Gettin’ Busy!

My, what a productive day!  We completed one full order and finished the art and prep work for another job.

The time between placing an order for blank shirts and the delivery of the shirts a few days later is my favorite.  It’s “go time.”  It’s the last chance you have to get everything ready so the first shirt can be off the press 10 minutes after the UPS guy drives away.  It’s finalizing artwork, coating screens, pre-selecting or mixing inks.  I always feel like the A-Team during that montage 37 minutes into each episode, when they’re preparing to pull off their elaborate plan.  It’s exhilarating – grace under pressure in the face of a pending deadline.  Loves it.

We did a quick run today of 40 shirts, and I’m expecting another 100 to arrive tomorrow.  There will be a blog about that order coming soon, but I will say that this new run is going to require a printing technique that we’ve never tried.  We know how to do Blend Printing in theory – we even tried it at the Ryonet location in Los Angeles – but we’ve never setup a whole run for it.

This is why I mentioned “go time.”  There are 100 shirts literally on the way to The Lab, and we need to be ready when they get here.

Today, before digging into any production printing, we did a little experimenting with blending inks through a single screen.  This is a process for obtaining color fades.  In other words, you put red on one side, yellow on the other, and when the print is done you should end up with a red-to-yellow fade that has created shades of orange in the middle.  For demonstration purposes here’s a video from our friend and fellow screenprinter, Jeanette from The Pondering Pooch, showing how to do a natural blend effect.

Using a screen we had on hand, we attempted to make a rainbow effect using only four colors – red, yellow, blue, and purple.  In theory, the red and yellow will combine to make orange, the yellow and blue will make green, and the blue and purple will create the indigo/violet color, essentially creating a seven-color image out of only four colors.

Well, guess what.  It totally works.  The only mistake was that I loaded the ink into the screen in reverse order, so instead of ROYGBIV, we ended up with VIBGYOR.  This is why experimenting is a good idea…

Since we began screenprinting, we’ve met some really awesome and incredibly talented people.  These people are wonderful sources of information and experience, and I can’t express how helpful they’ve all been.  It’s an amazing benefit to have a group of people to answer questions and share results, and I want to take a moment to thank Nicole Grobaski from NG Ink and Jeanette Foss from The Pondering Pooch for their advice and expertise on blend printing and everything else.  Thank you, Ladies!

 

Why You Should be a Screen Printer

Are you the type of person that enjoys being creative and making personalized gifts?  Have you considered screen printing as a way of creating fun and useful handmade gifts, on the cheap, for your friends and family?

Think about it.  Who doesn’t like t-shirts?  Furthermore, as screen printing allows you to customize not only t-shirts but towels, hoodies, blankets, totes, onesies – even greeting cards and posters – your creativity is only limited by your…well…creativity.

If you’re considering getting into screen printing at a hobby level, there are some great kits out there that come with not only everything you need to get started, but comprehensive training DVDs that will show you everything you need to know at first.  These kits start as low as $149.

This video might help you decide what level kit would best fit your needs.

As with any hobby, screen printing involves an investment of time and money.  For crafty types, though, the results will not only impress the recipients of the gifts, but open new and exciting options in the way of artistic expression.  Also, for the exceptionally motivated crafty types – even at the hobby level – screen printing can provide extra income.

 

The Price is Right

Today I put the finishing touches on the first official MOYA price sheet.  Now that I have it sitting in front of me, I can’t imagine how I’ve been quoting jobs on the fly.  What I can see now is that I’ve been quoting far below market value for screen printing.  Good to know!

It will be nice to have something to show a potential customer that concisely breaks down the charges.  People want to know what they’ll be paying for and I think the form I’ve come up with is simple and self-explanatory.

Here are a few main benefits I’m foreseeing as a result of having this price guide at hand:

• More consistent job quotes. Being able to consult a “master” price list will help me to fight the urge to under-quote jobs in order to land the contract.
• Discouraging tiny orders. Sure, “no job too small” is a great tagline for your business card…but quoting reasonable prices for one and two shirt orders can end up costing you money in the long run.  Now, if there’s a small job I don’t want to do, I can just point to the sheet and say, “Okay, let’s see…one XXL black shirt…three color image…that’ll be $86.50.”
• Ability to impress clients by waiving fees. It might sound inconsequential, but customers are thrilled when you can show what something should cost and then show them a lower price.  Example:  I can now say, “Just for you, I’ll drop the setup fee from $25 to $10.”

