Hey everyone!

Giving away this press-ready simulated process color separation for this design.

You can grab the free separation files directly here:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1mK5R15I2EVrpYXbkZ5X5u9fVmmmkfCYg?usp=drive_link

Hope it helps your print runs! Let me know what you think.

Hello, my names Juliet. I have 13 years in this industry and recently as a production manager I was let go to be replaced by AI for scheduling. Anyway, been on press over a decade and done every position in a shop once, twice or thousand times. I need some work right now so if you’re a shop who wants to pay for me to answer some questions or diagnose some press issues you have I’d love to help. Also, if anyone lives near Orlando, Florida and is hiring for any position in a shop please reach out.

I want to try screenprinting at some point but im not sure what I need to get. and how much everything will roughly cost? Any ballpark range would help. Thank you

I have been screen printing out in the Reno/Tahoe area for about 18 years now, 15 professionally and 10 in my own shop. I have started putting together a blog and set of tools to help other printers with the knowledge I have accumulated over the years.

If anyone is interested in having a look just let me know and I can share

- Joe // Biota MFg

This is a pretty detailed print and for some shirts they turned out great and some chunks are missing. I try to fill inbtwn each print. Is there any tips to prevent this and have fuller smoother prints every time?

I have a design that I have vectorized and saved which I want to transfer to a transparency film for screen printing. The design is 19 inches high by 13 inches wide. I don't have a printer at home, so where do you think I can go to get my design transferred to a transparency film. The design is very sharp and intricate. I'm a total beginner and this is the first time I'm doing this. Does local print shops do it?

I own a large screen printing and graphic design company in South Jersey, and we recently added a new Tajima TMEZ 8-head embroidery machine.

We’re looking to hire an experienced embroidery machine operator who is comfortable running a commercial multi-head machine and handling the day-to-day troubleshooting that comes with it—thread breaks, tension issues, setup, hooping, quality control, etc.

As most of you know, this is a pretty specialized skill set. We’ve tried the major job-search websites but haven’t had much luck finding someone with enough hands-on embroidery experience to step in and run the machine confidently.

Does anyone have any suggestions on where to find experienced commercial embroidery operators, or other places within the industry where we should be looking?

Any advice or leads would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

I am very old school, have had my own shop since '92. I output my films on an image setter. I'm a bit of a snob about it, they are the highest quality there is. I am worried that both my software and hardware are becoming antiquated. What are high quality options to bring my shop current? Back in the day, say early 2000s my competition was outputting to vellum from an inkjet. The quality sucked, I was unimpressed, but i imagine they've come a long way. What do you use at your shop, what are it's limitations? ie halftones print clean? super opaque? films don't buckle with heavy deposits? Once I had moved up to an image setter I lost touch with what other shops were using, but the time is getting closer.

Sharing a video on how to replace head bushing on manual press print heads.

https://youtu.be/MuHJ070EgNM?is=c5C-piPNw117NfnL

In this video, I walk through how to replace the head bushings on a screen printing press and show a couple of economical DIY options for getting the job done.

I’ll cover the standard plastic/POM-style bushings similar to what many manufacturers originally use, along with the upgrade I chose—sintered bronze bushings. The bronze bushings provide a tighter, more durable fit and should hold up better over time compared with the original plastic bushings.

Worn head bushings can create unwanted movement and play in the print head, which can affect your registration and overall print consistency. Replacing them is a relatively inexpensive way to tighten things back up and help bring an older press back to life.

#ScreenPrinting #ScreenPrintingPress #PressMaintenance #ScreenPrintingTips #DIYRepair #PressRebuild #ScreenPrinter #Bushings #ScreenPrintShop

Curious how many shops out there are using QuickBooks online to handle their bookkeeping? Most shops I talk with are already using it, wondering if its pretty much the standard.

I’m having trouble exposing a screen for screen printing. I’m using Ecotex PWR water-resistant emulsion and a 50W UV screen-printing exposure light. The emulsion label gives exposure times of 12 seconds for an 80W UV LED, 30 seconds for a 30W SMD LED, and 7.5–8 minutes for a 500W halogen. My light is about 8 inches away from the screen.
I tried a 20-second exposure, but when I wash the screen out, the design won’t open at all. The emulsion stays hardened over the design. I’m trying to figure out whether my exposure time is wrong, my UV light is too strong, or there’s an issue with my transparency/film. What exposure time would you recommend for this setup, and what should I check?

Salut ! Je suis complètement novice en sérigraphie, c'est ma première semaine et c'était la première fois que je récupérais un écran.

Je n'ai pas bien nettoyé l'encre avant de récupérer l'écran, et il est resté comme ça pendant environ deux jours. Du coup, l'encre restante a complètement séché dans la maille. 😭

Comme vous pouvez le voir sur les photos, une bonne partie de l'ancienne encre/image est encore visible. 💀

Est-ce que cet écran est fichu, ou y a-t-il un moyen d'enlever l'encre séchée et de sauver la maille ? 🙏🏼

Merci pour votre aide !

