Neoprene: printing over seams

[Alchemink]

Where might I be able to find a small roll of neoprene for cheap?

I'm going to be printing on the butt of some shorts that have a seam in the middle and I've used neoprene in the past to print over neck seams and what not.

Any other suggestions, ideas, and pointers are welcomed!

[RICK STEFANICK]

Run water base inks. you wont need the neoprene

[Prince Art]

We recently used the thin plastic packing foam that you can buy in rolls from Home Depot / Lowes. We were printing over shoulder seams, and it worked well. PROS: Cut to whatever size/shape you need, and tack it to your pallets on top of your tape; (spray) tack the surface; remove & throw away when done. CONS: It will slowly shrink @ edges if you're flashing, that can be an issue on longer runs; perforations on the roll can be inconvenient on big prints. Edges can curl, so tape them down with masking tape.

This was the first time I had tried this, and definitely felt like we gained another useful tool for this kind of printing.

[im_mcguire]

I had a lengthy conversation with one member here years ago, and I had the same question.
He recommended we get this
https://www.homedepot.com/p/FloorMuffler-100-sq-ft-4-ft-x-25-ft-x-0-08-in-Premium-Underlayment-for-Laminate-Hardwood-and-Engineered-Floors-0264049/204077418

We have used it on a few jobs, and works great.  Some things we double the thickness of it, but works all the same. 

[Alchemink]

I will be using white waterbase discharge. I printed on some Bella undies/booty shorts just recently and they were decent but I can't help but wonder if I could make it look smoother if there was something soft underneath. I have to hit the print a bit harder so as to fill in the minor gap caused by the seam. The pallets on my manual don't have rubber on them, they're just wood.

[RICK STEFANICK]

Why over think it, get them printed collect your money and move on to the next order.

[Alchemink]

Quality over quantity tends to be something smaller shops like ours can focus on since were not turning out hundreds of thousands of shirts. I suppose it's a walmart/mom-n'-pop dichotomy.

[RICK STEFANICK]

Quality over quantity tends to be something smaller shops like ours can focus on since were not turning out hundreds of thousands of shirts. I suppose it's a walmart/mom-n'-pop dichotomy.

I thinlk you would be blown away by the quality in larger shops like this. us along with several others are running 16 color designs for large retail clients( NOT WALMART). Its not quantity over quality trust me. its perfect registration, super soft hand, 6-8 high line halftone screens. iN PLANT AUDITS . These are expensive retail programs . WISE WORD OF ADVICE-You dont have to sacrifice quality to be a professional screen printer running quantity. That's what separates the men from the boys.

[Prince Art]

Why over think it, get them printed collect your money and move on to the next order.

@ Rick: this comment could be what led Alchemink to think you were preaching quantity over quality!

But I'd also say that any comparison of tiny shops to massive shops is a bit of apples to oranges. The first is that they are rarely competitors. Big shops compete with big shops, small shops compete with small shops. (And yeah, there's some overlap for both with mid-size shops, but we won't get into that.) "Quality over quantity" and also "quality over lowest price" are usually things that define you at your own level of competition. Mine is a tiny shop, and I've got customers who pay more for my level of quality; but no national brands are going to be calling me up for it! They're going to go to a "quality" big shop.

Another difference between shop sizes is simply how much more exposure a large shop has to different print requests, and thus how much better equipped they are to field those requests at a moment's notice. A big shop may make enough bank on "X" kind of special location printing, they've got it dialed in - dedicated pallets, the optimum ink, the correct process. A small shop who gets the same kind of request only here & there over the years may need to be able to fulfill it to retain a local customer, but they are going to have to approach the project in a different way. When it's not what you do all the time, it's going to be a hassle compared to bread & butter work. There's not much chance of just slamming it through because you've got to figure it out each time. ...And that's one thing that's so helpful about this forum - the chance to ask questions & get valuable input when you need it, from people who know what they're talking about. 

[RICK STEFANICK]

Why over think it, get them printed collect your money and move on to the next order.

@ Rick: this comment could be what led Alchemink to think you were preaching quantity over quality!

But I'd also say that any comparison of tiny shops to massive shops is a bit of apples to oranges. The first is that they are rarely competitors. Big shops compete with big shops, small shops compete with small shops. (And yeah, there's some overlap for both with mid-size shops, but we won't get into that.) "Quality over quantity" and also "quality over lowest price" are usually things that define you at your own level of competition. Mine is a tiny shop, and I've got customers who pay more for my level of quality; but no national brands are going to be calling me up for it! They're going to go to a "quality" big shop.

Another difference between shop sizes is simply how much more exposure a large shop has to different print requests, and thus how much better equipped they are to field those requests at a moment's notice. A big shop may make enough bank on "X" kind of special location printing, they've got it dialed in - dedicated pallets, the optimum ink, the correct process. A small shop who gets the same kind of request only here & there over the years may need to be able to fulfill it to retain a local customer, but they are going to have to approach the project in a different way. When it's not what you do all the time, it's going to be a hassle compared to bread & butter work. There's not much chance of just slamming it through because you've got to figure it out each time. ...And that's one thing that's so helpful about this forum - the chance to ask questions & get valuable input when you need it, from people who know what they're talking about. 