Now that you can see some of the benefits to having a strict quoting tool, check out the QuickBooks for Screen Printers Expansion Pack.  Among a lot of other great, industry-specific features, it includes a T-Shirt Pricing Calculator for Microsoft Excel.  I spent hours creating the MOYA price guide…and it doesn’t even DO anything.  With this tool, you just plug in a few pieces of information and it will calculate the cost for you automatically.

All in all, I’m incredibly satisfied with the guide I came up with.  I believe this will be a helpful tool for both MOYA and our customers.  So, without further ado…

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Leave a comment here.

Ethan

Team MOYA

Updates to The Lab

Today I spent the entire day in The Lab – cleaning up, moving some things around, redecorating, and just generally resetting the space.

It’s important to make your workspace as comfortable, efficient, and fun as possible.  If it’s somewhere that’s appealing to be, it will be a more productive environment.

I added a wire cube organizer, for one.  This will soon be used for shirt stock, but for now it’s holding squeegees, emulsion, Enviro-Strip, and some other supplies.

The screen rack I built is working like a dream, but it doesn’t hold anywhere near all of my screens.  I’d like to add a pro rack at some point – the solid construction and wheels make it a great addition.  It’s on my Want List.

Finally, I ordered a few posters.  The theme is “Tarantino” – which is appropriate since “MOYA” comes from Pulp Fiction.  Also, this seemed like a good addition since so much of our inspiration is rooted in film.

Here are a few pictures of the updates.

Ethan

Team MOYA

Pallet Tape – A Friend to Screen Printers

Anyone who’s done any screen printing knows how messy the platen can get after just a few shirts.  You start with a clean surface, then coat it in spray adhesive, put shirts on top of that, and then ink on the shirts.  After 10 shirts you have a sticky mess of cotton fuzz-balls, ink, and other particles.  This of course needs to be cleaned periodically as it will begin to affect the quality of your prints.

Now, I’m going to show two options for making this problem easier to deal with – saving you time, money, and sanity.

The first option is Newman Pallet Tape – This is essentially a wide roll of heat-resistant masking tape (only much stronger), that covers the platen.  When the shirt fibers and inks have built up enough that the platen needs to be cleaned, simply pull up the tape and put down a fresh strip.  No time-wasting chemical cleanup needed!

Ryan makes it look cool.

The second option is one of my own design – a direct result of my misguided belief that I’m clever, combined with a few extra rolls of blue painter’s tape that I had laying around.  The idea was simply to cover the platen with strips of tape, effectively creating a barrier similar to the Newman Pallet Tape.

Notice the tiny gap on the left side and the slight overlap on the right.

There were two problems with this strategy.  For one, it’s incredibly difficult to get each strip to line up perfectly.  As I learned upon testing this trick, the smallest gap or overlap of the tape strips causes the print to reflect the imperfections onto the shirt.  Another problem is that painter’s tape is relatively expensive, and the cost of this (money-saving, I thought) trick ends up costing more in the long run.

The moral of the story – if you’re into that kind of thing – is that most screen printers should have a roll of this Newman Pallet Tape right next to their press.

Oh, and as long as you’re here…please take a second to vote for our blooper video.

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Leave a comment here.

Ethan

Team MOYA

Screen Printing Trick

I’d like to share a quick trick for screen printers.  This is a small tip that you may find useful in a smaller shop.

This will come in handy on those occasions when a build-up of spray adhesive works its way through the shirts and slowly begins to make the print side of the screen tacky.  It also helps when printing with thicker inks (like white plastisol or specialty inks), or when the job is set up with less-than-ideal off contact distance.  All of these circumstances can create the same problem, and that is the shirt and/or ink sticking to the screen.  Now, this is generally only a problem with multi-color designs, as it causes the shirt to lift and shift – thus messing up any registration for secondary screens – but it can still be a hassle with one-color prints.

If you find yourself in the middle of a print with a shirt that is stuck to the screen…grab a can of compressed air.  Aim the stream of air directly into the open areas of the screen (the areas where the ink passes through), and blast some air through the screen.  This should create enough pressure to break the contact between screen and substrate without shifting the shirt and throwing off registration.

