Hey You!... Get back in the Screen Room!!

[jsheridan]

I don't know why but I love working in the screen room and around screens.

A good friends shop whom I worked for about 5 yrs ago right before I moved back east, has had me doing his screen re-stretching and general machine tech and repair for the past 6 months or so. (I made the 10 minute roller frame video there) We always talk shop and try to come up with ways to improve his output and general shop performance. He's strictly a contract printer with 3 Blue machines and the schedule is booked solid until mid Jan. I keep telling him you have to get the screens back on track with a person who actually understands what a screen is, get the tension back up from your current slop and get the Tri-loc down from the attic and fix it! Then once the screens are fixed you need to get your staff to stop slacking and turn the index up to get 4k prints a day.

After stretching some screens last week, we sit down and actually talk about working on this. He asked me if i wanted to get back in the screen room and do what's needed to make it right!

Today was my first day back under the amber light and it was like re-connecting with an old lover. Showed up at 8 with my coffee, headphones, and my favorite Pandora station. Next thing I know it's 4pm and I've yet to take a break, lunch or even sit down once. In that time I shot 26 screens, reclaimed 24 and coated 50. Then I cleaned 6 yrs of filth from the wash tank and drying rack fans before going home with a huge smile on my face.

You really do have to love this job and have a passion for it to do those kind of things.

Speaking of screens, i have to go coat mine for some jobs later this week.

[rmonks]

I know what you mean, I love it when business is slow, and I get to make some screens or, work on equipment, etc. .. I know it is supposed to be all about making money, but I love screen printing. My family gives me hell sometimes because i spend all my free time in my shop. I guess its not a job if you like what you are doing.

[mk162]

I know how you feel.  Sometimes I have to pull myself out of the shop to get more important things done.  It's good that the employees see that I don't just sit on my but all day.

That's all you did?  I would have had double that done.  I bet the music is slowing you down. 

My wife doesn't understand how much I actually enjoy the inner workings of screen printing.  She views the whole place as 1 thing.  It's not, and as the owner, I do everything from empty garbages to repairs to actual printing.  This morning I installed a new AC vent in the embroidery room, it needed some air flow, so I put one in.  That is the sort of thing I liek doing...what I want, when I want to.

[Sbrem]

I miss doing the work a lot, as I'm all admin and sales now. I was a screenmaker for 18 years (I also did everything else when needed and computerized the art department there before I left). I reclaimed a bunch last night between order and quote writing as our guy is totally overwhelmed right now. My favorite part though is art and separations. I still get to help a little, but I have to grow up and let the artists do the work and do what the owners are supposed to do...

Steve

[Dottonedan]

John,

What happened to all of the other staff in the screen room?  Were they in the room to see all that happening? That would have been good if so. How did they take it?

I like research and R&D and Process improvement. I'm far better at seeing your current process and finding solutions than starting up my own shop from scratch. LOL.

When I came to the Orlando area for my last job, I sort of did that same thing you described. I never held a job as a screen room buy but read, did it and then taught the others. Same for press set up and every area of the shop. For a while, I was doing nothing but process improvement. It's crazy to think that someone never checks the dryer temperature (on the inside) and as the shirts come out but basic stuff like that gets lost along the way.

It's great to have someone check up on these things on a regular basis. My first month of work at the shop in Orlando, I found that nobody in the screen room (screen room manager included) really knew how to stretch screens the right way. Nobody coated consistently or knew why we coat the way we do. Nobody knew how to do an exposure test. Nobody ever checked the moisture in the room (and we were a large volume shop where we had the same design running all day long). Our production Mgr would be the only one who knew the basics and was way too stressed and over worked to handle all areas. That was sort of his fault. He never put the right people in place and never followed up on them. Improvements like this in a high volume shop can add well over $100,000 in additional profits in a year. These profits can be measured and traced back tot he source to prove results.

If you've got decent number of employees, someones got to be interested enough to make these changes and stay on top of it. Put those people in charge of special projects like that.

[3Deep]

My wife tells me the same thing I seem to really want to work at 15 to 5 when its time to go home for the day.  Speaking of slow I,m going to try some new embroidery when we get thru screenprinting in the next week or so.

[jsheridan]

John,

What happened to all of the other staff in the screen room?  Were they in the room to see all that happening? That would have been good if so. How did they take it?

 Our production Mgr would be the only one who knew the basics and was way too stressed and over worked to handle all areas. That was sort of his fault. He never put the right people in place and never followed up on them.

The other staff is the girl who was there then, and is still there now along with the other guy who is still there. Between the both of them, I bet they couldn't figure out how to loosen the bolts.. yeah.

We're in San Diego.. take a guess at who the staff is in every shop in town.. do you think any of them will ever get on-line or read a trade magazine to better their abilities. Ain't going to happen. They learn how to do the task and then repeat and nothing more.

