An honest open letter to manufacturers from a shop regarding screen racks.

[inkbrigade]

I'd like to post my thoughts and frustrations here regarding getting an affordable quality screen rack / cart for our shop.

As we grow we i find we need more and more screen carts and racks. We're at a size where I don't want to waste my time building something out of wood or putting something jankey together to save money.
At the same time I don't want to spend more money on steel shelf than i did on my laptop just because i don't have the time to mess with it.

We've have/had all kinds of screen racks at the shop with different levels of success and frustration.

So let's start at the bottom.

The bakers rack / generic
This is the rack that every supplier seems to sell. Most of these don't actually fit newman roller frames. They are to wide. So if your not careful putting frames in you could have all your frames come crashing down on top of each other. With all the time i spend work hardening our mesh i don't feel like having a mass screen popa-palooza because of poor engineering of my screen rack manufacturer.
NRF can be heavy. Even the M3ULs.  Sliding the aluminum on top of the aluminum isn't always the smoothest thing in he world.
They feel cheesy, again all those work hardened frames.. I don't want to trust it in that rack.

Middle of the road:
http://www.microperfect.net/CatalogFolder/PriceList5.htm
These guys… They get it right in so many ways. The prices are perfect. Their stumbling point is a big one for us. They build racks for 23X31 so the front and rear of the frame are what slide on the rack. Not the sides of the frame. The problem with this at least for us is we can't put 23X31 and 23X33 frames on the same cart! This is really inconvenient. I talked to the guy over the phone a number of times and it's hard to communicate with him. Same story with email. It's really to bad.

High End:
Stretch Devices Screen Racks:
Perfect in every way. A screen printers dream. Fits 23X31 23X33 25X36 all in the same bullet proof rack. If there is an earthquake i will stand in that rack for safety. Problem. It's incredibly expensive.

In my opinion a screen rack should be:
Able to hold 23X33 - 25X36 Newman Roller Frames easily
Made from steel and be nice and rigid.
Powder coated, no sharp edges.
Decent casters - good load handling and rubber please, don't skimp on these it just makes us frustrated.
Shouldn't retail for more that a halfway decent flatscreen tv. Remember.. It's just a shelf!
$300 for 24 slots would be perfect.
 
Why is this so impossible to find?

[Socalfmf]

we got the adjustable aluminum screen drying rack from www.techsupportsps.com for 249.00 it holds 25 frames...this is what we use to put the "used" frames in for cleaning...then we have the super duper racks for storage and drying...check them out...

Sam

[Fresh Baked Printing]

Alloy America makes a great rack.
Adjustable aluminum screen printing frame rack.  Adjustable screen rack holds 25 screens 14" to 25" wide.  Sturdy and  works with minimal contact to frames to protect coated emulsions.   3" rubber casters.  Angled frame supports elimiate contact to the coated emulsion.  25 shelves spaced 2" apart.  Built in handles.
I get them for about $180 used-$220 new with UPS shipping.

[screenxpress]

I bought two of the Bakers carts at a restaurant supply for about $118 each with rollers. 

These were the kind, like most, that have a threaded rod and box aluminum bars for (width) that you have to assemble. 

I had already priced and went to a local steel yard and bought a 12 foot stick of 1" box aluminum (don't remember the price but not enough to be a show-stopper) and had found a place to buy 6 foot sticks of threaded rod (reasonable).  Cut the rods and bars (chop saw) to what I needed (based on the size of the screens for each) and assembled (which I was going to have to do in the first place.  Adjustable ones might be nicer but probably a lot more expensive - I never looked at those, unadjustable were pricey enough.

[inkbrigade]

Alloy America makes a great rack.
Adjustable aluminum screen printing frame rack.  Adjustable screen rack holds 25 screens 14" to 25" wide.  Sturdy and  works with minimal contact to frames to protect coated emulsions.   3" rubber casters.  Angled frame supports elimiate contact to the coated emulsion.  25 shelves spaced 2" apart.  Built in handles.
I get them for about $180 used-$220 new with UPS shipping.

I'll check them out. Hey did you get my email about the roller frames?

[tonypep]

Worth mentioning again I suppose........Used Restaurant Supply companies are your friend! Racks, sinks, carts,ink mixing stations etc. A lot of cheap stainless steel. Most major cities have one. In Charleston they had one where you can just go out back and poke around.

[T Shirt1]

Worth mentioning again I suppose........Used Restaurant Supply companies are your friend! Racks, sinks, carts,ink mixing stations etc. A lot of cheap stainless steel. Most major cities have one. In Charleston they had one where you can just go out back and poke around.

We got three sinks, four tables on wheels and a double door walk in freezer (made it into our screen dryer) from the used restaurant supply guy - all stainless.  Even got to go out back roam around and pick out the pieces we wanted.

[GraphicDisorder]

Alloy America makes a great rack.
Adjustable aluminum screen printing frame rack.  Adjustable screen rack holds 25 screens 14" to 25" wide.  Sturdy and  works with minimal contact to frames to protect coated emulsions.   3" rubber casters.  Angled frame supports elimiate contact to the coated emulsion.  25 shelves spaced 2" apart.  Built in handles.
I get them for about $180 used-$220 new with UPS shipping.

We use those as well, have 3 of those. Plus we have 2 Vastex Drying Cabinets, 1 10 screen and 1 24 screen.  So when needed we can cycle screens pretty quick!

[tonypep]

Worth mentioning again I suppose........Used Restaurant Supply companies are your friend! Racks, sinks, carts,ink mixing stations etc. A lot of cheap stainless steel. Most major cities have one. In Charleston they had one where you can just go out back and poke around.

We got three sinks, four tables on wheels and a double door walk in freezer (made it into our screen dryer) from the used restaurant supply guy - all stainless.  Even got to go out back roam around and pick out the pieces we wanted.

Thats awesome Steve any rough idea what you paid for all that?
tp

[Fresh Baked Printing]

I looked at restaurant racks too but they're often not adjustable and just not made for screens. With the number of restaurant rack models available, I'm sure some will suffice just fine though.
In my neck of the woods, they equal if not more than a screen rack anyway.
Plus, I'm a little uptight and like all of my racks to look the same.

[T Shirt1]

Worth mentioning again I suppose........Used Restaurant Supply companies are your friend! Racks, sinks, carts,ink mixing stations etc. A lot of cheap stainless steel. Most major cities have one. In Charleston they had one where you can just go out back and poke around.

We got three sinks, four tables on wheels and a double door walk in freezer (made it into our screen dryer) from the used restaurant supply guy - all stainless.  Even got to go out back roam around and pick out the pieces we wanted.

Thats awesome Steve any rough idea what you paid for all that?
tp

Seems to me it was right around a thousand but that was eight years ago and I've killed a lot of brain cells since then.

[squeezee]

Simple, you have identified a market niche, go away and build a screenprinters dream

[screenxpress]

The problem is......you end up raising the prices because you have a specific market niche but you don't sell them hand over fist and inventory builds up, so the price bubbles up.  That's why the "ideal" one posted above was expensive.  It's called supply and demand.  We all know about that, right?

[Frog]

Well, let's look at the numbers. If somehow, a perfect screen rack could be obtained for $500 and saves five minutes a day, five days a week for fifty weeks. Figuring a shop operating cost of a mere $50 an hour, wouldn't it more than pay for itself in less than six months?
Projecting this for ten years, you would save way more than$10,000 not even figuring in inflation. How can you afford to not buy one at that price?   

[screenxpress]

Just imagine how many things you could apply that mathematics to.