tight registration jobs. Personally I would stay away from these until you’ve gotten some experience. I’ve seen one color presses on Ebay for $125.00 after shipping. And for the life of me, I can’t imagine doing even a three color job without micro-registration, let alone a 4 or six color job. That, to me, is insane. I know it’s done. I just don’t know why...
1 - Trial Set of Franmar Chemicals: $67.00 AFter shipping
Click the link to read my article on why I’m one of their biggest advocates. In short. The products work. They’re safe for the whole family.
4-10 - 110-155 mesh Aluminum Screens from poconoscreen.com or silkscreeningsupplies.com (Ryonet). I recommend Pocono for the east coasters, and Ryonet for the west coasters. Although, do the math before you commit to a purchase. Pocono Mt. Screen is hard to beat with their screen prices, and it might be that, even after shipping, you still come out better getting your screens from them. They do all the mounting and stretching in house, and the screens are awesome. You can buy more screens if you like, I’m just doing my best to keep the cost down a bit in this scenario. Appromoximately $90.00 for 4, After Shipping
1 - qt. of Emulsion - Dual Cure.
DO NOT GET THE FAST EXPOSING EMULSION. The learning curve is steep, and it’s too easy to under/over expose, for the newb printer. Call your vendor to discuss this further. I use Saatichem Textil PV (fast exposing- about 45 seconds) emulsion from Pocono, and the Diazo Dual Cure (easier to expose and slower about 5 minutes) from Ryonet. $15-30.
1 - 500 Watt Photographers flood bulb with reflective hood and power mount. My setup cost $30. I got it from my local photographer’s supply outlet. It works perfectly suspended over top of my art shining down.
1 - Gallon of White Quality Ink. Wilflex Super Genesis is my favorite ink. They sell white by the gallon only. The rest of the color gamut you can get in quarts. It’s approximately $60 after shipping. I would only order other colors as you get requests for them. You can buy them all outright in the beginning, but it will run your startup costs up. Wildsidenorth.com is a great place to buy Wilflex Ink. They have a huge, poorly laid out PDF catalog available on their even more useless web site, but they CARRY A LOT OF STUFF, and are extremely helpful.
As an Alternative, Ryonet offers a great line of inks, especially their proprietary blend called Ryopaque. I love it! It is outstanding, and works just as well as the Wilflex Ink. They’re also a little less expensive than Wilflex, which is always good.
Union, W.M Plastics, and Triangle Inks are all very, very good, as well.
4 - Wooden Squeegees
Get varying sizes from 4″ for pockets, and 8-12″ for bigger prints. You can buy more if you like, but again, I’m just detailing what would have been good for me. As for the style, I like wooden Squeegees. But it’s a good idea to line the squeegee with aluminum tape. Wood is porous, so if you get ink on it, it’s crazy hard to get out. Get varying degrees of hardness on your squeegees as some jobs need softer/harder blades than others.
1 - Pressure washer from Wal-mart. $60.00. If you decide you hate screen printing at least you’ll have something useful out of it.
2″ masking tape to tape off the interior wall of the screen, and/or to block out pin holes. $2.00
1 - T-squareit T-square. World’s greatest T-square. $30.00
To cure the ink you have four choices.
-Heat Gun -It’s a joke. Don’t do it. Takes about six minutes per shirt.
-Flash Dryer - Works well. Takes about 30-40 seconds per shirt but is at least $300+ out of pocket.
-Conveyor dryer - Works outstanding, but you can expect to spend low end $1,500.
-THE OVEN IN YOUR KITCHEN CAN CURE T-SHIRTS - it works very, very well. Turn the oven on the 350 dgrees broil, put it the shirt on a cookie sheet for 30-50 seconds. Pull it out and the ink is cured. I’m not kidding. This can be a great way to test the waters without investing in dryer.
In conclusion, there’s probably a lot more you can add to this list and I’m excited to see what you think, so leave comments about your recommendations. But this is a good list and even with shipping you’ll save yourself some bread in the long run. You can get one of the kits from any of the various vendors over the internet including Ryonet, Pocono, Atlas and others, but, in my opinion you’ll do better with the pick and choose method. In the end you’ll probably get a more rounded selection of items.
4 comments ↓
I’m doing some shirts for our softball team and I’m a bit nervous about the curing process. Our broiler isn’t very big (it’s a drawer), will the shirt be too close to the heat source? Could I just cure the shirts in the oven proper for a longer amount of time?
Oh, forgot to mention I’m using WB inks. It appears you’re referring to plastisol in your article. Will that affect curing time, temperature, etc. in the oven?
Michael,
I like the way you think! You’ve got a cautious attitude, but it doesn’t prevent you from taking risks. I am by no means a WB expert, but in an industrial setting curing Water Based ink can be very difficult. My opinion, though, with the right ink you’ll save yourself a load of pain.
