The Perpetuation of Bad Production Advice
Please find some links and notes from the 2 Regular Guys Podcast. There are production concepts that are either dated (a good idea 20 years ago) or just flat out bad advice, but they continue to be passed down and passed along to unsuspecting new decorators. On this week’s program, we’ll be talking about the how’s and why’s… and what you should be doing instead on your production floor!
Sponsored by: EnMart
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The Perpetuation of Bad Production Advice
What are some of the places where decorators get bad advice?
- Social media is the new purveyor of bad advice
- Suppliers
- Other decorators
- Employees when you buy a shop or business
Let’s talk about some examples of poor advice out there.
For screen printing, here are some of the things students in my classes will ask about after receiving advice.
- Flashing between colors
- All you need are 110 mesh screens
- Here’s a brand new one I heard on Saturday during WorkHorse class. A supplier told a new printer that if he buys pure photopolymer emulsion he will only need to coat one side of the screen.
- There is a perfect white ink out there somewhere in the world. (It’s not me, it’s the ink!)
Sublimation
- 400 degrees works for all products
- The issue you are having are due to the substrate / printer / paper.
- You don’t have to use sublimation paper.
Embroidery
- Don’t change your needle until it breaks… Needles must be changed at certain intervals
- Running a large order on a single head – people say you can do it, but where do you start losing money? Make friends with a contract shop so you don’t turn away those big orders – still make money on them, but don’t lose time or sacrifice your other customers just because of a “big” order. UNDERSTAND capacity limitations…
- You can outsource all your digitizing – you don’t need any software… WRONG – no matter if you do all digitizing in house or you send it out, you need some sort of software to edit, modify, etc.
- Take on orders before you get the machine – you need time to play with the machine – understand how it works. Yes – you could take on orders, but I don’t recommend it until you have had your training, understand the different pieces that go into embroidery, etc.
- You can use one type of backing for everything. Nope – if this were true, then there would only be one backing to choose from. Different backings provide stability for different fabrics and is also taken into consideration when looking at the embroidery design (ie: stitch count). Understand your consumables.
- Cheap Thread / Cheap Bobbins / Cheap Garments – etc. Not all thread and other pieces of the finished product are treated equally – you get what you pay for…
In Direct-to-Garment, here are some things I’ve heard. There’s a ton of unintentional and unfortunately intentional misinformation.
- Brother claiming you could not print white ink, even when we had machines sitting on the show floor doing it
- We’ve never had a print head go out in one of our machines
- Pretreat methods – roller method
- Flushing ink lines and print head with Simple Green
Vinyl, Heat Transfer
- Any heat press will work.
- Shirt doesn’t matter
- Print and Cut versus Print or Cut
Shows
- NBM Denver – 10/2 to 10/3
- ISS Ft Worth – 10/15 to 10/17
- SGIA Atlanta – 11/4 to 11/6
Other News/Events
- Complete Screen Printing Business Course – Atlas Screen Supply in Chicago – November 14-16
- Complete Screen Printing Business Course – Workhorse Products in Phoenix – January 2016
Terry’s Books
Screen Printing: A Practical Guide to Starting Your Own T-Shirt Business Just $4.95 as an e-book.
Direct to Garment: A Practical Guide to Starting Your Own T-Shirt Business Just $4.95 as an e-book.
Scheduling and Estimating Production Time for Garment Screen Printing Just $2.99 as an e-book
This show is brought to you for a full hour by: EnMart, While EnMart is well-known as a supplier of quality garment decoration supplies and ccessories, we pride ourselves on being more than just a seller of products. At EnMart, we are here for our customers, to inspire, educate, and provide the tools to help grow their businesses.
Whether your interests lie in sublimation, embroidery, or any other garment decoration, EnMart’s knowledgeable and experienced team is here to help in any way they can.
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