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I was at the SGIA show yesterday. It was really cool. I'm working on getting financing right now to by a Brown Air Pony Conveyour dryer with forced air and a press press that mounts on top of it. The Brown equipment is really nice, it seemed like the most bang for buck of any company.
Some of the Screen Printing companies were a little disappointing, like Lawson, because they only brought the super high end stuff and none of the smaller stuff.
I saw a lot of badass shirts made with discharge inks. Wilflex and Union have a new thing. A discharge additive for plastisol. So you get ease of using plastisol instead of waterbased discharge ink, but you get the discharge effect too.
I saw some shirts made with half Union High Opacity Plastisol (Maxoplast and Mixoplast) and half Plasticharge (or whatever they called it). It looks badass with only one pass. No print flash print. They had one that was just a red Union Ink logo on a black t-shirt. The red color was great, and it was very thin soft layer of ink. I think their literature recommends mesh counts of 125-170.
They also have discharge bases that you can put plastisol on top of.
I will probably buy all my equipment at shows. Brown was really ready to wheel and deal big time.
Lawson quoted me $700 higher than what is on one of their own flyers, I picked up from their Atlanta warehouse just two months ago, for a 4/4 HD-Max press, I don't know what their problems was. But most of the other companies acted like they were prepared to move stuff.
I looked at those Riley Hopkins joystick presses up close and I was very unimpressed. I watched that guy who is in their video demonstrate how to use one and it started to tip over when he pressed down on it. The joystick registration is a huge downgrade not an upgrade. Basically you untighten the registration clamps and the gate just swings around loose. You move the screen to where you want it by hand and tighten the clamps. The joystick is for show.
I liked the Brown, HIX, and M&R displays the best. M&R was like a "Platimun Sponsor" or something with a massive booth. Were talking like 3,000 square feet or more. They had one automated press that was big enough to do flags on. They had it set up to make posters. Then they had one that had something like twenty stations. It was long and skinny and had two long rows of print heads. Like seven or eight on each side. Some of this stuff was amazing.
The only companies I didn't see were R. Jennings and Workhorse/Odyssy (I think they are the same company right?) I'm told that R. Jennings doesn;t go to shows anymore because of his age and I guess he doesn't have anyone to do it for him. I was surprised Workhorse/Odyssy was not there.
The other screen printing related companies were Legend, Vastex, AWT, Black Body, Franmar. Plus several other ink companies, and other related companies I can't think off.
Screen Printing probably made up 10% of the show and DTG printers made up about 5%.
Some of the Screen Printing companies were a little disappointing, like Lawson, because they only brought the super high end stuff and none of the smaller stuff.
I saw a lot of badass shirts made with discharge inks. Wilflex and Union have a new thing. A discharge additive for plastisol. So you get ease of using plastisol instead of waterbased discharge ink, but you get the discharge effect too.
I saw some shirts made with half Union High Opacity Plastisol (Maxoplast and Mixoplast) and half Plasticharge (or whatever they called it). It looks badass with only one pass. No print flash print. They had one that was just a red Union Ink logo on a black t-shirt. The red color was great, and it was very thin soft layer of ink. I think their literature recommends mesh counts of 125-170.
They also have discharge bases that you can put plastisol on top of.
I will probably buy all my equipment at shows. Brown was really ready to wheel and deal big time.
Lawson quoted me $700 higher than what is on one of their own flyers, I picked up from their Atlanta warehouse just two months ago, for a 4/4 HD-Max press, I don't know what their problems was. But most of the other companies acted like they were prepared to move stuff.
I looked at those Riley Hopkins joystick presses up close and I was very unimpressed. I watched that guy who is in their video demonstrate how to use one and it started to tip over when he pressed down on it. The joystick registration is a huge downgrade not an upgrade. Basically you untighten the registration clamps and the gate just swings around loose. You move the screen to where you want it by hand and tighten the clamps. The joystick is for show.
I liked the Brown, HIX, and M&R displays the best. M&R was like a "Platimun Sponsor" or something with a massive booth. Were talking like 3,000 square feet or more. They had one automated press that was big enough to do flags on. They had it set up to make posters. Then they had one that had something like twenty stations. It was long and skinny and had two long rows of print heads. Like seven or eight on each side. Some of this stuff was amazing.
The only companies I didn't see were R. Jennings and Workhorse/Odyssy (I think they are the same company right?) I'm told that R. Jennings doesn;t go to shows anymore because of his age and I guess he doesn't have anyone to do it for him. I was surprised Workhorse/Odyssy was not there.
The other screen printing related companies were Legend, Vastex, AWT, Black Body, Franmar. Plus several other ink companies, and other related companies I can't think off.
Screen Printing probably made up 10% of the show and DTG printers made up about 5%.
