moved my shop and heres a pic of the darkroom project

[mk162]

if you ask the guys that do water removal, they will tell you the more airflow the better.  It really helps keep the air flowing over the screens and dries them faster.  Even a small fan just moving the air in there would help.

[Frog]

I use a small fan (with heater on a timer if needed) as well as a dehumidifier.

We will be posting an article or two detailing drying cabinets by Douglas Grigar. In the meantime, here's a link to one by him and John Raftery that covers a lot of the basics.

[mjrprint]

Try mounting a bathroom exhaust fan in the top of the box. Also put maybe a small box fan in the bottom to draw in air. We cut a hole out of the drywall and mounted an fan with some hvac filter in front. That pulls in frsh air and the top exhaust fan pulls it through. Also get a small dehumidifier in there too. That will take a good deal of the moisture and humidity. We can dry 4 racks at a time in a little over an hour.

[mjrprint]

Here are some pics of our set up. The one that is missing is the screen drying room. Figures
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattmatiks/sets/72157626968499058/

[Nation03]

Wow. lol How the hell do you keep all those machines busy?! Nice shop

[Shawn (EIP)]

Wow. lol How the hell do you keep all those machines busy?! Nice shop

Build it and they will come? I'm starting to think one has to be heavily into the sports market to keep a shop that busy... no?

[Nation03]

The shop I work in only does sports and I dislike it very much. All baseball and football leagues that don't pay for 6-8 months and bitch way to much over nothing. It keeps me motivated to make my own shop be associated with anything but sports lol.

By the way, we only have one antec manual.. I feel like we print enough for an auto, but the orders aren't large enough of the same design. All the leagues are separated into 12-15 shirts so that definitely would feel like a waste on an auto.

[Shawn (EIP)]

The shop I work in only does sports and I dislike it very much. All baseball and football leagues that don't pay for 6-8 months and bitch way to much over nothing. It keeps me motivated to make my own shop be associated with anything but sports lol.

By the way, we only have one antec manual.. I feel like we print enough for an auto, but the orders aren't large enough of the same design. All the leagues are separated into 12-15 shirts so that definitely would feel like a waste on an auto.

I'll take sports jobs but I hate em too... theres no charging enough for screen printed names and numbers and someones name no matter how careful I am gets mispelled lol.  I hate printing 100% poly too.

[Nation03]

Yeah, luckily we're pretty good on the names since we do them often, but most of the leagues is just a simple one color front and a cheap vinyl number on the back. I like to think I've mastered the 100% poly because we do it almost everyday.. And I've got nylon jackets almost down to a science now, but I hate doing them. I guess we're one of those rare shops that almost never prints on 100% cotton. It's usually either 50/50 or 100% poly. His clients are mostly inner cities though, and I guess no one these days understand what turnaround time is. After they place an order they expect to come the same day and pick it up, as if they were the phone call we've been waiting around all day for. People have gone to sh!t.

[mk162]

We have a good customer here that we do athletic printing for.  The quality of the stuff he brings in from other shops is atrocious.  I mean really bad.  The ink is thick as heck and the prints are stairstepped so bad.  I think they are using all athletic inks through an 80 mesh with a pfp.

The other shop manages to screw up the numbers as well.  But you can take them off with MEK.

[mjrprint]

Wow. lol How the hell do you keep all those machines busy?! Nice shop

We are in the collegiate market and one of the top 3 companies in that market alongside Nike and Champion. We are swamped right now! I envy you guys and the large runs. Our average is 48-144 pieces with color changes and anywhere from 1-8 colors. We own setups though.

[alan802]

Nice shop Matt, love the pics, give us more.

[mjrprint]

Nice shop Matt, love the pics, give us more.

I have to shoot some more for insurance purposes so I will post an updated gallery. I am also heading to our sister company in El Salvador this month to train some of the printers and work on their equipment. I will post some pics from my travels there also.