We had the original Reno flash die in the auto . . . $1500 repair, you say? We ordered a replacement from Black Body  www.BBCInd.com custom made for $140 and used 2 pieces of aluminum to clip it in place.

Just have to make sure the Amperage draw is close to the original and ceramic insulators and splicers to keep the sparks from flying. We ended up with a bigger flash that covers the whole oversize platen.

Originally published 12/20/2011

If you've been keeping up with any of our posts, we don't buy much when it comes to hardware. Take a squeegee rack, for instance: you could easily purchase an expensive one from else where, but you probably already have the ability to make one yourself for almost nothing. Simply cut slots in thin wood and mount it to the wall. Both kinds of squeegee racks contain your tools nicely, but the homemade one is cheaper.

Originally published 12/16/2011

Here is our $60 homemade exposure unit kicking ass . . . the battery we place on top while exposing the screens gives it that  extra 12v you need (actually 40lbs). The idea when exposing, of course, is to eliminate any space between the film and the screen for the best detail. When you don't have enough contact the screen can become fuzzy and, therefore, unprintable. People spend hundreds to thousands of dollars on special exposure tables or vacuum units, but really all you need, like we explained previously, is a dark cloth, a piece of wood cut to the screens' size, and something like the battery to get a great exposure. We can get halftone detail in 30 seconds!

One note to the printers out  there: the cold weather really makes washout tough.  You might want to cut back your exposure times a bit.

Originally published 12/15/2011

Everything in our screen printing shop has wheels. It allows us greater freedom in our operations to move things around when we need the space. One thing we've found to be particularly helpful are these small utility carts that you can purchase from Harbor Freight for about $25-35. We can use them to hold shirts pre- or post-print, inks, cups, and anything else we find helpful. Get yourself
some!

Originally published 12/5/2011

If you browse your screen printing supplier's website they'll be selling plastic ink scoops, ink mixing cups, and squeegees for a high premium, probably because they are "specialty" and you can't find them anywhere else. However, a great alternative supplier from whom you can buy the same exact products is your local auto paint supplier. They sell all the same items, but for super cheap.

Also, you've got to switch to water based platen adhesive if you still use canned sprays. The benefits are that it's SO much cheaper, it lasts longer, and it doesn't kill your lungs. We go through a $28 gallon in 2-3 years instead of a $5 can every 3 days. Just get a ketchup-style squeese bottle and apply with a plastic squeegee. The stuff is awesome: we've run 500 shirts on a single application. You just have to wipe the platens down with a wet abrasive sponge every couple of hours to reactivate it, and you're set.

You can thank us later.

Originally published 12/5/2011

In your quest for purchasing supplies for your screen printing shop you'll no doubt find many suppliers ready and anxious to sell you a washout booth for $1200-$1500, an exposure table for anywhere from $500-$2000, and a dry box for, well, who knows how much. That's a lot of money. We found that, instead of buying said supplies, the very same type of product can be built for a small fraction of the cost. Click "Read More" below to check out our tips.

Originally published 11/23/2011

If you look at the pictures of our shop, you'll see three presses: a 6-4 Hopkins, a 4-4 Hopkins, and a 6-6 Harco, the last of which we've almost exclusively used as our powerhouse press for low-registration high-quantity jobs, while the Hopkins presses have been relied on for their finesse. Now, the Harco is certainly capable of such finesse, but because of it's age (it's old) it's become a bit
clunky and limited by some of its design features, most notably the sideclamps, which rely on four posts to stabilize the screens into place. The problem with the four posts is that the screen moves too much when tightening any of the posts, making setup take forever on jobs requiring a high level of accuracy. We like how the Hopkins presses have a bar that stabilizes the screen instead of the posts, so we made a modification to modernize our sideclamps a bit (more after the break).

Originally published 11/16/2011

I can't stress enough the benefit of aluminum platens for screen printing, as we've not had much luck with wood in the past because of warping and heating issues. At Hi Voltage we will soon offer a full range of standard and specialty size aluminum platens. A few that we've made ourself include
toddler/babydoll tee platens, sleeve platens, and oversize platens, in addition to standard sizes. Another benefit of using aluminum platens is that at Hi Voltage we rarely use our huge oven, as we flash cure everything. 

"But wait," you may be thinking, "why would you wait 30-40 seconds for each shirt to full-cure?" "AHA!" I'd respond, there are some tricks to full-curing with a flash. First, make sure the aluminum platens are heated up before you start printing. Next, before you're ready to cure it fully, make sure you pop the shirt off of the platen to allow it to heat faster. This way you can fully cure a shirt in about 10-15 seconds. 

Do you want aluminum platens without the expensive price tag? As mentioned, pretty soon we'll be offering standard and specialty aluminum platens for all of your printing needs . . . without the high price. Inquire about availability or check back soon! We've been printing with these for years without any degradation, screw-loosening, etc. Mike tells me that, though I'm too young to understand, you can sit on these, Fonzie-style ("Yo Fonzie . . . 'Ayyyyyy").

Originally published 11/16/2011

If you're looking for an easier and more stable solution for cleaning your screens, look no further than a vice. Yes, a vice. Locking the screen in a vice gives you the ability to de-tape the screen, wipe it town, re-tape, etc. without any of the hassle of leaning it up against anything or cleaning it in-press. Spraying it is a lot easier this way, and screen cleaning will be a breeze! Just have a cheap-o bench nearby and attach a vice.

Try it out. You'll be happy you did.

Originally published 11/16/2011

Mike can weld. I say this both in the sense that he has the knowledge to do so, and is pretty darn good at it. As the title says, there are quite a few benefits to haveing a print shop that also includes a great deal of welding, metal and wood cutting tools, and more. For instance, we just printed these shirts for our buddy Jay at Complete Fabrications in San Francisco ("Evil Minds that Plot Construction" - www.completefabrications.com) on our custom in-house made platens (more on these soon!) that we use on both of our Hopkins presses. Mike cuts the aluminum with a plasma cutter, attaches brackets to the bottom for a clamp, and we have custom aluminum platens!

We also got a new 24"x24" oversize flash heater from Black Body (Thanks Jackie @
Black-Body! www.BBCind.com). We just bought the guts, but Mike welded up a kickass harness for the guts (pictured below), which is a super affordable, do-it-yourself method to get flash setup . . .  if you can weld.