🐿️Pinecone Attack

c/custom-printing-chat

6

richardharris•9h ago

PSA: I was loading my screen printing screens at the WRONG angle for 2 years

I've been printing shirts out of my garage in Austin since 2022 and always wondered why my fine detail stuff kept plugging up. Last week I watched a video from a shop in Ohio and the guy said to load emulsion at a 45 degree angle on the scoop coater. I had been doing it flat and straight the whole time. The guy said 'you're trapping air bubbles like that' and I felt so dumb. Has anyone else had a basic step click late like this?

18

gray_gibson•13h ago

Blew out a DTF printer head because I used the wrong cleaning fluid

I was at my shop in Austin last Tuesday, trying to clear a clog on my Epson F2100. Grabbed a bottle off the shelf that I thought was cleaning solution (you know, the stuff that comes in the big jugs). Turned out it was some cheap substitute my assistant bought off Amazon. After 10 minutes of flushing, the printer started spitting out this weird orange goo. Had to replace the print head - cost me $380 and 3 days of downtime. Anyone else ever wreck a printer head with the wrong cleaner?

18

parker_foster53•1d ago

That Thursday my screen printer went down for 3 hours during a rush order

Had 60 shirts due by 5pm for a local brewery in Portland. My 6 color press jammed up on the yellow head right after lunch. Took me an hour just to figure out it was a busted off contact spring. Had to pull the whole print head apart and rig a temporary fix with a zip tie. Somehow finished all shirts by 4:15 and the brewery guy tipped me $60 cash. Has anyone else had to MacGyver a press mid-run like that?

15

the_joel•3d ago

Tried cheap transfer paper vs mid-grade for a big shirt order.

Ran 50 shirts for a local run last month. Used the budget paper from Amazon on the first 25. Had to re-press like 8 of them. Switched to a mid-grade brand for the last 25. Zero issues. The cheap stuff just doesn't hold the heat evenly. Anyone else see a big jump in quality with a specific brand?

2

hunt.jana•3d ago

Drove past my old print shop yesterday and it's a vape store now

That place had a 1960s Heidelberg press that could run 6,000 sheets an hour. Young guys there now probably never even heard of letterpress. Anybody else see their old shop turn into something totally different?

5

betty126•3d ago

That screen printer told me to stop obsessing over perfect alignment

Had a chat with an old school screen printer at a shop downtown last week. He said the best shirts he ever made had slight registration shifts because they looked handcrafted instead of machine perfect. It hit different because I've been spending hours on my home setup trying to get every color lined up to the millimeter. He showed me a run of 200 tees he did for a local band where the white base was off by a hair and it actually made the print pop more. Now I'm wondering if I've been wasting time chasing perfection when customers probably can't even tell. Anybody else run into a printer who changed how you think about your own work?

18

michael880•3d ago

Got burned by a bad screen print job at a local shop and now I do everything myself

Took a batch of 50 t-shirts to a shop in Austin last month for a big event. They totally messed up the registration and half the prints were crooked. I ended up having to reorder from a different place and paid like $300 extra for rush shipping. Now I just stick with my own little home setup for any small runs. Has anyone else had a shop completely drop the ball on a deadline like that?

2

tessa_kim3•5d ago

Pro tip: That Reddit thread about curing screens with a digital timer was totally right

Some user named printhead_steve in a thread 6 months ago told me to stop using my phone and grab a $15 digital timer for exposing screens. I thought nah, my counting method was fine. Finally tried it last week on a tricky 110 mesh screen here in Denver and hit perfect detail on the first try. My old way wasted like 4 screens. Anyone else get game changing advice they ignored for way too long?

28

wyatt_chen86•6d ago

The guy at the print shop told me my dark t-shirt designs looked like blobs

Last month I brought in a batch of custom shirts for a local 5K run and the printer just laughed. He said my white ink on black shirts had zero detail because I was using too thick of a stroke in my vector file. I was so embarrassed I almost walked out. But he sat me down and showed me how to break the design into layers with smaller gaps for the ink traps. Now I actually look at my files under 2x zoom before sending them out. Has anyone else gotten roasted by a printer and had to totally redo their whole workflow?

24

faith_schmidt•6d ago

That $200 screen printing press from Amazon fell apart in 3 weeks

Bought a cheap press off Amazon last month for a rush job on 50 t-shirts. The micro registration stripped out after 20 prints and ruined a whole run of shirts. Anyone else deal with those budget presses breaking down on deadline?

7

the_henry•7d ago

Stop trusting the color profile on your screen for DTG prints

I spent $80 last month on a batch of shirts where the blues came out purple because I was editing on an uncalibrated monitor. My buddy Mark who runs a shop in Austin told me he checks every order against a printed swatch book before he sends it to the press. When did you last actually match your screen colors to a physical print?.

19

ramirez.daniel•7d ago

TIL you can fix faded screen printing with a heat press and parchment paper

I had this old hoodie from a show in Austin, the print was all cracked and peeling after maybe 2 years. I was about to toss it but figured I'd try laying parchment paper over it and hitting it with my heat press at 300 degrees for 15 seconds. The heat reactivated the adhesive and smoothed out most of the cracks, now it looks almost new. Has anyone else tried this or got a better trick for reviving old prints?

