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screen printing => Ink and Chemicals => Topic started by: farmboygraphics on May 19, 2016, 08:06:40 PM
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15 years in and I've only had 3 ink colors mixed for me for one customer. I watch videos from other shops and they have shelves covered with mixed inks, I have about 2 dozen go to inks. Is this typical or am I just not pushing myself?
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You apparently just don't do much work for folks with art from designers who call for Pantone colors rather than your stock ones.
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You are probably a-typical, but you are doing it the right way in my opinion.
Having a bunch of inks mixed is over-rated, we have a huge library of ink that is aging, 1/4 with phallates, 1/4 with out, 1/4 EKO, 1/4 Waterbase.
There are pro's and con's to both ways, but if you have managed how you are doing it for 15 years, by all means don't start mixing a bunch of inks for one time use.
We have shelves full of crappy colors that will not get used for years. If it were up to me, if we mixed a custom color we would charge for it, which would include the cost to dispose of the extra ink, then after each order if it wasn't from a stock color list, we would dispose of the waste ink, which over time you could improve on estimating how much you need, and reducing waste.
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It completely depends on who your market is.
For our shop: 2 autos - We do a lot of corporate work. That means matching and printing a lot of pantone color swatches. We also do a good amount of sim-process which means pantone.
We also do a good chunk of school work. For this we also print pantone matches - and use inks right off of the ink manufacturer's color charts. Locally that means Kelly Green and Crimson.
First manual shop I worked at, we had 15 regular ink manufacturers colors and a small shelf of "eyeball" color mixes. We only ever had pantone matches mixed up once.
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OMFG... (sorry, had to start that way) So many times I see folks out there doing the same thing I do, but differently. We all print. We don't do custom or walk in. Blah blah blah. We do Licensed sports apparel, and I crap you not, I have over 800 PMS colors on my shelves. I won't say I hate you, but I hate you.
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You have a good thing going. Yes, every shop is different but you sound like you have a good set of clients as long as the cash flow is consistent. It is what we like about HSA inks over discharge ink now. Well, to be precise I should say HSA ink printed on top of discharge. But with our new turn around time of 48 to 72 hours being the standard we are giving our clients a choice of custom stock mixes. It's a good variety but still very easy to manage and cuts out a lot of hassle. Especially when shirts arrive in the morning and go out in the afternoon. Work it man! Good for you.
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I'd say as long as you aren't losing business by not mixing for a customer, more power to you.
We must have over 200 pc mixes over the same 15 years.
Do you just have a stock color card on the counter, or how do you get away with so few?
If I didn't mix regularly, I guarantee they would be dissatisfied. It may depend upon your bent to satisfy your clientele,
or shy to get into mixing.
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I have been doing this for almost 9 years and I am guessing I have only mixed 40 or so. I do easy mixes of standard colors more. Since I told my contract guys to take a hike, I have maybe done 5 pantones. I charge $25 per color but its a one time per design per customer. For good customers I use the $25 as a deterant but never charge it for them. I am much like you and have about 2 dozen colors that work fine for most of my customers. Honestly I only need white, black, red and royal for 75% of my customers. Most are just white or black. Its the contract guys that try to upsell pantones and more colors and locations.
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Do you just have a stock color card on the counter, or how do you get away with so few?
If I didn't mix regularly, I guarantee they would be dissatisfied. It may depend upon your bent to satisfy your clientele,
or shy to get into mixing.
If someone says I want green, I ask what shade, then show them either the lime, brite green or forest. They pick one and that's that. I don't do any corporate or licensed work. Just run of the mill (for me) stuff. I'd say 60% of what we do is black and white prints.
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OMFG... (sorry, had to start that way) So many times I see folks out there doing the same thing I do, but differently. We all print. We don't do custom or walk in. Blah blah blah. We do Licensed sports apparel, and I crap you not, I have over 800 PMS colors on my shelves. I won't say I hate you, but I hate you.
It's all cool ;D
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I have over 800 PMS colors on my shelves. I won't say I hate you, but I hate you.
I feel your pain, try over 3000 with crappy math, probably well over that
quarts are two deep, by nine wide, by two tall = 36 x 12 = 432 per shelf, and the photo is cutting out shelves, and the closet of ink, or the buckets and gallons you can't see on the inside, basically it is out of control.
Don't get into this situation, otherwise you are just putting money on the shelf that will never be used, it's out of control, and has been an ongoing ballooning thing for years, and we keep adding new ink systems and adding to the epidemic.
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People are fickle creatures, and will agonize over the "perfect" color for days even weeks, I find mixing all like colors (multiple shades of blue for example) in a clean can and with clever sales pitch will be the magic bullet that keeps your shelves somewhat clean.
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I have over 800 PMS colors on my shelves. I won't say I hate you, but I hate you.
