SCREEN PRINTING PRESSES

There’s an old adage: «Keep your eye upon the doughnut and not upon the hole». Of course, with screen printing it’s sort of reversed, as it’s most important to keep your eye on the holes in your screen mesh.

When it comes to screen frames, there are loyalists in all camps. Some screen printers love the old-school feel, low price and sustainability of wood. Others rely on the light, sturdy technology of aluminum frames, and still others swear by the control and print crispness that come with retensionable screens.

When you think of screen printed products, shirts are probably the first item that comes to mind. But you definitely shouldn’t stop there! There’s a whole world of different materials waiting to be screen printed, and expanding your offerings will help you attract new customers and keep old ones coming back for more.

A screen printing shop needs a good air compressor, one that can fully power its screen printing presses and other equipment. Without the right air compressor, your machine can jolt and bounce. That can affect the quality of your prints and cause undue wear on your screen printing press.

When you’re running a small business, you need to take advantage of the technology and techniques that will help you increase efficiency while still providing quality products to customers.

Feeling squeezed by the restrictions of a standard-sized screen print? If your creativity can’t be contained in your usual print size, you may want to give oversized printing a try. To really push the envelope, you can print whole backs and fronts of shirts, or even try all-over printing.

Blurry prints. Smudged or rough ink. Improper registration. Images that wear away when washed. As a screen printer, these are some of the common problems you work to avoid. Every misprint costs money, and problem prints that make it into your customers’ hands can damage your business’s reputation.

To survive in the t-shirt screen printing industry — let alone be successful — your business must maintain healthy relationships with its customers as well as its competitors. You could be the most experienced screen printer this side of the sun but nobody will know it without a strong presence and reputation in the field. There are many ways to build and improve your screen printing business. Here are a few suggestions that are sure to increase your visibility in the t-shirt screen printing community and attract new customers…

Are you finding poor quality and misaligned prints in your production? The most probable cause is how your pallets are leveled on your screen printing press.

If you’re shopping for an automatic screen printing machine, you’re probably seeing lots of different configurations to choose from. Not only do you have to figure out how many colors and what size area you want to print, you’ve also got to pick what type of power will drive your press. There are so many options, it can be overwhelming! Let’s break it down as simply as possible.

Visited a screen printing trade show lately? If you’re a manual printer who’s just seen an automatic press in action, you might think «there’s no way I can keep pushing a squeegee!»

So you’ve just finished a successful print run and decided to get started on another. You go to the rack for a fresh screen but they’re nowhere to be found! Your lack of planning left you with a pile of dirty screens caked with ink. Now what?