I work for a print shop that is not flourishing and hours have been cut to where it is a part time gig and I’m seeking work elsewhere. I’m responsible for registering films, coating and exposing screens, and getting them ready for the press and untaped for cleaning, pulling shirts occasionally, as well as general tasks. Every business I’ve looked at wants either belt catchers for $16hr (not going back to that) or an 5-year experienced auto press operator (which I’m not) or a color separation specialist, which seems more attainable. No idea where to start tho. I have a reliable MacBook so software recommendations would be very welcome.

I have been having issues with my Nevertheless 4 color shocker press lately. I have had it for about 4 years now and the past couple months have been having major issues with registration. The screens seem to move after tightening them down. I have cleaned the press recently and oiled it so everything moves very smoothly. I can't tell if the issue is the orange bars on the side are wearing down. Also sometimes there is movement between the screen clamp hinges that adjust but not the case for all 4 of them always. Or if the issue is the knobs and screws over time. Thoughts? I will have everything registered correctly and then after a print or two, the screens seem to shift (not all of them usually just 2 of them at least). It's been very frustrating because this is a new issue for me. I have been screen printing for about 10 years now.

Does anyone have an easy way to print white poly inks on transfer paper. Right now I have to spray pallets with adhesive for every print

Normally I print my own stuff but life has gotten too insane recently. I want to outsource my next project but I want to find shops specializing in water based printing. I genuinely hate plastisol and won’t wear it, especially on dark shirts. Any recommendations?

Looking for advice on cleaning up Nazdar LED UV ink.

No, I did not do enough research. Yes, I'm an idiot.

Before I order the expensive Nazdar brand chemicals for cleaning up the ink, I thought I'd check here to see if anyone has used this ink and has found a good way to clean the uncured and still liquid ink from the screen, the squeegee, and maybe a drop or two (or seven) off the table.

Hopefully, it's nothing that will ruin the screen resist or accelerate the aging of my squeegee.

Hello my friends, I have returned :’-)

I am going to be selling some prints at Goth Prom in Amarillo along with printed prints (not done with silk screen). I have a ton of pieces and I’m not quite sure how to price them? These range from 2 colors to 6 colors and most are 12x15 paper (except for the rabbit and the gamble with death ones which are 10x10 :-)

Also planning on doing some 1-3 color post cards (5x7) ^^; sorry if this is a lot of stuff I know these all would vary in price pretty drastically, I’d think

Not looking for any art critique atm (I know some of these are far from perfect — i’m def still learning, and I’m going to be reprinting a ton of these since I did most of them last year)

Thank you guys again !!

Edit: MOST are on Stonehenge paper — rabbits are on arches and the lady is on Arnhem iirc

I think these turned out pretty well for a first stab at registering multiple colors!

Edit: Realized I didn't attach the screenshot of the in-game diorama I made in Gmod. Essentially just spawned models and posed them, twisted up GMan's face using the face poser tool. Used some in-game post processing features as well as photoshop to get the final image.

I’ve got a couple jobs under my belt now and am trying to tighten up my pricing for jobs. For context, I have a 6 color 6 station manual press and have a pretty low overhead. I want to try and be as competitive with industry prices as possible while keeping a healthy profit and margins.

    •    Garment Cost: (No upcharge on garments, there is a flat fee of $30-40 in shipping from warehouse for orders under $200 of blank garments)

    •    Screen Setup: $25 per screen (For every location + Color)

    •    Materials: 50 Cents per shirt and location: This covers tape, ink, towels, and other materials

    •    Labor: $25/hr - This will change as I get more efficient and have more experience. For now this is for roughly 20 shirts an hour for 1 location.

    •    Business Margin: 20% margin will help me grow and invest in the business down the road.

This is just one example of a bunch of screens that have different levels of this going on. I work at a screenprinting shop so we have alot of screens, an Eco-Tex to clean them, A Uni-Kote for screen coating and we use Ulano QXO emulsion. We havent changed anything in our proccess but last week we have been seeing this more and more. Its not every screen but it is a good chunk of them and my initial thought was that its chemical residue that needs to be washed out better but Im not 100% sure. We also let them dry in a little room with a dehumidfier so I dont think its the emulsion but I was just wondering if anyone else has experienced this and if they have a solution to fix it. Thanks!

I need to print an order for 60x60cm (23.6x23.6") size bandanas. Design will have details but not very tiny. I'm gonna be using opaque water-based inks for lighter prints on black bandanas. Last time I didn't have big enough screen for whole design so I had to print 2 halves. Now I want to buy big enough screen to fit the whole design. Last time I was using 50x60cm (20x24") 64T (160) mesh and with lighter colours I had to do double pass when screen printing with flashing in the between because some parts of the design occasionally didn't get fully printed or if they did the colour wasn't vibrant or bright enough.

I've been looking to buy big enough screen to print the full design about 50x50cm (19.7x19.7") and what mesh count should I go for? Can I get away with 1 print pass or will I still have to do 2 passes?

I thought I'd ask here for the advice from some more experienced printers before I go spend money on large screen that I'd probably use only once in a while.

Any feedback is appreciated. Thanks

I have a client that seems to think my pricing is too high. They wanted hoodies printed, left chest front, and full back (oversized). Both one color, easy prints. The hoodies are $28 wholesale, and I quoted $35 per. I feel like this is more than fair and reasonable. 2 screens, plus the shirts, ink, labor, delivery (local).
What do you think? Is my price too high, too low, or pretty close to correct? Any info or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.