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About 20 years ago, i got thrust into the screenprinting industry. Out of desperation i took a job on the graveyard shift with a company called F&M Expressions in NJ as a catcher at the end of the dryer for a huge sakurai cylinder transfer press. Alot of you are familiar with F&M expressions. They even have a link here on this forum on the preferred vendors list.
Anyway, this little story is for those who are just getting into the industry and feel lost and are trying to learn. I will share with you my first 6 month nightmare in silk screening.
After 3 months of checking for pinholes on the prints coming down the conveyor belt and watching the printers, and screen guys, I had enough!!! I figured i learned enough and i wanted printers pay. At that time in NJ, a decent printers pay was about $14/hour. I quit F&M and applied for a job for a printer to run an M&R 6 color gauntlet. The company i applied to was just bought by someone who had minimal knowledge so on the interview, everything out of my mouth was a lie as far as my experience and knowledge was concerned. It worked cause i got hired to run the gauntlet. I was to start the next day! Uh Oh!
That next morning on my first day of work, the boss opened the shop and let me in. He gave me instructions as to what shirts to print and the screens for them. They were already exposed thank god! The boss had to leave for about 4 hours and would be back an lunch time. There was one other person in the shop and he was reclaiming and burning screens and spoke no english.
Now it was time to panic. I was given a a 4 color job to print on 600 black shirts. Underlay, Flash, cooling station and 3 other colors. No halftones or blends on the print. Thank God for small miracles!! So there i am standing at the Gauntlet looking at the control panel and guessed my way through that. Now it was time to set up these screens. I knew enough to tape up the screens but i had no idea about registering a job on a press. A "T" square to assist me had never crossed my mind.
Back at F&M espressions they also had a huge M&R textile press (At least i think it was an M&R). It had to be a 12 color press. So after observing that press for 3 months, i went ahead and used the little knowledge i had gained and started setting up my first print job ever.. I Threw in the underlay screen and lifted the pallets up and eyeballed it. I figured it looked straight. I locked in that screen, loaded it up with a full gallon of White ink and took a test print. I flashed that color and went ahead and started setting up the next screens to that first color. After about 2 hours of tweaking that second color to be at least close to registration with the first color, I couldnt for the life of me figure out why the flash was on head number 5.. It should have been on head number 2. Then it dawned on me.. OH MY GOD.. This press prints the opposite way than the one at F&M. I just set up half the job backwards and wasted now close to 3 hours on just setting up 2 colors. Trying to make a long story short, i got the job up and running correctly and it only took me 7 hours. LOL!!
My boss was supposed to have been back already and i printed all of the shirts. At least i finished 1 job, so i thought. I then go to the end of the dryer to start stacking the shirts and folding them, needless to say shirts were everywhere. Wait a minute!! why do i have ink on my hands? Well after a brief look at the dryer, it then dawns on me that when i turned it on earlier that day, i only started the converyor belt and not the heating elements. The boss calls and asks if i mind staying in the shop til he gets back. He had a family emergency and would be at the shop in an hour. Great!!! fire up the dryer and run all the shirts back down.. Praying to god we have enough spot cleaner for the gun to zap out 600 ink stained shirts...
All said and done, on my first print job ever, i wound up printing all of the shirts on the wrong side.. The stains and print locations and scorched shirts all went un noticed because when the boss got back he saw the prints were on the wrong side of the shirts. I told him there was trouble with the compressor for the press and it kept shutting down on me, that is why it took all day. He over looked the major screw up on my part about printing on the wrong side. I offered to pay half the cost on the shirts after my boss told me he would take the hit.
Obviously there is much more to this story. Every aspect of printing i had to learn, i had really tough times.. I had to teach myself how to mix ink, how to run an auto press, how to manual print, how to expose and reclaim screens, how to do process printing. This was back in the day when the internet was not an option..I would go home every night almost in tears in fear that i was gonna get fired. I stuck it out though and now i work from home doing art and seps and help other print shops when they are desperate.
I guess the moral of this story is that even with all the tools and services we have access to over the internet and forums and such.. Expect to make mistakes and learn from them. We can ask all the questions we want and people can help us but to truly understand, we gotta roll up our sleeves and make these mistakes so we can move forward and learn more.
