What a difference 4,000 miles makes....

[TCT]

I returned a few days ago from my trip to Portugal to visit the S.Roque factory and some printers there. WOW. It is hard to put into words how different things are between "normal" printing there and what is for the most part "normal" printing here. I could go on forever about the differences, but everyone would probably get board. I'll point out some of the big things I noticed and I have a few pics I can post(I was asked to not publicly display some. Some were prints for the "next season" ect.) but be warned, there is not any blue in the pics so if that is hard for you turn back now.... The info and everything I got from the factory owners. It is crazy there, the region I was in(around Braga) was the textile region. Crazy there. A LOT of cut and sew places, embroidery factories and a lot of screen printers. This was all within maybe a 15 mile radius(my sense of direction was waaaaaaay off) and out of all the places I visited there was only 1 that did more than one thing, most only did printing.

First thing, Plastisol is basically a swear word. It is used a little bit, but from my understanding it is less than 2% of the orders in general. Everyone was printing waterbased.

I had a B!tch of a time converting everything, 156 is a 61 or something, a 110 is a 43, 230 is a 91. They also all got their bases and some inks in drums that looked smaller than a 55gal. Maybe 40 gal or so? I didn't really pay close attention to that. Only ink brand readily available here in the sates I saw there was Wilflex. Otherwise it was dominated by a Italian brand and one other one.

Ink was left in screens while not in use, the image area was just quickly wiped and damp shirt scraps were laid over the ink.

ALL the screens I saw were wood frames, and some even 1" x 1". Tension was not a important thing to them makes sense with the waterbased ink, but it was still a odd reality for me.

Flashes galore! They flash after EVERY color. Yes every color. I saw a few times the flashes were what were used for the final cure of the prints.
I watched some insane 4cp prints on black and navy being done but it was 2 bases, and then YMCK, but a flash in between every application. There was minimal discharge being use, the owners had issues with the fumes. There was some, but not anywhere near what I was expecting. The WB inks were just stacked, all the time. Talking with the guy that was bringing me around that worked for S.Roque, it was common practice there to order machines with 1 color per 3 boards. I would say roughly 75% of the machines in the factories there were ovals, so that accommodates their "style" of printing much better.

ALL the places were spotless, most were not informed I was coming, not that they would care I guess, but with the volume these places were doing and the amount of machines, I expected a bit of a mess.

24 piece minimum? Ha! try 2500 piece minimum! That is right, 2,500 was the smallest minimum these places would print. One place, as a favor ran a 1,000 piece job for one of their good customers for a limited edition print, but it was more of a favor the owner said. Typical run? 20K units. And the crazy thing, the whole time I was there I didn't see a single finished garment being printed! Everything was dropped off from the cut and sew houses after the rough cuts were made. With flat goods like that everyone was ruining HUGE boards(think roughly 30"x 40" boards). I was told it makes it easier for all over prints, consistent prints covering the sleeves, ect. which makes sense. One of the big reasons the printed on pre sewn garments was loss control and "leakage" control. These shops are printing for big names(Hilfiger, Polo, Roxy, Pepe Jeans, Volcom, Levies, Quiksilver, Hurley, ect. and a bunch of others from France I didn't know, a cool one that stuck out was Fame On You) and aside from the big names not wanting bootleg items out there, they were also a lot of times printing things for next summer releases, and those couldn't be leaked. Again, this was just a total 180 from so much of what I have grown to know.

"Regular" carousel style presses that are so common here were toys there. The S.Roque ECO's(think CHIII 110) were used usually for printing sleeves(flat un sewn again) underwear, pockets and hoods(all flat un sewn). The machines that did the lions share of the printing were ovals. These things killed it!
Biggest press I saw was a 54 station 24 color machine. The thing was huge, but they had it set up to be ruining 2 jobs at the same time, one on one side and the other on the other, 2 load stations and 2 unload stations, very cool.




I think the smallest shop I saw had 6 autos. 4 Ovals and 2 carousel type. These places were HUGE one was running 8 dryers, 14 autos, a hand full of heat presses and a belt printer!



