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How to Cure Ink: Exact Instructions

The exact instructions for how to cure ink are “figure it out.” There is no magic formula of dryer setting and belt speed that I can give you, no matter how many of you beg for that information. There are too many variables. Some of this follows earlier posts, but this is a topic that continues…

How to be a Better Printer: Spend a Little $ Wisely

Question: Our printing doesn’t seem to be getting better, what are the best ways to go about improving our printing abilities?   Answer: My two cents? Stop being penny wise and pound foolish. Saving twenty dollars and buying a gallon of inexpensive but inferior emulsion is a terrible idea. Inferior emulsions don’t have the resolution…

Long Beach Part 1: Know-It-Alls, Ink and Level Platens (…Pallets, whatever…)

Well, the Ink Kitchen “Know-It-Alls” descended on ISS Long Beach 2016 and we had a pretty damn good time and met a whole lot of great folks that do printing and embroidery. Here’s post numero uno regarding some of what we found in Long Beach this year. We had our guide to the show, many of the…

Blasting…i.e. spot removal.

If you get a spot of ink on a shirt you can sometimes get rid of it. Screenprinters have different names for it, you blast it out, you shoot it out, you use spot remover, you use dry cleaning fluid… See the label of many of your shirts, “Do Not Dry Clean.” That’s because dry…

Misprint Monday – Fun with Garment Dyed Shirts

Can you fix a garment dyed shirt that has a pinhole or smudge of ink on it? Short answer: No. An ounce of prevention is worth…in this case an infinite amount of cure. My pals at Albatross said they would be millionaires if they had a spot cleaning product for this application. They have all…

Printed Threads – A collaboration of skilled ink smiths

Our friend Brett Bowden, owner of Printed Threads in TX, is not only smart and talented but has a relentless sense of humor which he is sure to incorporate into his company’s ethos.  Hope you enjoy this promo video as much as I did.

Dye Migration, the Screenprinter’s Nemesis. Part 5. Endurance Grey as a Partial Solution

Oops, sorry, wrong Endurance. That featured image is the ship The Endurance which was stranded in Antarctic ice leading to one of the most amazing stories of survival, that of Ernest Shackleton. Although… maybe successfully printing on bleeding dye migrating fabrics is nearly the challenge that Shackleton faced. The story today is actually about Endurance ink, which…

Dye Migration, the Screenprinter’s Nemesis. Part 2

Yesterday I wrote about the problems we are all seeing with dye migration, the dye of the shirts going into the ink we print on all the myriad of types of fabric that we now have to print on. The post gave instructions for a test using plasticizer and a heat press. Further testing is…

Misprint Monday – Scorching Heat, Scorching Shirts

This time of year in the US of A it gets scorching hot. One of the hottest places in the country yesterday was South Carolina, a scorching 100 degrees in Columbia. Though that is mild compared to the world high of 118 F. in Kuwait yesterday. It was a low is the lower 48 US…

Don’t be Stupid

Pricing is an area where we as screen printers are typically ignorant, afraid, or just plain stupid. In no way would I say that I have all of the answers on screen print pricing but I can say that I have, and continue to, put a lot of thought into the subject, and make adjustments accordingly…

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