Who wouldn't? And I would like to live on pizza and cookies and have rock hard abs.
Yes! and you can do all that. Especially with the new BEERFLEX fitness equipment(I actually have tees of this!) That "I prefer both" comment one poster made?...come'on now...that means nothing. We go as fast as we can or want to and it is different based on skills/equipment/job/mood.etc. Nobody is kidding anybody on this erroneous speed issue. Wanna go faster youngsters?...get a motorcycle. Pro printing is not about speed. If it is...show us even ONE trophy you have won. What???! No Trophies??? Rusty is right. Put quality first. Speed comes naturally to the right circumstances. I have worked with more kinds of printers and presses than most here will ever do or see and reality ALWAYS rises above the claims people make. No one cares what we do speed wise(except for some customers who are never happy), but the quality you put out or do not says the only thing that matters TOMMORROW(when your speed is just a memory but the garments tell others what is REAL about your qulaity/ability).
Last edited by youtees; May 19th, 2008 at 03:53 PM.
hint: LOSE the heat gun. I cannot believe that 'R' is telling people that is a way to flash anything! You can get faster and less spotty "pre-cures" with a $10.00 500 watt halogen work lamp. Why are you "pre-curing" on your press? Print next to your electric oven and you can full cure on the spot in about 25 secs each(to 35). If you are going faster then you can still use the electric oven to flash(or 'precure as you say)and do that in about 6 secs. I KNOW from what you say you have WAY to much time and effort spent in precuring/curing the shirts. I can guess where you are getting your press(with zero micro tuning right? that will introduce you to a whole different set of problems. ) based on that you are using a heat gun in your process. Cringe. Welcome to screen printing! As it were.
Why can't you go fast and have quality? I would hold any one of my tees against anyone's and I'll tell you that my quality is excellent. Everybody screws up, granted. You make mistakes when rushing.
But when your art is right, your screens are right, your press is tight and registered and you're set, then get it on get it down and get it off, that's how we run em.
Time is money, we print a lot of shirts and it's ALWAYS a rush order. We grind hard.
I'm paid to be a efficient as possible AND still have excellent quality.
True dont sacrifice quality for speed, but don't sacrifice speed for incompetence.
Keep it spinnin'- 1700 pcs today.
Why can't you go fast and have quality? I would hold any one of my tees against anyone's and I'll tell you that my quality is excellent. Everybody screws up, granted. You make mistakes when rushing.
But when your art is right, your screens are right, your press is tight and registered and you're set, then get it on get it down and get it off, that's how we run em.
Time is money, we print a lot of shirts and it's ALWAYS a rush order. We grind hard.
I'm paid to be a efficient as possible AND still have excellent quality.
True dont sacrifice quality for speed, but don't sacrifice speed for incompetence.
Keep it spinnin'- 1700 pcs today.
I don't care to get into an argument over who's better and who's faster. But the simple fact is that as your speed increases, your quality goes down. Say what you want, but that's reality. If you print 150/hr and I'm printing 100/hr, everything else being equal, I guarantee you that I will have better quality shirts. Now at 150/hr, your shirts may have "acceptable quality" to you, and may not be acceptable to me. It's all objective.
I'm curious, are your shirts lint free? Do you never get any pin holes in your prints from a piece of lint on the shirt? Because there is no way you can repair the lint holes and remove the lint from the screen and still do 150/hr. Or do you use a lint roller before you put each shirt on?
Do 1700 pcs in a day on an automatic or 600 pcs/ day on a manual, than ask me about a lint spot or pin hole.
I will say this, I rarely have a customer bring shirts back.
Like I said we move units- fast. We don't have the time to b.s. You can print fast AND good. Trust me, been doin it a while. You ask anybody who has a lot of volume- what's their production rates and expectations, If you can't move- I dont need you. We burn screens in 15sec- with or without halftones.
I go from inkjet to press in less than 30 minutes.
Time is money.
.
Do 1700 pcs in a day on an automatic or 600 pcs/ day on a manual, than ask me about a lint spot or pin hole.
I will say this, I rarely have a customer bring shirts back.
Like I said we move units- fast. We don't have the time to b.s. You can print fast AND good. Trust me, been doin it a while. You ask anybody who has a lot of volume- what's their production rates and expectations, If you can't move- I dont need you. We burn screens in 15sec- with or without halftones.
I go from inkjet to press in less than 30 minutes.
Time is money.
.
Thank you. That's exactly my point. Your priority is speed, and you'd rather produce large quantities quickly without worrying about lint holes. That's fine and it seems to work for you. My priority is the best quality product. I do not let a shirt go out of my door with a lint hole in the print. I look at every shirt carefully before I pull it off the press. I don't care much about speed. This is my 2nd job that I do for fun, and I don't have to push out 600 shirts a day to make a living. And my customers also know they will get the top quality shirts from me, so they keep coming back. I turn down 3 or 4 jobs a week because I just don't have the time to fill them. I'm to the point now where I am not taking on new customers, and just trying to take care of my existing customers. So we have different situations, and both are great.
But the point I was trying to express is that as you increase your speed, your quality decreases. It's not all about how fast somebody can print. Each person has to find their sweet spot. How many shirts can each of you print, while still being satisfied with the quality of your product. The answer will be different for each of us. But let's not pretend than we can double our production rate without sacrificing quality. For me, my top speed is about 100/hr while maintaining the quality level I require.
hint: LOSE the heat gun. I cannot believe that 'R' is telling people that is a way to flash anything! You can get faster and less spotty "pre-cures" with a $10.00 500 watt halogen work lamp. Why are you "pre-curing" on your press? Print next to your electric oven and you can full cure on the spot in about 25 secs each(to 35). If you are going faster then you can still use the electric oven to flash(or 'precure as you say)and do that in about 6 secs. I KNOW from what you say you have WAY to much time and effort spent in precuring/curing the shirts. I can guess where you are getting your press(with zero micro tuning right? that will introduce you to a whole different set of problems. ) based on that you are using a heat gun in your process. Cringe. Welcome to screen printing! As it were.
Happen to came across this old thread but can't help but reply. Yes, a 500w halogen is much better than a 1500-2000w heat gun. The air is supposed to make heating more efficient but the small opening seems to be its undoing insofar as curing shirts is concerned.
When my heat gun, which I use for curing, broke down. I need an emergency heat source and the only thing that can deliver is my old exposure lamp which is just gathering dust since I switched to mercury. To my surprise, it can cure shirts relatively quickly and efficiently.
In case the question is for me, firstly, I am neither a commercial nor a volume printer and speed is not a priority.
I use a 3 station line table press with unlimited colors. However, my operation is not yet streamlined so there is really no speed to talk about. For example, I often cure only after all the printing is done. I print from home before dawn, before shower, before breakfast, before all those chores before I leave for shop. I sometimes print with eyes still half closed. I've printed on platens before I loaded the shirt. lol.
Speed is also a function of your inks and what you are printing. I can be very very fast (for a 3 platen press) if printing with 1 color military-inspired designs with waterbase inks that dries to the touch very quickly. No, I am not a speed printer but I have to be fast lest the shirts get scorched by a 1500w halogen or my hands get a good suntan. LOL. I am not trying to be funny but that is a serious problem with the DIY halogen dryer (versus a proven and well made equipment).
A normal printing session for me is done at a leisurely pace.
For others, I think their capacity and speed were already posted.
I've never time myself with a one color on white. I know I'm over 200 an hr. I did a 2 color on black one pass per color 260pcs in an hour and fifteen minutes.
Re: Your printing speeds with manual press? 