Needless to say these places put out numbers. Guess I don't really have a solid idea of what a BIG shop here in the states puts out in a year(remember when Impressions used to have those rankings!?) but the one shop owner we went out to lunch with said his screen printing company should finish out around 9 million prints this year. His screen printing shop was running 8 autos, one of them less than a week old and had 11,000 prints on it. The same guy also was a partner at a sublimation company, which was also big time. We are talking full 72" printed rolls of sublimation graphics. You placed the roll on one side of the press, ran the sheet to the other end of the press and attached it to a spindle. There were 2 huge heated roller pins(think oversized bakers roller pins) and the machine just ran continuously. The workers placing the cut material on the graphic as it came up. Here is his new auto-




Ok, I'll stop carrying on and just put up some pics. I'll post more differences as I think of them, I am a little burned out from the Christmas hub-bub! Again, these pics have green machines, not blue ones so proceed with caution! 

[blue moon]

very cool!!!

pierre

[TCT]

Here a couple more....








Another thing that was different though not exactly "printing" related, was courier services were big business there. While they have UPS, FedEx and DHL, it is faster and more economical to have these little white van/pick ups run everything around.

[Dottonedan]

Great post. Very interesting to say the least.  One thing I heard from a printer in South America, is that they schedule and price based on what they can fill in a day of production. Not but the quantity of your order.  1000 shirts, thats nothing to them. They want 20 thousand from you to fill a days schedule.

[Grumpy Ole Artist]

For the record: I do not get out much....Bless me attendees, for I have sinned...It has been 20 years since I have been to a show...I thought that the oval had gone the way of the Do-Do bird...Flo- Green/Chartreuse equipment...very Kawasaki...I could TOTALLY deal with production being that color...Huge ovals..."24 colores?! "
 Holy Stercoraceous expletive, batman! Thanks for the expansion of my horizons! I GOTTA get out more! Hablo espanol un poco, dispuesto a trasladar...oy veh!

[dirkdiggler]

bet that was an awesome trip!

[TCT]

The trip was absolutely amazing, the people at S.Roque deserve a big thank you. The country is beautiful and to be able to talk screen printing and more importantly LEARN a totally different way of approaching things, was indescribable. It was odd, one night at dinner(might of been the wine ) I found myself feeling I had know the guys from S.Roque for a long time, like old friends when in fact it was only the second time I met one of them and my first time meeting everyone else. Anyway sorry for getting all sappy there, it was just a real good time with real good people.

Another thing I remembered(Tonypep is going to freak out ) for real nice whites, they all would print WB white, flash, WB white again flash, and so on with the proceeding WB colors. I honestly never thought I would see so many flashes running on 1 machine as I saw there.

Also, NONE of the owners had the least bit of interest in a DTS system. They knew exactly what I was talking about, but all thought it was a waste of money. That kinda makes sense if all your jobs are minimum runs of 20K, but they would all catalog hundreds of screens. Some of their customers required them to keep screens on hand for 2 years. I would of figured it would be easier to just re burn them, but obviously this cracker didn't know squat there!

I have some more pics of the S.Roque factory on my phone and when I get them transferred to the computer I will post them, but here is a sweet panoramic one of the factory outside(YES that is a vineyard on the property!).

[brandon]

Hey,
Great pics and thank you for sharing. Always great to see how other shops and countries do things. There are many ways to print a shirt. And no matter how large or small every shop should be that clean and organized. I am glad to say there are many shops in the States that large and much larger doing what they do. And on the West Coast you can safely say water base is the ink of choice. It has been strange for me moving back South and talking to the local reps and it is like I am talking a foreign language when it comes to water base. PVC free inks forget about it haha. But anyway with all that flashing and I have seen it first hand are you sure they were not running the HO Acrylic inks? Lots of companies make them now and a lot of them require a ton of flashing. In my opinion it's a step backwards but it's all in the name of PVC free. And since discharge and standard water base is PVC free I would rather print wow and no flashing. But I have seen it and being in the States it is the M&R ovals and man they are awesome. But yeah it is a lot of flashes holy smokes! It seriously raises the room temperature haha

[GraphicDisorder]

Good stuff.  Sounds like a fun trip.