I feel your pain, try over 3000 with crappy math, probably well over that
Barefoot, right on bro!
Start taking all your dark colors and mix them into black using a high pigment black. Lighter colors can make grays. Reds, yellows and blues make all your Browns and all those extra buckets of white mix together and use for those white on gray jobs or a crappy under base job.
The current coated guide has over 8000 colors in it..
I'd say half that was on shelves from floor to ceiling on two walls and floor racks when I walked into mirror image the first time. Ink girl was a wiz at color but the messiest person I've ever met, well Sam might from what I've heard his shop looks like.. Anyway.. Took us a month and two 55 waste drums to organize and clean it up.
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This how we roll with the dreaded plastisol........
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We have too many. But our market requires it. We make various quantities based on useage. Saves constant mixing. Schools show up several times a year, corporates are ongoing. Needing a pint, mixing, then 4 weeks later doing again kinda wastes too much time. If this is your market, you mix it, save it, use it. Figure out best storage.
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we offer the Henry Ford full model T color pallet...any color you want as long as it is black ;)
mooseman
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Rarely have to mix ink here, we may have 2-3 jobs a year call out a pantone. Love it.
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We went 10 years just doing stock colors. I think I ordered 1 gallon of a Pantone in that 10 but in the last 3 years we've had more and more come in needing color specific prints so we went ahead and ordered the wilflex equalizer system. It's nice to know that in a pinch that you can throw together a mix without having to wait. That being said I would hate to have to mix everyday because of time and our lack of space.
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we mix anywhere between 4 to 8 quarts of pantone colors per week.
that being said, we push customers towards colors we already have mixed, but many times, when printing contract or for corporate apparel, that just doesn't work out well.
I think we have around 150-200 mixed quarts on the shelves right now, and we're adding more every day.
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Rarely do any PMS matching here. We have a standard color chart and I do a lot of the art so I make sure to try and keep it to those colors. We charge $25 on a match unless it is a good customer. I know this is probably not feasible in a larger shop but it works for us.
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We don't have much call for pantone mixes, and we don't promote it. We do way more "eyeball mixes" than actual pantones.
That's plastisol.
With discharge and waterbase, its all mixed into bases except white, black, and Flo colors.
Storage and/or disposal of custom mixes is a major problem in our cramped shop.
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I mix 5-10 a week (mix of actual pantones and eye matched tweaked stock colors). Stock colors are great, but people want what they want. I charge for it and it pays for itself. For a lot of mixes I end up just adding them into a generic blend after the job if there is a good chance I won't use it again, and then I use that ink for random less particular jobs that I know won't be repeated like event shirts. Basically I have a gallon of "blue", "yellow", "red" etc.
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Zanegun: I'm Interested to know what your color coded labels are representing?
I'm not a sim process printer but I imagine you guys will probably have multiple versions of some colors at different opacities?
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We have 325 quarts of Pantones right now. We charge for using them (ones on hand are often waived though) so it is worth having the additional versatility with them. We do stick to stock inks for most custom stuff though, makes it easier all around, less cleanup since we do keep several sets of squeegees/floods to stock inks.
Having all of these color options is necessary to hit artwork as best as possible. Artists do try to use Pantones we already have mixed when they are needed to make artwork work as well.
We weren't like this 4 years ago though - then we probably had our stock inks + 10 Pantones total maybe. So I wouldn't say you are alone. It is easier to have stock inks only, just limits artwork...so depends on what you print!
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Zanegun: I'm Interested to know what your color coded labels are representing?
Different colors, are different series of ink. Pink is Old Phthalate Rutland, Blue is Phthalates Free, Green is Waterbase / Discharge, Orange is EKO / PVC Free, and then within those inks there are HO, MI, ect. for different opacities, and then we have custom colors as well for different jobs / companies.
But I would recommend nobody to do this, mix to order, and push for a standard color card. Now with new pantone colors (7000's) we are mixing "new shades" of super similar colors because they get called out.
How do other companies manage charging for colors when the Reps don't even know how to open a file, or see what color they have in their files? I don't like quoting people and then having a bunch of additional hidden fees, so it is one thing I can't quite wrap my head around if the customer service doesn't know how to find colors to begin with? We have a job in the pipeline before it goes to art, may have to work backwards to get colors first.
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Zane:
Can you get Chris to start charging for Pantones?
Here, I always go through the files if there are questions about colors. Our sales team is well informed and knows when to ask me and the customer (which ends up being 90% of the time). But we are certainly a touch smaller than you guys ;)
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Gee, I don't feel so bad now, we only have 500 - 600 or so. Yes, doing corporate work will have you make a lot of colors. Thank God they're plastisol and will outlive us...
Steve
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That's a cool system. Thanks for sharing.