One thing to be cautious of, though, is over-using the can.  When compressed air gets too cold, the can will expel some of the propellant which, as it turns out, is similar to Plasti-Solve and will dilute and remove the ink – a result which is less than desirable in this instance.

Like this...

Now, after the air has been used to separate the screen and substrate, you’ll need to troubleshoot what caused the adhesion before moving on.  Failing to fix the cause of the problem will only allow the same result to occur on the next print.

 

The Wash Test

There are many different types of inks and dyes used in textile printing – plastisol, water-based, discharge, process…the list goes on.  Each of these inks has their own unique curing parameters.  Curing, of course, is the process of hardening or solidifying the ink to complete the transfer to substrate, therefore reducing the ink’s ability to wash out.

Here’s the rub, though.  There are so many variables that contribute to a print’s final cure – ink film thickness, effectiveness of equipment, quality of ink…even the color of the ink and garment are a factor – that it’s difficult to always be sure when your print is cured.  As if this wasn’t enough to worry about, an improperly cured print can fade in its first wash.  Imagine sending out an order of 300 improperly cured shirts.  That would be one unhappy customer.

If only there was a way…

Well, there is!  It’s called a Wash Test, and it’s as self-explanatory as it sounds.  Here’s how it works.

First, print a test shirt.  This should ideally be printed on the same type of garment you’re planning to use for the final run. 

Second, cure the test shirt in accordance with the curing parameters with which you’re most comfortable.  For example, plastisol is cured at (or around) 320 degrees.  Be sure to take extensive notes during this stage because, if it works, you’ll want to duplicate the steps exactly – “Test #1 – Cured with flash dryer for 45 seconds.”

Finally, cut the cured print in half with scissors and run one half through a full laundry cycle (wash and dry).  Now, compare the washed half of the print to the unwashed half.  If they’re both the same, your print is most likely cured correctly.  If the print lost ink or faded during the wash, run another test until you find the right combination.

 

Ethan

Metallic Inks? Rock & Roll!

I took advantage of the Ryonet Cyber Monday sale last month to pick up some new kinds of ink with which to experiment.  In addition to replenishing some supplies, I also ordered three new items:  Metallic Silver ink, Copper Shimmer ink, and Puff Additive.  Today I experimented for the first time with the Metallic Silver.

After removing the lid, I was immediately struck by just how silver the ink actually looks.  Its appearance is identical to mercury.  I was expecting more of a “bright” gray color, but it literally looks like liquid metal.

Metallic Silver ink through an 86 mesh screen with a 2-and-2 coating of emulsion.

I selected an 86 mesh screen for this trial run, because I was sure the ink would be thick.  I was right, too!  I thought white ink was hard to print with, but Metallic is incredibly viscous.  Think Silly Putty, only silver.  As you print, you can actually let go of the squeegee, and it will stand up on its own.  Considering the pressure I needed to apply to get the ink through the screen, I can’t imagine using anything higher than a 110 mesh. 

“Look! No hands!”

The ink retains a great deal of its “metal” appearance on the substrate, even after curing.

The curing stage proved difficult.  I found the ink film was still not completely cured after doubling our standard drying times.  This weekend I will do a wash test – an effective assessment of an inks’ curing parameters, wherein a test print is cut in half and one half is washed and then compared to the original, un-washed half.

My overall rating for this ink is 4 out of 5 stars.  It has an undeniably bold and beautiful result on the shirt, but it’s difficult to work with and temperamental when it comes to curing.  I believe it would work best as a design highlight, and not the main ink color.

Ethan

Team MOYA

The Grand Design

When you think about it, the very center of screen printing – the all-powerful, grand design of screen printing – is the design itself.  It sounds like such a moot point to even bring up, but humor me.

The design is where the appeal lies.  You didn’t start screen printing because you enjoy the smell of the ink.  It would be kind of weird if you did; weird and a bit creepy…awkward pause…aaaand moving on.

 The designs make you relevant in this business.  It’s your bread and butter.  It’s the connection to your customer; platonically speaking of course.  Essentially, it’s the universal appeal of screen printing.

That being said, let’s look at another obvious truth about designs: each design has its process.  This is no different in screen printing as it is the same with any medium involving design.   Exploring the obvious a bit further, learning what that process is now will make all the difference when obtaining the right tools to achieve the right end result later.