First things first. You are right. The ink that I’m using is plastisol ink. With plastisol ink the idea is to heat the ink all the way through so that the plastisizer absorbs into the resins in the ink.
Curing water based ink, however, is a whole different beast. With waterbased the goal is to evaporate all of the water out of the ink, and then cure it. There are dryers which do this but they cost - at a starting point of around $7-8,000. Baloney.
You don’t need an $8,000 dryer if you start with the right ink. My favorite Water Based ink, by far and away, is Permset Aqua. They’re an Australian based company, but they have American distributors. I get mine from Rexart.com, but make sure you order it by phone. A lot of times they have sales which aren’t detailed on the web site. Colormaker.com (the manufacturer) can also recommend other suppliers, as well.
STAGE 1. AIR DRY
With Permaset, you must air dry first. AIR MOVEMENT IS VERY IMPORTANT. I would suggest leaving out for 24 hours under a fan. That’s almost certainly overkill, but when we’re just starting out it’s better to be safe than sorry.
The goal is to get it to a point where it feels dry, i.e. no tackiness at all. (It’s probably ready a whole lot sooner than 24 hours, but I’m just paranoid. You should be the best judge of when it’s actually dry. It could be ready in as little as an hour or two.)
STAGE 2. HEAT CURING.
The next great thing about Permaset is how easy it is to heat cure compared to most “industrial” WB inks.
WHICHEVER OF THESE METHODS YOU USE, USE IT AFTER THE YOU HAVE AIR DRIED YOUR SHIRTS.
Method 1.)
Use an Iron. This is not ideal for industrial usage, even on a small scale, as you’re looking about about 3-5 minutes of ironing per shirt. It’s great for just a few shirts though.
Method 2.)
Fold, and wrap each shirt individually in aluminum foil, and bake at about around 190 F. Again, I’m not sure this is ideal on an industrial level, but it will allow you to cure more than one at a time. And you’re looking for around 5-8 minutes per shirt. Just make sure you wash test. If the wash test fails, add a minute of cure time and try again.
Method 3.)
Tumble dry on high heat for about 30 minutes.
Given the variability of dryers, heaters, ovens, and irons, I recommend you do a few wash test to make sure the ink has properly cured. If the wash test fails, add a minute to your heat-cure stage. Keep doing this until it succeeds. At that point you’ll have all the variables ready for the next job.
IF YOU’RE NOT USING PERMASET.
If you’re not using Permaset the above sequence may work. It may not. My recommendation is to contact the manufacturer of the ink (not the supplier) and get their recommendations straight from the horses mouth.
Keep me posted, as I’m curious how this works out for you!
Here’s what happened with my shirts:
As of Monday morning, I was no screen printer. By Monday lunchtime, two boxes had arrived via UPS–the t-shirts and a box from Victory Factory containing two 20 x 24 screens (110 and 156 mesh), a scoop coater, LX 660 emulsion, a squeegee, and Union Aerotex scarlet red ink. After a few wrong purchases and some returns, I purchased a 500 watt halogen worklight from Lowe’s.
I output film positives on our laser printer using transparencies designed for laser printers from the office supply store. I printed two off and taped them together for higher opacity.
Printing the shirts went swimmingly; I did the first side, waited a day, and then did the other side.
Now for the wash test. I had printed two test shirts and went with option 3, dry on high for 30 minutes. My friend has had success with this method, so I gave it a shot. I washed the shirt and it was not as vibrant as the unwashed shirts, but still acceptable. So I dried and washed and dried the rest of the shirts in two batches to be on the safe side.
The ink was less vibrant than the test shirt and very different from the unwashed shirt. I was somewhat disappointed.
So, analysis:
For the test shirts I used some old undershirts my wife is always hinting I get rid of (stains, etc.). The ink may have taken less time to cure on the thinner fabric, which is why the first test was brighter than the finished result.
Second, I did the curing of the test shirt all by itself, whereas the other shirts were in groups of seven. So the test shirt might have gotten more of the heat and cured more permanently.
Third, Aerotex ink comes with a catalyst to fully cure by air in 24 hours, I did not use this. I later read that you should use the catalyst even if you are curing by heat for best results. The bad thing about the catalyst is it renders the ink useless in 48 hours, and the manufacturer doesn’t really give much more info than “Add this bottle to a quart of ink.” No way I was going to use a quart of ink on 14 shirts.
Your buying guide and curing advice has been invaluable the past couple of days; I thank you.
Looking on the positive side:
I screen printed shirts under a tight deadline while watching our two children (3 and nearly 1). I was able to expose my screen the first try and get good printed results on the shirts the first time. (Using our kitchen table, hinge clamps, and some foam core “platens” as a press).
The shirts still look good, and everyone on the team liked them. We lost our game, though. I had hoped for a win on our first day wearing our shirts. I don’t know, maybe I thought they’d increase morale, skill, esprit de corps. Maybe that’s too much to ask of a t-shirt.
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