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General => General Discussion and ??? => Topic started by: alan802 on August 09, 2021, 11:41:04 AM
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I try real hard to get ink through my screens, it just doesn't go. I use lots of pressure and it still doesn't work. What is off-contact? Please help me. ;D
How yall turds doing around here? Thought I'd drop by and say I haven't missed some of you, but some of you I have missed terribly. :)
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lower your mesh to at least 110 - wooden frames are best.
Fker... ;D
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xVLXO_1RRQ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xVLXO_1RRQ)
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Have you tried a squeegee? Is there an image, or just a coated screen? Not dead yet...
Steve
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How yall turds doing around here? Thought I'd drop by and say I haven't missed some of you, but some of you I have missed terribly. :)
Wonder which group of turds I belong to.
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How yall turds doing around here? Thought I'd drop by and say I haven't missed some of you, but some of you I have missed terribly. :)
Wonder which group of turds I belong to.
the love/hate :), mostly love.
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It looks like most have somehow survived the last 18 months ok, or at least pretending to. I see a lot of familiar names as I browsed earlier. Hopefully everyone is getting by or thriving. And I'm sure those who aren't have moved on to better things, low bar.
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I was wondering where you were. Figured you were busy as heck.
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Welcome back stranger.
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Good to be back.
I've been less busy the last two months, but prior to that the previous 1.5-2yrs I had too much on my plate and got fried, was ready to walk away. We've had a drop from covid, but it was nothing compared to the drop in payroll. Fall of 19' there were 8 of us in the screen printing building, and through most of 20' there was just 3 of us. Leading up to March 20' we had lost 5-6 employees (both buildings) to different things and as we were preparing to hire, covid came. Then another 3 full-timers decided to quit, then try to claim unemployment. It did suck having to go to court and testify against people you worked with for several years. Up until a few months ago I was cleaning/coating/burning screens, receiving/shipping, running the RPM a few days/week, running the laser engraver, delivering, even took over a few customers from a sales rep that left. I've actually been doing receiving since fall of 19' (maybe longer), but hiring someone, then training, then they spend 6-8 hrs/day doing something I do in 1.5-2 hrs didn't make sense. AND finding employees has been a tad bit more difficult the past year so. It took about 7-8 months to hire for receiving and a spot for screen printing production. The last 5 years it has been trending that direction, so it's hard to say how much covid had to do with finding employees, but I'm sure it had an impact.
So we're slightly smaller now, but leaner. We were pretty lean to begin with, and most of what was cut was done amicably and pre-pandemic. And yes, we still use thin thread and mostly roller frames. Because they are superior, that is all.
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Thought you had gotten lost out there in Big T, glad to see you back
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It was hard finding a decent employee pre pandemic, now its impossible to find a crap employee.
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Soon the waste material is going to hit the rotating cooling unit............................. :'(
On September 5, 2021 several federal unemployment benefit programs will expire across the country, per federal law. The federal benefit programs that will expire are:
Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA)
Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC)
Extended Benefits (EB)
$300 Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC)
mooseman
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I ain't gonna lie, I was to the point where I was more than willing to downsize this joint to fit the employees we had left. And on average, you get the same result out of employees these days whether you pay them $10/hr or $18/hr. Well, I take that back, we get less production now than we did 10 years ago when we paid far less. Hopefully not everyone is experiencing the same problems. I expect there are still pockets/regions that have a strong workforce base to pull from. Central Texas isn't one of them.
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I ain't gonna lie, I was to the point where I was more than willing to downsize this joint to fit the employees we had left. And on average, you get the same result out of employees these days whether you pay them $10/hr or $18/hr. Well, I take that back, we get less production now than we did 10 years ago when we paid far less. Hopefully not everyone is experiencing the same problems. I expect there are still pockets/regions that have a strong workforce base to pull from. Central Texas isn't one of them.