Let’s take a look at what style t-shirt you want to design.  Does the design have a lot of detail?  Do you need to use halftones to achieve the maximum effect?  Maybe you want to use glitter ink to print up swag for your Twilight fan club?   The word on the street is that vampires don’t sparkle, but who am I to ruin your delusions?

The glitter effect can be achieved with any setup (granted you have a screen with a low enough mesh count), but those detailed designs require better equipment, supplies, and software.  The real point is if you really want to challenge yourself design-wise, you’re not going to want a hobby kit.  It would be like preparing your Thanksgiving dinner using an easy-bake oven; you’re going to be disappointed with the results.

To better paint a clearer picture here, let me break down some of the equipment involved in screen printing and its relevance to the design itself.

• The better designs need the right design software.  For example Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator (CS3 preferably over the later version) or the latest version of CorelDraw.

 

•  Also programs like Separation Studio and AccuRIP compliment the design software quite nicely, shorten the design process, and can effectively get that design an extra couple of notches towards perfect.

 

• You need a printer that can print dark enough for the exposure, handle halftones, and print to the size you need.  We use the Epson 1400 Blackmax printer and it does a fantastic job.

 

• You need a “good” exposure unit.  The Sun is just not going to shine here.  Investing in an exposure unit will bring out more of the design in your screens than the cheaper alternatives like halogen lamps.  The better the exposing process, the better the fine details will be preserved in the stencil.

 

• A good press that handles four to six screens will start you out nicely; if not flat out continuously meet your needs.  When working with multi-color jobs, you want a sturdy press that doesn’t mess up your registration.  The less you have to adjust your image, the more shirts you can crank out. 

 

• If you’re doing all over designs, you’ll need a press that can accommodate larger screens as well.

 

• A flash dryer is more than a method to cure the ink you print.  Some types of designs require flashing in between prints so that the inks don’t mix when you don’t want them to.  Even if you have a conveyor dryer, which you’ll want if you aspire to crank out larger volumes of products on a deadline, you’ll still want the flash dryer in your shop.  The alternative is a heat gun, which you’re likely not going to be a fan of using for prolonged periods of time.  Heat guns take a long time to cure ink and, because of the concentrated heat, they can easily burn a shirt.

This list gets longer depending on what you’re thinking of doing in the screen printing world.  In a lot of cases, you’ll find a work-around that achieves your goal to an acceptable level.  It’s a tall order to have everything you want in your shop from the get go.  We’re still piecing equipment together ourselves, but the more equipment we invest in….doors open up for us and it’s liberating sometimes. 

My overall point is, before making that first purchase, visualize that design style you know you’re going to bring to the table.  If the common denominator is details, invest a little bit more so you don’t burn yourself out by falling short of the mark.  You’ll save money in the long run by not having to upgrade your equipment as much.  You’ll also save more than one headache having the right tools for the job and you’ll save a ton of time and potentially make more money.  You can’t beat that.

Thanks,

Steve – Team MOYA

Where Kangaroos Keep Their Cell Phones…and Their Young.

Now that the weather is cooling off (finally), hoodies are going to be in demand.  Hoodies are great because, not only do they keep you warm, but they provide a nifty little pouch for storing things.  It’s really handy.  I see why the Kangaroos do it.

Yesterday, we printed our first batch of hoodies – an order for a cheerleading squad.  I was a little concerned that sweater material would prove to be a difficult substrate because of its thickness and more porous surface, but there were no problems at all.  I am, however, going to pick up a can of Sprayway Web Adhesive as standard spray mist doesn’t bond particularly well with the fleece lining.

SprayWay Web Adhesive

Web adhesive is used for printing thicker garments and fleece garments such as sweatshirts, sweaters, and thicker t-shirts. Standard web adhesive does not bond to thicker garments properly because it’s not able to get between the fleece structure on the inside of the garment.

 Specially formulated for the screen printing studio.

 Repositionable yet strong enough to hold sweatshirt material.

 Bonds easily to a variety of materials without transferring to the fabric.

 Does not allow shifting of the material during the screen printing process.

This was a one color design, printed with reduced Ryonet White plastisol ink (mixed with Ryopaque Scarlet for pink, and Ryopaque Royal Blue for the light blue).  It was printed through a 110 mesh screen with a 2-and-2 coating of SWR emulsion.

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Leave a comment here.

Ethan

Team MOYA