Tips for "live" screen printing

[ericheartsu]

We are going to do our first on site/live screen printing event, with a simple one color waterbased print.

Anyone else do this? I'm interested to see if anyone can share any practical advice that we may have missed!

[T Shirt Farmer]

You may want to reach out to Dan C at Forward as he puts on monthly training programs for Ryonet.. he is usually swamped but may have time to ping you few words of advice.

[ericheartsu]

You may want to reach out to Dan C at Forward as he puts on monthly training programs for Ryonet.. he is usually swamped but may have time to ping you few words of advice.

I think they do events at their shop. We are setting up at a festival

[ZooCity]

I've never done this for profit but many times for charity with a "print your own shirt" setup.   Are you talking about setting up to let people diy their Ts?

[ericheartsu]

I've never done this for profit but many times for charity with a "print your own shirt" setup.   Are you talking about setting up to let people diy their Ts?

exactly. We are setting up at a skatepark in conjunction with Mountain Dew, and they want kids to print their own tees.

[diavale]

my opinion and on site setups ive seen you are going to have to go plastisol with a flash. dry in and times required to setup and have others printing will be a pain with waterbase

[ZooCity]

Alright, here's what I learned, mostly the hard way from doing this years ago:

• One design per print station, one ink color, no exceptions.
• Have ample area for folks to hang dry their Ts or, with supervision, have some heat guns on hand (presuming you have power).  Put the drying station in the sun if possible.
• Shade, you need shade for wb printing outdoors.
• Get about 3x more space than you think you'll need, people tend to get excited about a print station in waves.
• Mist bottles of water everywhere.
• Keep a bucket on hand for cleanup but also big enough to dunk a screen into in case the ink locks up on you.
• Burn an extra couple screens of the design, just in case.
• Test the cure method ahead of time to make sure it'll work on site
• Tons of rags and testers to clear the screen, etc.
• Signage showing the kids where to get in line or whatever.

We use WB almost exclusively.  I did plasti once and did not like having a 1000˚ IR panel hanging out around crowds and kids.

[3Deep]

We use to take our four press and a table top dryer to live shows and the dryer was in back of us, four heads four one color design or one 3 color design to show off multi color prints, always very light color shirts plastisol inks only.  Water base sounds like it might be a problem in the heat at a skate park. but what do I know good luck hope every thing goes great for you all.

darryl

[Frog]

We use to take our four press and a table top dryer to live shows and the dryer was in back of us, four heads four one color design or one 3 color design to show off multi color prints, always very light color shirts plastisol inks only.  Water base sounds like it might be a problem in the heat at a skate park. but what do I know good luck hope every thing goes great for you all.

darryl

The last horror story I heard about this was a swim meet and that the dryer (even a small one) kept blowing the pool complex's circuit breakers.
Count on bringing a generator.

[ericheartsu]

Alright, here's what I learned, mostly the hard way from doing this years ago:

• One design per print station, one ink color, no exceptions.
• Have ample area for folks to hang dry their Ts or, with supervision, have some heat guns on hand (presuming you have power).  Put the drying station in the sun if possible.
• Shade, you need shade for wb printing outdoors.
• Get about 3x more space than you think you'll need, people tend to get excited about a print station in waves.
• Mist bottles of water everywhere.
• Keep a bucket on hand for cleanup but also big enough to dunk a screen into in case the ink locks up on you.
• Burn an extra couple screens of the design, just in case.
• Test the cure method ahead of time to make sure it'll work on site
• Tons of rags and testers to clear the screen, etc.
• Signage showing the kids where to get in line or whatever.

We use WB almost exclusively.  I did plasti once and did not like having a 1000˚ IR panel hanging out around crowds and kids.

Thanks Chris, this is exactly what we needed to know!

[Frog]

Alright, here's what I learned, mostly the hard way from doing this years ago:

• One design per print station, one ink color, no exceptions.
• Have ample area for folks to hang dry their Ts or, with supervision, have some heat guns on hand (presuming you have power).  Put the drying station in the sun if possible.
• Shade, you need shade for wb printing outdoors.
• Get about 3x more space than you think you'll need, people tend to get excited about a print station in waves.
• Mist bottles of water everywhere.
• Keep a bucket on hand for cleanup but also big enough to dunk a screen into in case the ink locks up on you.
• Burn an extra couple screens of the design, just in case.
• Test the cure method ahead of time to make sure it'll work on site
• Tons of rags and testers to clear the screen, etc.
• Signage showing the kids where to get in line or whatever.

We use WB almost exclusively.  I did plasti once and did not like having a 1000˚ IR panel hanging out around crowds and kids.

Chris, can you really trust the cure from a heat gun? Money back if it fails the wash test? And, if DIY, do they get another shot if the shirt scorches? btw, heat guns can be dangerous as well.
I do remember years ago (before it was fashionable) I used Union's Aerotex water based inks and there was a catalyst available to aid curing.
Do others have this available as well?

[ZooCity]

Alright, here's what I learned, mostly the hard way from doing this years ago:

• One design per print station, one ink color, no exceptions.
• Have ample area for folks to hang dry their Ts or, with supervision, have some heat guns on hand (presuming you have power).  Put the drying station in the sun if possible.
• Shade, you need shade for wb printing outdoors.
• Get about 3x more space than you think you'll need, people tend to get excited about a print station in waves.
• Mist bottles of water everywhere.
• Keep a bucket on hand for cleanup but also big enough to dunk a screen into in case the ink locks up on you.
• Burn an extra couple screens of the design, just in case.
• Test the cure method ahead of time to make sure it'll work on site
• Tons of rags and testers to clear the screen, etc.
• Signage showing the kids where to get in line or whatever.

We use WB almost exclusively.  I did plasti once and did not like having a 1000˚ IR panel hanging out around crowds and kids.

Chris, can you really trust the cure from a heat gun? Money back if it fails the wash test? And, if DIY, do they get another shot if the shirt scorches? btw, heat guns can be dangerous as well.
I do remember years ago (before it was fashionable) I used Union's Aerotex water based inks and there was a catalyst available to aid curing.
Do others have this available as well?

Not really, it's a crap shoot and is why I recommend testing the cure ahead of time.   

And yeah, heat guns also not safe, hence the supervision qualifier there. 

With a catalyst you can air dry the shirts successfully and, for extra security, give them a quick iron on the back side.   However, the catalyst can make outdoor printing an absolute nightmare unless of course it's very humid.  Catalyzed aerotex is what I started out with printing and it sucked big time.

Without a catalyst an air dry and quick iron on the back could also work. 

In any case, I think people are a lot more forgiving about print durability when it's a diy situation that produced it, it's more about the experience then.

Tell mountain dew you need a generator and dryer maybe?

[ericheartsu]

for this event, it's more to get kids interested in the craft, so not really any "money back guarantees", but that's something we thought about as well. i think we are going to bring our little quartz dryer.

[Frog]

If it works, thumbs up on the hand iron.

In school, we did artsy-craftsy waterbase on yardage (a now obsolete brand called Inko) and cured with an iron. In fact, with some colors, the full color did not even appear until cured.

[Doug B]

  Remember your CPSIA regs. A catalyst would probably not be compliant.