Anyway feel free to pm me and ask me any questions about screen printing or art and seps. I love helpin people and sharing the knowledge
Anyway, this little story is for those who are just getting into the industry and feel lost and are trying to learn. I will share with you my first 6 month nightmare in silk screening.
After 3 months of checking for pinholes on the prints coming down the conveyor belt and watching the printers, and screen guys, I had enough!!! I figured i learned enough and i wanted printers pay. At that time in NJ, a decent printers pay was about $14/hour. I quit F&M and applied for a job for a printer to run an M&R 6 color gauntlet. The company i applied to was just bought by someone who had minimal knowledge so on the interview, everything out of my mouth was a lie as far as my experience and knowledge was concerned. It worked cause i got hired to run the gauntlet. I was to start the next day! Uh Oh!
That next morning on my first day of work, the boss opened the shop and let me in. He gave me instructions as to what shirts to print and the screens for them. They were already exposed thank god! The boss had to leave for about 4 hours and would be back an lunch time. There was one other person in the shop and he was reclaiming and burning screens and spoke no english.
Now it was time to panic. I was given a a 4 color job to print on 600 black shirts. Underlay, Flash, cooling station and 3 other colors. No halftones or blends on the print. Thank God for small miracles!! So there i am standing at the Gauntlet looking at the control panel and guessed my way through that. Now it was time to set up these screens. I knew enough to tape up the screens but i had no idea about registering a job on a press. A "T" square to assist me had never crossed my mind.
Back at F&M espressions they also had a huge M&R textile press (At least i think it was an M&R). It had to be a 12 color press. So after observing that press for 3 months, i went ahead and used the little knowledge i had gained and started setting up my first print job ever.. I Threw in the underlay screen and lifted the pallets up and eyeballed it. I figured it looked straight. I locked in that screen, loaded it up with a full gallon of White ink and took a test print. I flashed that color and went ahead and started setting up the next screens to that first color. After about 2 hours of tweaking that second color to be at least close to registration with the first color, I couldnt for the life of me figure out why the flash was on head number 5.. It should have been on head number 2. Then it dawned on me.. OH MY GOD.. This press prints the opposite way than the one at F&M. I just set up half the job backwards and wasted now close to 3 hours on just setting up 2 colors. Trying to make a long story short, i got the job up and running correctly and it only took me 7 hours. LOL!!
My boss was supposed to have been back already and i printed all of the shirts. At least i finished 1 job, so i thought. I then go to the end of the dryer to start stacking the shirts and folding them, needless to say shirts were everywhere. Wait a minute!! why do i have ink on my hands? Well after a brief look at the dryer, it then dawns on me that when i turned it on earlier that day, i only started the converyor belt and not the heating elements. The boss calls and asks if i mind staying in the shop til he gets back. He had a family emergency and would be at the shop in an hour. Great!!! fire up the dryer and run all the shirts back down.. Praying to god we have enough spot cleaner for the gun to zap out 600 ink stained shirts...
All said and done, on my first print job ever, i wound up printing all of the shirts on the wrong side.. The stains and print locations and scorched shirts all went un noticed because when the boss got back he saw the prints were on the wrong side of the shirts. I told him there was trouble with the compressor for the press and it kept shutting down on me, that is why it took all day. He over looked the major screw up on my part about printing on the wrong side. I offered to pay half the cost on the shirts after my boss told me he would take the hit.
Obviously there is much more to this story. Every aspect of printing i had to learn, i had really tough times.. I had to teach myself how to mix ink, how to run an auto press, how to manual print, how to expose and reclaim screens, how to do process printing. This was back in the day when the internet was not an option..I would go home every night almost in tears in fear that i was gonna get fired. I stuck it out though and now i work from home doing art and seps and help other print shops when they are desperate.
I guess the moral of this story is that even with all the tools and services we have access to over the internet and forums and such.. Expect to make mistakes and learn from them. We can ask all the questions we want and people can help us but to truly understand, we gotta roll up our sleeves and make these mistakes so we can move forward and learn more.
Anyway feel free to pm me and ask me any questions about screen printing or art and seps. I love helpin people and sharing the knowledge
