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screen printing => General Screen Printing => Topic started by: Frog on September 06, 2012, 08:19:59 PM
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When someone brings you a sample from a previous run elsewhere that looks so bad that even if you were hung over, down to some old wooden frames, and that old bucket of white that's been in the corner for ten years, you'll absolutely smoke it in a comparison.
What the hell is the matter with some shops?
The art needed clean up, and they didn't even call to offer that service. It's white and red on black ring spun T's, and both are translucent.
Man, a check swing is going to knock this one out of the park in their eyes.
To answer my own question about what's wrong, at least with the shop that did this one, I would bet that it was run on an auto, one hit, and outta there. 100 shirts, wham, bang, thank you maam!
Now, obviously, there is absolutely stunning, involved, complicated work done on autos around the world, every day, but I find that sometimes, a manual printer is more in tune with the process. He doesn't usually keep spinning. At least I don't.
On a related note, I can say that two jobs, both fleece, that I contracted out to established auto shops, did not do nearly as nice a job as I did on the re-order. (When will I learn? Wait, I did the last tome!)
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I am sure there are some GREAT manual shops out there, but when ran CORRECTLY, a manual can't touch an autos quality.
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Yep, it's not the quality of the machine in these instances, but rather of the press operator, and shop management. Too often, it's quantity not quality, mostly on the simple jobs.
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I've got a job like that in here today. I think I might measure the ink film and post it in comparison to other things. It's wicked thick. I am talking possibly the thickest print I have ever seen...and I've been around this for almost 25 years...back when thick prints were in style...because that was the only style we could print.
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One of the very few clothing lines I print came to me from a big shop that has been around for many many years and it was ridiculous what they sent out their doors as acceptable. It wasn't like the guy is a pain in the butt. He has been doing alot of one off samples with me and is getting ready to launch and he has no qualms about what I charge for the samples, doesn't want anything free and always has his artwork ready to go. That's rare for the clothing line guys.
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Yep, it's not the quality of the machine in these instances, but rather of the press operator, and shop management. Too often, it's quantity not quality, mostly on the simple jobs.
I've been preaching this for forever Andy. Primarily the difference between a press op and a Screen Printer. Proper pre-press and design engineering are more critical to me than having the shiniest sexiest auto. Some of my autos are approaching 20 ys old (and they look it!) yet they are maintained to print as fast and accurate as they did when new.
I'm constantly baffled when I see videos of new presses that run at the same cycle rate as mine or slower.
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before I decided to get into printing I had a couple shops that i had printing for me. the quality and level of care was pretty crappy and the main reason i went out and bought equipment and started this journey.
I remember looking at a job for someone else at one of the shops, (i visited there on every order I placed) where the print was pretty rip- $ciznit- bang- crappy, I asked is that OK? the answer was most customers have no clue, they are like cows they will just stand around and moo but not much more.
I could not believe that...they never got another order from me. unbelieveable
mooseman
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before I decided to get into printing I had a couple shops that i had printing for me. the quality and level of care was pretty crappy and the main reason i went out and bought equipment and started this journey.
I remember looking at a job for someone else at one of the shops, (i visited there on every order I placed) where the print was pretty rip- $ciznit- bang- crappy, I asked is that OK? the answer was most customers have no clue, they are like cows they will just stand around and moo but not much more.
I could not believe that...they never got another order from me. unbelieveable
mooseman
Is that how you got your name moo seman? LOL JK
Sent from samsung gem(the worst smart phone ever)
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I will not explain how I got the name mooseman until Carly Simon tells us all who she is singing about when she says
"You're so vain" So yes lets go with that..... ;)
moo seman
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One of my favorite Carly Simon jokes/references with that song was with Steven Colberts little bump at the end of his intro.
He points to the camera and says "Hey Carly Simon, thanks for writing that song about me!" and winks.
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It's the operator of course. After all, an auto is simulating hand printing, only much faster. We're still trying to get the best print, no matter the press, I hope anyway.
Steve
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The key word in your post, in my mind, may be "faster". I think that some shops see easy money with a simple run, but the small quantity of only 100 or so makes them want it on and off the press as quickly as possible, and they lose sight of the same pride they may have in a longer run of something challenging.
Then again, I may be giving this particular shop more credit than they deserve and they are always shoddy.
Many of us dinosaurs also see the new trend of relative newbies jumping on autos far before they have mastered the basic principles of screen printing via a manual, so now, they can screw up shirts at a much faster rate.
Also, in this instance, the folks using a manual or an auto had nothing to do with the art they let on the press!