To get a great printer we had to pay $25 a hour and 10k bonus. So feel you there. We do have a great staff most making the higher end of your listed price there and we live in nowhere TN. Factory jobs here now are posting jobs starting at $17.17 literally a mile from here and my staff passes that billboard daily. crap job over all but thats great starting wage to screw water heaters together. Others are paying even more. Fast food is now $15+ around here and they can't find help. Period.
We keep raising wages because frankly sales are off the scale right now but will that hold forever? No idea. We will add 7 figures in sales this year. But what about next year, when gov stops paying all these people to sit at home and blow money. Whats going to happen? No idea but im watching my money in general.
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10 years ago we peaked at 15, including me and my partner. Today, our full time artist is in 3 days, our screen guy 2 days, my partner and I are 6 days, and one new hire, who is a Godsend, putting in 45+ hours. He used to run his own shop for 10 years, got out of it, but missed it. He moved to our area when his wife got a fantastic job in biotech nearby, and he started looking for screenprinters. Holy crap, what great luck.
Steve
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10 years ago we peaked at 15, including me and my partner. Today, our full time artist is in 3 days, our screen guy 2 days, my partner and I are 6 days, and one new hire, who is a Godsend, putting in 45+ hours. He used to run his own shop for 10 years, got out of it, but missed it. He moved to our area when his wife got a fantastic job in biotech nearby, and he started looking for screenprinters. Holy crap, what great luck.
Steve
That’s what I want right there. A customer/Friend of mine were just talking about this last night. Nobody’s going to work like you (the owner) does. Don’t expect it, but if you come across one that does, by gosh, hold onto them!
Here, in Hunstville, Al. We have multiple large companies such as Amazon, Mazda, The Arsenal, NASA and now, they jsut announced 3 major steel mill corporations combining to put in a new factory. Another 500 employees.
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Alan802
Great to have you back in. Yes sir. Been a while. We (our shop) is a different story during Covid. We started out when I got here that we weren’t doing a whole heck of a lot at all anyway. So while you all were experiencing Covid down turn, we were still open, operating...and doing about the same amount of business. This year tho, has doubled for sure, and moving into triple what we did do 2 years ago. So we are not just getting into being what I would call a “real print shop”. LOL.
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We are on a push to automate everywhere we can. We are adding auto reclaim next but the unit won't be here until the end of this year.
Hit Promo and Bic Graphic (now the Koozie Group) are just a mile away from use. Bic employees that are applying with us are claiming to make $20+ per hour as a machine operator. The think they can just step in and be a screen printer, because after all, it's just a "machine" and they are "machine operators".
Hiring has been the biggest challenge of 2021. We have 2 starting today and we are hopeful.
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Alan good to hear from you, need someone to get this site buzzing.
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I keep tell folks that small business's will figure it out. So when they all come back looking for work they can go pound salt. Running this place with a 6 color auto and a 54" Roland. I'm busy as hell and telling people no daily. Haven't taken on a new customer at all this year, my regulars have kept me hopping. No going back, at least for me.
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We have been offering $18 to start entry level no experience needed for almost a year now. Using FB and other job apps. No one applies no one.
My son wanted to work and earn enough money to buy his own gaming PC so I brought him in for a few days a week to work and that damn 13 year old does better than any person I have hired in the last ten years. Very proud of him he saved up enough to buy a gaming rig and a gaming monitor. Sadly he could have gotten a lot more for his buck but GPU's are doubled in cost right now and mostly unavailable. I was going to build a PC for him to get a better rig but the only cost effective option was to buy pre-built since they have stock on GPU's.
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The trend for finding good help has been getting harder and harder over the years. It was a tough situation before and now it's just ridiculous. Worst case scenario I'll go back to running a machine, I'll reward myself $ handsomely and get through this. I can't imagine it will last forever.