[TCT]

Ok to answer a few questions(if I know the answer).....

DAN- I am not sure if that is how they do it at these places, pricing based on the schedule. It may be, but I did not get that impression at all. Kinda looked like they had a "drop off" area where bundles of cut garments were dropped off, and a "finished" area that was picked up immediately. I didn't see any board or signs of scheduling, but that is not to say they aren't scheduling gurus.  When talking price with the one owner he explained a basic matrix system like most contract shops use. He did say that orders of 20,000 or more receive free screens. I may have to look into that policy...

Grumpy Ole Artist- The Oval is alive and well. Actually outside the states the Oval machines are S.Roques biggest sellers. They have the registration down solid, and that has a lot to do with their demand. The 4cp on darks print I was watching(with the flashing still after every color) was actually being printed on a 18yr old oval at one of the shops. Flawless registration and while a bit nosier than the newer ovals, it still ran like a top! Here are a few pics of some new Ovals being tested before shipping out-



brandon- The inks were definitely water based. They just flash the snot out of them! I asked why they flashed between every color and the reply was generally they feel that printing wet on wet "pulls" up the print a bit giving it a rougher feel. ALL the flashes were the EVO(smart temp sensing flashes) flashes, and occasionally the flash was used for the final cure. Crazy.




In hindsight I should of taken more pics, and more without printing going on as I was asked to not publicly display photos with customers printing/orders in them. So here are a few more generic pics and some of the S.Roque factory.






Can someone say honeycomb???!!




And that should do it for the pics! I'll still update with the "differences" as I think of them!

[sweetts]

Great post!  I wonder if they use WB ink for cost reasons? I wonder what there cost per print on average is. Did you get any indication of the average cost per employee? Taxes or insurances things like that? Is their pricing structure similar?


Roger
RT screen designs
Www.rtscreendesigns. Com

[TCT]

The taxes are ridiculously high from my understanding, but it sounded like they were administered differently so it didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Could be because I was speaking Spanish(2nd language for me, but i have to say I'm pretty damn good)to the boss, he was speaking Spanish also(his second language) so there may of been quite a bit lost in translation.
I do have his email and I'll ask him in more detail there, but they are on holiday for a bit still.

They use waterbased ink because the customers are all requesting no hand prints. That is their reasoning behind all the flashing also. They felt that printing wet on wet, the proceeding screen would always "pull up" a small amount of ink which would make the print feel as if it has more of a hand. I have never thought that in depth about it, but I also don't have average runs of 20,000.... Their prints sure felt incredibly non existent. I didn't see anyone at all use a "crush screen" either. They had their stuff down!

Pricing was not that far off from here. Maybe 10% or so less. That is a rough number because of the conversion rate and us both trying to pull our price list out of our heads during lunch and wine. I tink we came in around $0.45per on like 8000 with 2 or 3 colors.
From what I understand the real savings comes with the large cut and sew operations right there within 10 miles. Takes more time to assemble the T than to print it.

[sweetts]

Wow it sounds like this could be a trip to trigger some big changes for you, awesome! How do the wages compare from here to there.



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[TCT]

Wow it sounds like this could be a trip to trigger some big changes for you, awesome! How do the wages compare from here to there.



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Hahahahaha! No big changes for me, aside from the fact I can now say I have left the country if anything it has made me feel extra small. I am proud of our new press but talking with the owners over there, when I said I had a 10/12 and a 6/8 auto they were probably thinking they have machines that small in their closets!
It was just a wonderful opportunity that I was able to take advantage of. Learned a lot, got some great ideas, ate something aside from bacon cheese burgers and got to see a beautiful country with great history.


I will try to get wage info and more detailed price info once the one owner who I have email for gets back from holiday. I really wish I would of gotten more information like this and more pics, but I think I was just so caught up in what was going on and the somewhat of a language barrier that I spaced on a lot of that. Sorry I let the team down coach....

[sweetts]

It was great info thank you for sharing


Roger
RT screen designs
Www.rtscreendesigns. Com