I've finally attached an example what I am talking about, though the camera's flash seems to improve the opacity of the inks. You will have to take my word on this . (I don't believe that one should see the shirt color through the inlk unless that is intended. My client assures me that it was not)
But what about the art itself? Except for hard nosed contract printers, is there one of you that would have allowed this on their press? Wouldn't you have at the very least pointed out that it requires some cleaning up or re-draw?
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Many of us dinosaurs also see the new trend of relative newbies jumping on autos far before they have mastered the basic principles of screen printing via a manual, so now, they can screw up shirts at a much faster rate.
Hey hey hey! ;)
Actually for me, moving to an auto, I feel, will help me get control of the parameters that I am not very good at controlling right now (squeegee pressure/angle and proper flood). I can try all I want but I really can't repeat myself to really see if what I'm doing is right or not and it's worse now that I have someone else handling the squeegee. Getting an auto, for me, will mean that I can dial up the "settings" how I want them and then tweak them from there, knowing that the press is (at least WAY better than I can) repeat the exact same flood and print stroke every time. So when I add pressure I can see if it got better or worse and go from there. I personally hope it will help me to fine tune our process and when we finally get a grasp on how to do it right we can make notes and repeat it a lot easier than we can on a manual. I know for a fact that as my printer gets tired and the job grows longer than he expected he starts printing harder. This won't happen on the auto. And if the job starts to give him problems, then it gets exacerbated with his level of frustration. Obviously he should not let it get to him, but I didn't hire Buddha. ;)
But what about the art itself? Except for hard nosed contract printers, is there one of you that would have allowed this on their press? Wouldn't you have at the very least pointed out that it requires some cleaning up or re-draw?
Wow, that's pretty nasty. I just took our new neighbor's new business card today and he paid $130 bucks for a 1000 of them. They are done on cheap stock and I'm certain they were printed in house at a shop that shouldn't be printing them in house. The font is jagged and it has a drop shadow on their logo that they didn't ask for and it's really just a bunch of dots... maybe they were trying to be artsy (it honestly looks that way). I asked about it and he said "I don't even know what that is". So I told him we would clean it up and get it done right. He ordered 2k of them.
He wanted them glossy and I asked if he wanted the ability to write on them (because the coating that he was looking at doesn't allow that) and he said "nah, I got 900 of these if I need something to write on!" LOL I guess so far we have made a good impression on him, lets hope I can hold that up! :)
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I should probably bite my tongue, keep quiet and let this slide but...
Kevin, you are, in fact, a perfect example. Many of your questions here indicate that you don't have the experience or knowledge with which to run some jobs well let alone train an employee, and I have doubts that you will be willing to spring for the big buck veteran.
Yes, the auto will eliminate some variables. Yes it mimics a manual printer. On some jobs some will still be tearing their hair out.
Though not rocket science, it is much more involved than pouring syrup onto crushed or shaved ice.
A laser scalpel may replace a blade, but in the wrong hands will still not perform miracles in the surgery room.
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Biting my tongue as well but when I see posts on struggling with WOW I do scratch my head sometimes. Thats basic 101 stuff.
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I have to be honest that the post on here about WOW printing on white was rather unimpressive. If I couldn't manage that, I wouldn't be in business.
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Sheesh!! I'll remember not to ask any rookie questions anymore, sorry for that.
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Hopefully you merely forgot the smiley or lol.
If not, if the shoe fits...
All I said was that autos have the ability to crank out crap (as well as beauties) at a much faster pace than manuals, and in and of itself does not eliminate the fact that knowledge and understanding of the process helps immensely.
I also said that those who jump in to an auto without an understanding have a much steeper learning curve, and, frankly, I believe, some may never master certain aspects.
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Though this should be coming from one of the Mod Squad I think I can safely say that asking and answering questions is what this forum is all about. That said I have raised my eyebrows more than once upon reading responses. Thus is the nature of Social Media where anyone can appear to be an expert on anything. So keep an open mind and research trade rags, shows, and tech reps from suppliers and manufacturers as well. Its better to have more well rounded knowledge.
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Yeah this is where I learn and ask questions. I am a lone ranger out here in this big town with no help from anyone from day 1 except online forums such as this and youtube so excuse me if I happen to ask questions that may be more suited for TSF. Yes I would like to advance my game but at the same time I dont want to be printing very much longer, I want to be a business owner, I'll get there.
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Gerry, since the get go, I have championed the newbie participation on this forum (while some said that they hoped that it could be more of a place for pros.
Both certainly be served.
As for the TSF, sure they can come up with some wild questions sometimes, but, except for the fact that the same questions get asked over and over, the problems there don't come from the newbie questions, but rather the newbies who answer!