In regards to business in general, from our experience, what I've seen over this past year is we haven't had the insane spikes in jobs that we used to get. This past April was an anomaly in that it was our 3rd biggest month of all time, aside from that it's just been consistent. Slow by 16, 17 & 18 standards, but having only two production employees and myself to do the work it's not like we can hammer out 7-10K pieces per week if we had that kind of work. If someone said all I had to do was snap my fingers to go back to the busiest days...I'd pass. I don't even want to say what my pedometer said on my busiest days because nobody would believe it. 10K steps before 11 am, most days. I'm not in a rush to go back to that. If it happens it happens, but we're doing fine right now. There's nothing we can't do without killing ourselves physically and the old days weren't necessarily the good old days.
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I keep telling you, start your own business!
you should be up to your eyeballs in work. For most shops this is the busiest they've ever been! Your sales dpt is slacking!
pierre
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I keep telling you, start your own business!
you should be up to your eyeballs in work. For most shops this is the busiest they've ever been! Your sales dpt is slacking!
pierre
He's right. This should be your best year on record.
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Next time you're in town for breakfast I'll bring the sales department along and you can tell my wife she's been slacking :). She's flaming Irish, should go well!!!
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Next time you're in town for breakfast I'll bring the sales department along and you can tell my wife she's been slacking :). She's flaming Irish, should go well!!!
LOL!!! yes, let's do that! Maybe I can talk here into leaving with you!
pierre
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Next time you're in town for breakfast I'll bring the sales department along and you can tell my wife she's been slacking :). She's flaming Irish, should go well!!!
Start business, hire me I would love to live in Texas! But you have to pay to move my self and kids there and a place to live ;D ;D ;D
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"and we live in nowhere TN"
I live in Tennessee and it is not that bad. It beats Afghanistan. I feel so sorry for those people.
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"and we live in nowhere TN"
I live in Tennessee and it is not that bad. It beats Afghanistan. I feel so sorry for those people.
After taking a road trip vacation throughout Kentucky and the Appalachians I fell in love with the area. I am sure TN is just as nice, well better than this liberal crap hole called CT
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I love TN, wont be leaving. I like to make the joke that we are in no where TN but we are actually all internet based so our location doesn't matter a lick.
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I've spent all but about 15 days of my life within the state of Texas. I'm as Texan as it gets. But it's not the state it once was, nor has it ever been the state that many have heard of it to be. It's still one of the better states to call home but it's not the free, outlaw-state-of-mind place that many think.
I wouldn't mind checking out other places to retire. TN, WV, MT, WY, ID, UT, CO, NM are in the running. Even though this summer has been a cupcake compared to most, the cumulative affect of 40+ summers has taken it's toll and I was in heaven this past winter when we had our big freeze. I spend some time on Zillow looking at land for sale and have it in my head that I could buy a few hundred acres in the mountains of NM, move the entire family out there and run a G3 a few days/wk while also ranching, raising cattle, chickens, pigs, restoring old FJ40s, you know, all that easy stuff!!! NM because it's still high enough elevation to beat the brutal summer heat but also won't have 7-8 months of winter.
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I just watched the History channel on YouTube yesterday. A show on Finding Big Foot. They interviewed a guy in Texas that I could have sworn based on his speech was actually from deep Alabama.
(I’m in Alabama right now ). Living in the mountain area. Well, at the bottom of a bigg'n. :)
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Alabama!!!! what can I say about Alabama!!!! I live in the deepest part enough said... my brother inlaw just moved out to NM and built a house, he tells us he loves it there after spending most of his life in Kansas.
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Alabama!!!! what can I say about Alabama!!!! I live in the deepest part enough said... my brother inlaw just moved out to NM and built a house, he tells us he loves it there after spending most of his life in Kansas.
What part Daryl? We might be neighbors ;D
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Every hurricane season and living in New Orleans I think of Vermont. Then I look at Vermont on the weather channel in winter and realize I am crazy. I hear you can still get cheap land on the moon.
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I live in CT and now I have a hurricane heading directly at me. First a record heat summer now a hurricane, what is this world coming to?