Dippin my toe into the pool.

[BartJY]

Hi Folks,

My name's Bart. I'm not a total neophyte when it come to screen printing, but close enough.

What I'm hoping to find on this forum is good, honest and unbiased information on products and supplies. In other words, information that isn't driven my one product company over another. For instance, who sells the best water based ink, and where? If this is the place, I'll be around for a long while. Anyway thanks for reading my intro.

Bart
aka BartJY

[Frog]

Check out the sections and categories of the forum, and do a little browsing (or even a search) to see if any of your answers are here already.
Otherwise, I'm sure that you will find knowledgeable folks to help you with most things that ask.
Welcome aboard.

[ABuffington]

The Forums section will keep you busy for awhile.  Lots of great info.  But ask a question of the members and you will get a lot of good feedback.  I have watched the industry grow.  The best advice I can give is 'you get what you pay for'.  If this is a business you can come in at all levels of production skill and quality levels depending on what equipment and supplies you buy but realize your success is dependent on wise decisions in the beginning.  Buying it twice is very costly.  Standardizing your choice of equipment brand from day one helps integrate the whole process and provides a roadmap of what to buy next. 

Quality production gets the orders, quality machinery and supplies produce quality products, don't limit yourself in the beginning and your shop will grow organically with good product that isn't a hassle to produce.  Be careful with internet videos, so much contradicting advice.  Take the next Totally T Shirts seminar at SGIA in Fairfax VG, in the fall. 

The entire process from your accounting software/art software/imaging device/screens/exposure unit/printing press/oven/folding should be chosen for quality and speed. Employees, you should know what experienced workers know before opening a shop.   In today's world you can go from art to final product the same day.  I would never sell this way, but you may have to live this with deadlines. I can't emphasize enough how important it is to know that if I get art right now, I can deliver on X date or time, for sure, no exceptions (lost customer for sure).  On time delivery of high quality product at the right price is the key to this industry.  For specific equipment, it's not my place, I'd contact some board members personally for their recommendations.

Al
Murakami Screen
Emulsions and Mesh

[blue moon]

Welcome aboard Bart!
thanx for joining our little corner of the InterWeb. . .

As you probably know by now, every shop has it's own preferences.
-Part of it is relationships with the vendors (in many cases who are close friends after years of working together),
-part of it is our own biases
and
-part of it is our own systems (that might work better with one product than the other).
Every printer you ask will probably come up with a different list, but keep an eye out for which products are mentioned most often and who is doing the mentioning. I know several shops that have modeled their systems on our (blue moon's) research, but even they adjusted for their circumstances.
There are several experts like ABuffington, Danny Gruninger and few others (with occasional industry legend like Richard Greaves and Mark Coudray stopping by). Remember that the number of posts, does not equate knowledge! Read what members say and figure out how it applies to your shop. But. . . remember that most of us are at lest a little bit biased, so take everything with a grain of salt.

good luck and shoot specific questions to get best answers.

pierre

[screenxpress]

Welcome aboard Bart!
thanx for joining our little corner of the InterWeb. . .

As you probably know by now, every shop has it's own preferences.
-Part of it is relationships with the vendors (in many cases who are close friends after years of working together),
-part of it is our own biases
and
-part of it is our own systems (that might work better with one product than the other).
Every printer you ask will probably come up with a different list, but keep an eye out for which products are mentioned most often and who is doing the mentioning. I know several shops that have modeled their systems on our (blue moon's) research, but even they adjusted for their circumstances.
There are several experts like ABuffington, Danny Gruninger and few others (with occasional industry legend like Richard Greaves and Mark Coudray stopping by). Remember that the number of posts, does not equate knowledge! Read what members say and figure out how it applies to your shop. But. . . remember that most of us are at lest a little bit biased, so take everything with a grain of salt.

good luck and shoot specific questions to get best answers.

pierre

Well put.

Oh, and welcome Bart.

[mooseman]

hi Bart,
welcome aboard.
We print manual, self taught using all these guys, youtube, books, and about a million houurs of try and fail and the journey never ends.
The most important thing to remember here is we all see the exact same thing but from an entirely different point of view and end goal.

There is some very powerful folks here that can guide you through just about ant situation but in the end the trip is yours alone to travel.
i once read story about a guy at an OSKOSH EAA aircraft event who spotted an icon of the aviation industry sitting on the ground within a small  group of people listening to a relatively young man talking about aircraft engine maintenence. the icon was asked why are you sitting here in the gress  listening to this guy ?
The reply was simple.....because he is the absolute best at what he does. You are never too big to learn and information comes in many forms.
Lastly screen printing is like golf. You can go out and buy the absolutely best clubs  tomorrow morning but  that will never make you tiger woods by supper time.
mooseman

[numbercruncher]

Bart,
If you read the above - you've probably figured out that you are in the right place-
Here's to your success !

[Stinkhorn Press]

I suck at google.
I hate trying to dig though old forum posts to find gold (but that IS the advantage of a forum with history too!)

if you aren't already USE GOOGLE's site search

GOOGLE search bar enter

site:http://www.theshirtboard.com "the thing you are looking for"

[BartJY]

Welcome aboard Bart!
thanx for joining our little corner of the InterWeb. . .

As you probably know by now, every shop has it's own preferences.
-Part of it is relationships with the vendors (in many cases who are close friends after years of working together),
-part of it is our own biases
and
-part of it is our own systems (that might work better with one product than the other).
Every printer you ask will probably come up with a different list, but keep an eye out for which products are mentioned most often and who is doing the mentioning. I know several shops that have modeled their systems on our (blue moon's) research, but even they adjusted for their circumstances.
There are several experts like ABuffington, Danny Gruninger and few others (with occasional industry legend like Richard Greaves and Mark Coudray stopping by). Remember that the number of posts, does not equate knowledge! Read what members say and figure out how it applies to your shop. But. . . remember that most of us are at lest a little bit biased, so take everything with a grain of salt.

good luck and shoot specific questions to get best answers.

pierre

Well put.

Oh, and welcome Bart.

I second that.

I think I'm going to like it here.

Bart