Thank you for your input. I have been doing this for a few years and have had my own small shops, I know the environment well. What got me is the auto thinking that just because a shop is big its quantity over quality. The one thing I know is industry standards and that applies to small, medium and large shops. If I could take back the 2500 times i spent hours working on something that the client 'even understand I would be driving that new Vette and retired. In my own harsh way I was just Trring to change the stereotype thinking and open up . Just because someone is small doesn't change the fact that the sky is the limit and there is money to be made(AS LONG AS THE PRESS IS SPINNING). I wish I knew someone like me when I was new in this business

[Prince Art]

Why over think it, get them printed collect your money and move on to the next order.

@ Rick: this comment could be what led Alchemink to think you were preaching quantity over quality!

But I'd also say that any comparison of tiny shops to massive shops is a bit of apples to oranges. The first is that they are rarely competitors. Big shops compete with big shops, small shops compete with small shops. (And yeah, there's some overlap for both with mid-size shops, but we won't get into that.) "Quality over quantity" and also "quality over lowest price" are usually things that define you at your own level of competition. Mine is a tiny shop, and I've got customers who pay more for my level of quality; but no national brands are going to be calling me up for it! They're going to go to a "quality" big shop.

Another difference between shop sizes is simply how much more exposure a large shop has to different print requests, and thus how much better equipped they are to field those requests at a moment's notice. A big shop may make enough bank on "X" kind of special location printing, they've got it dialed in - dedicated pallets, the optimum ink, the correct process. A small shop who gets the same kind of request only here & there over the years may need to be able to fulfill it to retain a local customer, but they are going to have to approach the project in a different way. When it's not what you do all the time, it's going to be a hassle compared to bread & butter work. There's not much chance of just slamming it through because you've got to figure it out each time. ...And that's one thing that's so helpful about this forum - the chance to ask questions & get valuable input when you need it, from people who know what they're talking about. 

Thank you for your input. I have been doing this for a few years and have had my own small shops, I know the environment well. What got me is the auto thinking that just because a shop is big its quantity over quality. The one thing I know is industry standards and that applies to small, medium and large shops. If I could take back the 2500 times i spent hours working on something that the client 'even understand I would be driving that new Vette and retired. In my own harsh way I was just Trring to change the stereotype thinking and open up . Just because someone is small doesn't change the fact that the sky is the limit and there is money to be made(AS LONG AS THE PRESS IS SPINNING). I wish I knew someone like me when I was new in this business

I wish I knew someone like you when I was new in the business too! And I'll certainly grant you that the other side of small shops, especially new ones who want to shine at quality, is that sometimes you can get bogged down in saying YES to everything, or in making everything perfect for jobs that don't really get you anywhere down the road. I still struggle to figure what jobs a small shop (that wants to stay both small AND profitable) should & shouldn't be accepting.

[RICK STEFANICK]

Why over think it, get them printed collect your money and move on to the next order.

@ Rick: this comment could be what led Alchemink to think you were preaching quantity over quality!

But I'd also say that any comparison of tiny shops to massive shops is a bit of apples to oranges. The first is that they are rarely competitors. Big shops compete with big shops, small shops compete with small shops. (And yeah, there's some overlap for both with mid-size shops, but we won't get into that.) "Quality over quantity" and also "quality over lowest price" are usually things that define you at your own level of competition. Mine is a tiny shop, and I've got customers who pay more for my level of quality; but no national brands are going to be calling me up for it! They're going to go to a "quality" big shop.

Another difference between shop sizes is simply how much more exposure a large shop has to different print requests, and thus how much better equipped they are to field those requests at a moment's notice. A big shop may make enough bank on "X" kind of special location printing, they've got it dialed in - dedicated pallets, the optimum ink, the correct process. A small shop who gets the same kind of request only here & there over the years may need to be able to fulfill it to retain a local customer, but they are going to have to approach the project in a different way. When it's not what you do all the time, it's going to be a hassle compared to bread & butter work. There's not much chance of just slamming it through because you've got to figure it out each time. ...And that's one thing that's so helpful about this forum - the chance to ask questions & get valuable input when you need it, from people who know what they're talking about. 

Thank you for your input. I have been doing this for a few years and have had my own small shops, I know the environment well. What got me is the auto thinking that just because a shop is big its quantity over quality. The one thing I know is industry standards and that applies to small, medium and large shops. If I could take back the 2500 times i spent hours working on something that the client 'even understand I would be driving that new Vette and retired. In my own harsh way I was just Trring to change the stereotype thinking and open up . Just because someone is small doesn't change the fact that the sky is the limit and there is money to be made(AS LONG AS THE PRESS IS SPINNING). I wish I knew someone like me when I was new in this business

I wish I knew someone like you when I was new in the business too! And I'll certainly grant you that the other side of small shops, especially new ones who want to shine at quality, is that sometimes you can get bogged down in saying YES to everything, or in making everything perfect for jobs that don't really get you anywhere down the road. I still struggle to figure what jobs a small shop (that wants to stay both small AND profitable) should & shouldn't be accepting.

NOW Thats a great point of discussion that small shops do. That was the point I was trying to make . You should start a thread discussing this. That topic is perfect for this forum and if you think about it may have a impact on thousands and thousands of dollars wasted in down time for shops doing this.

[Jepaul]

Amazon “roll of neoprene”

[Alchemink]

Amazon “roll of neoprene”

Ah. Thank you, Sir.