Here, we like to think, Tony, that most answers have at least a little validity, or at least are questioned themselves when that validity doubted.
This is where the friendliness and civility that we request come into play.
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FWIW, newbie buying an auto is not really an issue. I was only printing for three or four months when we ordered it and we won our first award about a year later. The issue is not really the timing, but the ability to learn and understand the printing process. In my case I bit of more than I can chew and had to work 20 hour days to learn what needed to be done and still deliver on time. It was the steepest learning curve I have experienced yet (and there have been more than few).
I should also mention that, Kevin you will probably be going through the same issues I was facing (and still am). Having help here on the forum is priceless, but it does not answer everything. We've had about a half a dozen consulting visits to get everything up to par. We have the printing part down pretty good, but our operations/structure are still greatly suffering. Not having the screenprinting shop experience is making the organizational part much harder (and it's not like I've never run a business before. My first venture had 20+ employees). Next couple of consulting visits will be addressing the ops rather than print side.
Switching to an auto will eliminate some of the issues you are facing, but it will bring up countless others. Auto will not solve your problems, but is a right long term move.
Gerry, at least personally, I have never considered you to be the TSF material (not knocking them down, just a different crowd). No matter what the size of your operation (we all have to start at some point), you have always acted as a member of this community, business owner and a fellow screenprinter. I have not felt the sense of entitlement or lack of consideration for other members once. At least myself and my guess is many others will welcome ANY questions you might have!
pierre
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Thanks Pierre. I know it will open up a new set of parameters, but hopefully those will be things that are just more advanced problems that I would have gotten to eventually on the manual any how.
I agree that I will quickly be lacking in other parts of the process. Hell, our art "department" is 3 of us grabbing the mouse from each other trying to knock heads and get across what we mean. My wife is a true artist, but she doesn't know screen printing, so she can't setup the artwork for film. We are working together to help her better understand the difference but most of the time she is always behind the 9 ball on another project and just doesn't have the time/patience to grasp the difference.
I on the other hand could draw a paper back to fight my way out of on illustrator so though I kind of know what I need, I can't achieve it half the time.
She's a trooper though, she knocked out some artwork right as she was walking out the door for disney for a new customer that walked in and wanted us to do their shirts (new neighbors).
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I am sure there are some GREAT manual shops out there, but when ran CORRECTLY, a manual can't touch an autos quality.
I disagree. I believe we touch on that quality daily, well, weekly at least...we're just a whole lot slower.
But it's very operator dependent. Getting all the way there on a manual takes skill from the printer, even if everything else is perfect.
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I have to be honest that the post on here about WOW printing on white was rather unimpressive. If I couldn't manage that, I wouldn't be in business.
I meant the post to be a reiteration of lots of good material on here regarding wow prints, not to impress. You are correct, there should be nothing special about it! Yet many struggle with it. We did and still do from time to time. No machine will help here, it's all about process control from art to press and the fundamentals are identical. I'm always game for revisiting those fundamentals with a fine group of well informed peers.
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Thanks Pierre. I appreciate all the answers and assistance I get from this group. Even as a young kid I didn't like hanging out with kids my age because I felt I couldn't learn anything from them. Same way I feel here, why would I ask a question to a person with the same or less experience than I.
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I am sure there are some GREAT manual shops out there, but when ran CORRECTLY, a manual can't touch an autos quality.
I disagree. I believe we touch on that quality daily
I'll agree with Zoo. Its been shown time and time again that a great quality print can be achieved on a manual and even with wood screens.
I think, Jason, your quote shouldn't read quality, but rather consistency. On a manual, one print my look like a million dollars, the next print not so much. That's just the nature of the beast when you have a human operator controlling squeegee pressure, angle, flood pressure, etc. A human simply cannot match a machine in terms of consistency.
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Auto's are fast and consistent, the "good" is still up to the operator.
Getting used to not seeing the results until 8/10/12/14+ shirts later takes some getting used to, It's also easy to get into a trance of putting the shirts on and stomping on the pedal, or peeling them off and putting them on the conveyor and not really checking print quality.
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On a manual, one print my look like a million dollars, the next print not so much. That's just the nature of the beast when you have a human operator controlling squeegee pressure, angle, flood pressure, etc. A human simply cannot match a machine in terms of consistency.
You know, a lot of people have said to me "aren't you worried about your quality going down if you start using a machine". Of course, this is just lack of knowledge of how it all works but it brings up a point. Just as a human can't match machine consistency, the machine mentality cannot be matched by the human one. There's something legit about a hand pulled (or pushed as it may be) print that is purely intangible but very much there.