9

hernandez.jordan•7d ago

Pro tip: double check your screen mesh tension before you start a big run

I was printing a 500 shirt order for a local brewery in Austin last month and about 100 shirts in I noticed the registration was starting to slip. Turns out my screen mesh had loosened up overnight because the shop temp dropped. I had to stop, retension the screen, and reprint the last 50 shirts that were already off register. Has anyone else had this happen with sudden temp changes messing up their screens?

18

rubyj11•7d ago

Switched my mind on vinyl wrap after talking to a shop owner in Detroit

I was dead set against vinyl wrapping for years. I figured it was just a cheap shortcut that looked bad after six months in the sun. Last week I stopped by a print shop in Detroit that does custom wraps for food trucks and fleet vans. The owner showed me a truck they wrapped back in 2021 that still looked fresh with no peeling or fading. He told me the secret is using air-egress film and a heat gun on every edge, not just slapping it on like a sticker. That convo made me realize I was judging based on bad installs I saw online, not the actual process. I might try a small wrap on my toolbox drawer fronts now and see how it holds up. Anyone else have a change of heart after seeing a pro do it right?

21

cole_mitchell8•8d ago

Custom hoodie print came out wrinkled and faded after 3 washes

Ordered 50 custom hoodies for my crew in Austin last month from a local shop. By the third wash the print started cracking and peeling off in chunks. Anyone know a print method that actually holds up to regular wear?

26

calebrivera•9d ago

20 years of aligning screens with my eyes before a press check guy in Chicago set me straight

Was running a small run of business cards on my desktop printer. Had them looking good on my monitor. Showed up to the shop for a larger order and the old timer just looked at my file and said "you calibrated that screen with your gut didn't you". He handed me a cheap color calibration tool. First test print came out way different. He had me run it three times before I got close. Whole time I thought I was saving money eyeballing it. Anyone else skip calibrating and waste a bunch of ink?

28

paul330•10d ago

Hit my first 1000 screen prints without a misregister last month

Was running a rush job for a local band in Milwaukee and something just clicked with how I set up the screens on the press, has anyone else had that moment where it all finally felt natural?

6

the_robin•11d ago

Lost $60 on a batch of shirts because I skipped the test print

Thought I could save time by just trusting the ink colors on screen from my supplier's site. Came out looking like mustard when I wanted gold, total waste of 15 blanks. Anyone else get burned trusting digital previews over real test prints?

16

tyler368•12d ago

Hit 10,000 shirts printed on my DTG machine today

I've been running a small custom print shop out of my garage in Austin for about 2 years now. Today my Epson F2270 hit 10k prints and I honestly didn't think I'd get that far without a major breakdown or something. Has anyone else tracked their print count for a long time and been surprised at how fast it adds up?

4

beth_hunt•13d ago

Took me 3 hours to realize my screen mesh was on backwards

I was fighting with uneven ink coverage for months on a big batch of t-shirts. Finally figured out the mesh was installed with the coarser side facing the squeegee instead of the shirt. Has anyone else made this dumb mistake or just me?

12

seanperry•14d ago

Switched from water-based to a polyurethane clear coat for my garage signs and the difference is night and day

Water-based was peeling up in the humidity after just 3 months, but the poly has held solid through a whole summer of 90 degree heat. Has anyone else found a clear coat that doesn't yellow over time?

11

noahhernandez•15d ago

Switched from plastisol to water-based ink after a shop in Austin showed me the difference

I used to only run plastisol because it gave me consistent results and I hated dealing with flash curing. Last month a printer in Austin let me try their water-based setup on a 300-piece run and the hand feel was way better on the cotton blanks. Anyone else make the switch and deal with the drying time issues differently?

19

wyatt_chen86•15d ago

Just hit 500 screen prints in a single run for the first time

I've been doing custom t-shirt printing out of my garage for about 8 months now, mostly small orders of 10 to 20 shirts. Last week a local band asked for 500 shirts for their tour and I almost said no. Ran the job over two days with a 4-color manual press and only had 5 misprints. Felt good to push past what I thought was my limit. Anyone else remember the first big run that made you realize you could actually handle larger jobs?

9

kevin_sullivan•16d ago

Debate: Is a 50% polyester shirt actually better for sublimation than a 100% polyester one?

So I had a guy at a print shop in Denver tell me last month that 50/50 poly cotton blends look way sharper than full poly for dye sub. Said the colors pop more and don't bleed. I tried it on a batch of 20 shirts and the colors looked dull and washed out compared to 100% poly. Now I'm wondering if I messed up the heat press settings or if he was just wrong. Who's had better luck with blends vs full poly? What temps and times you using?

13

ryan_stone•19d ago

The printer shop owner who taught me about offset plates in 10 minutes flat

Last month I dropped into a small print shop in Austin called River City Press. The owner saw me staring at their Heidelberg and asked what I was working on. I told him I'd been struggling with registration on my home setup. He walked me over to a stack of old aluminum plates and showed me how to check the bend angles with a cheap gauge. Fixed my issue in about 10 minutes after months of guessing. Has anyone else gotten a quick lesson from an old school printer that saved them a ton of time?