Being that prod guy in a big shop.. i wasn't allowed to find the right people (nor fire the wrong people) unless they walked through the door looking for a job. It was so crazy that I didn't have any spare time to take a crap let alone train anybody. The owners were so tight wadded that I was always short staffed and moving people around here and there to put out fires just to get that days work done.

Then there was the other shop that let me hire and fire who I wanted and I put the right people in the right places and followed up all the time. the shop ran like a well oiled machine.

[jsheridan]

That's all you did?  I would have had double that done.  I bet the music is slowing you down. 

Is this better for today's numbers.. 8-430 with 15 minute lunch and I don't take breaks either.

28 screens burned
62 screens reclaimed
54 screens coated 2x2 and racked for monday morning.

Had my "SOJA" Pandora station cranking and got a few laughs from the staff as I'm known to dance in place while working to a good song.

[Shawn (EIP)]

My passion for the business is on the press and counting my money, but boy do I hate reclaim, stretching and burning screens. Just cleaned 16 screens which is about a weeks worth for me.

[jsheridan]

My passion for the business is on the press and counting my money, but boy do I hate reclaim, stretching and burning screens. Just cleaned 16 screens which is about a weeks worth for me.

I did my time on press and now enjoy running a press, just not setting it up or dealing with print issues. Standing at a press was where I learned that you can't make a bad screen do good things no matter how loud the boss yells. What is on the screen is whats prints, there is no 'magic' on press. If you need to fix something, you have to go back to the screen or art to make it right. I got tired of dealing with bad screens one day and walked up the screen guy and told him I'm taking your job, go load that press and closed and locked the door and took over. He didn't like it but we had good screens and I fell in love with printing. With so much time on press screens just made sense and I could tell right away how the art would look on a shirt. I knew I could alter mesh counts, talk to art about changes and lets try some R&R. I Read every piece of literature on screens as I could and constantly looked for ways to do better.

Now it's just a game to see how productive I can get in a day, find the weaknesses, correct them look for more problems. Refine as I go and re-build his decaying screen catalog. As they come in off the floor I'm seeing complete lack of any care what soever. Holes everywhere and tape covering them up. The polyken tape is falling off most frames, shredding on some and the new one's I've made in the last months are the only decent screens in inventory. I get to think all day about how to make a better screen and build the process more efficiently. I've broken it into stages and now is the cleaning stage. Get it all cleaned up and organized. The only way to clean it all is to do just that.. clean!

Started with the wash booth. It had 4-5 years worth of build up everywhere! The backlight seal had gone years ago and was leaking on the floor. The solution.. A Broom! A broom with a shirt wrapped around the end to mop up the water was handed to me by the screen cleaning guy. They knew it leaked, for a few years but nobody really did anything. It's the screen area, it's supposed to be wet and dirty, messy and nasty looking right sure why not...  shake head. 

SO... I find the leak, it's easy and needs sealant. I bring in my painters scraper tool, that one with the curved noth and little pointy end to pop paint lids. Run it overt some sandpaper and it sharpens up real nice like. Scraped the entire tank clean and tried to sand the back plexi but I'll need a wire wheel grinder to wear off the diazo staining, may have to buy new. I cleaned up the joints first thing in the morning while it was dry then 5 minute epoxied the   joint that was leaking.

Once I get past cleaning I have to do inventory of all frames and their mesh counts and determine the best balance of mesh counts to meet the needs of the shop.

[tpitman]

I hate reclaim, and it's only exacerbated by procrastination until I'm out of clean screens and they're piled like cordwood in the washout area. I had to stand alongside the toilet to take a leak because screens were 15 deep and twice as high in front of it.
Finished reclaiming 'em last night, except for the five 83 mesh ones I have reversed number stencils for transfers burned on, and I've gotta remake those.

[David005]

That's all you did?  I would have had double that done.  I bet the music is slowing you down. 

Is this better for today's numbers.. 8-430 with 15 minute lunch and I don't take breaks either.

28 screens burned
62 screens reclaimed
54 screens coated 2x2 and racked for monday morning.

Had my "SOJA" Pandora station cranking and got a few laughs from the staff as I'm known to dance in place while working to a good song.

Who's pulling off tape

[jsheridan]

Who's pulling off tape

We have a wash guy who cleans them of tape and ink before reclaim.

[mjrprint]

I know what you mean. I have two whole weeks of no production manager duties. My number one focus is breaking down a dryer and press to send to our sister company. Two whole weeks of nuts and bolts and ignoring everything else. I even bought a new air socket set! This is gonna be fun. Nobody here understood why I was in such a good mood. But don't you know the minute that air ratchet started humming everyone came over to check it out.