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By The Screenflex team, on March 15th, 2011
Last week we brought to your attention a current online scam. As we mentioned then, doing that post reminded us of a number of frauds and scams that we have encountered over the years. Here is one of them.
This happened a number of years ago, but we have a pretty good recollection of how the scam worked. A junior employee at a gas station collected customer credit card numbers. This person then passed those numbers to a second person, the mastermind behind the scam (let’s refer to this second person as ‘B’). Because B was known to most screen printers in the city, he had a third person (let’s call this third person ‘C’), telephone larger screen printers and order cases of blank garments. Those were the days when screen printers still supplied and made a profit on garments. C would read a stolen credit card number over the phone to pay for the order and say that they would be around the next day to pick up the garments.
The screen shop employee would process the credit card and because it cleared, would have the order prepared for pickup. As arranged, someone would pick up the garments. This process was repeated at a number of printers, in some cases a few times. Eventually, after about a month, a puzzled credit card holder walked into one of the printer’s premises to find out who they were and what they did because he didn’t recognize their name when it appeared on his credit card statement.
That was when the whole scam came unstuck. Unfortunately, it was not before a number of printers and a t-shirt supply company had collectively been taken for tens of thousands of dollars.
The credit card companies declined responsibility on the grounds that the transactions had been conducted over the phone and signatures had not been obtained. One of the victims saw his lawyer about suing the credit card companies on the grounds that for many years they had been happy to accept transactions conducted over the phone, but now that something went wrong they declined responsibility. His lawyer actually thought that he had a good case but explained that he would be no match for the vast legal resources of the credit card companies. So, in the end, the screen printers and the garment supply company had to bear their respective losses. Apparently it didn’t cost the card holders anything.
The perpetrators were arrested and charged. But what puzzled us all though was how stupid this crime was. We wondered how they could possibly have thought that could get away with it for any longer than a month.
By The Screenflex team, on March 14th, 2011
As we all know, the “cotton crisis” has pushed the price of garments up quite a bit. One screen printer decided that she wasn’t going to pay the prices of the Gildans of this world anymore so she searched the internet until she found a small remote independent offshore factory offering a container load of really cheap sweat shirts.
She called them, gave them her credit card number and waited.
Well, this past Saturday the container finally arrived just in time for the busy season. She tore open the first box and much to her relief, the fabric was actually quite good. But then she saw a problem and realized that her busy season wasn’t going to be all that busy… on every sweat shirt one sleeve was slightly longer than the other two.
No, that is not a typo.
By The Screenflex team, on March 11th, 2011
This is our weekly Friday feature for the industry’s artists and designers where we show you cool or crazy ideas that you might not have seen yet. Obviously we are not suggesting that they should be copied, but often one creative idea will lead to another.
Let’s think small this week. How about hoodies for iPods or iPhones? This interesting design from the UK doesn’t have anything screen printed on it. What’s that? Too small to print, you say? Well then, how about these sweats for teddy bears once printed at a shop in Calgary…
Can be done, has been done.
Okay, so it might not be a big job, but as we always say, one idea can lead to another and perhaps something big can be made out of the idea. And you might be surprised to find that these little hoodies retail online for the equivalent of about $12.00 in the UK.
By The Screenflex team, on March 10th, 2011
One of the many books that we have in our library, “The Best Secrets of Great Small Businesses” has an interesting paragraph heading on page 99. To emphasize the message in the heading, it has been placed in a box that can hardly be missed. It simply says, “Warning! Never Aim to Be the Lowest-Cost Company”
That is a message that the so-called price-cutting or “low-balling” screen printers in our industry would do well to consider. The common complaint one hears is that the low-ballers mess up the market for everyone else without gaining any particular benefit for themselves. While low-ballers invariably claim that they gain volume by under-cutting their competitors, when you crunch the numbers you realize that, in a restricted market, lower margins and higher volumes do not necessarily result in a better bottom line than higher margins and lower volumes. Far from it. In short, you can end up working harder for the same or less.
Consider this simple but significant example. Let’s say that you sell an item for $1.00 and that your cost is 70 cents. Your profit is therefore 30 cents. Month in and month out you sell 10 of these items. Then you decide that you are going to increase your volume because you want to increase your total monthly profit which is currently $3.00 (10 items at 30 cents each) by 25% (you want $3.75 total profit).
So you cut your price not by too much but by enough to attract attention and more business. Let’s say that you cut your price by a modest 10% to draw customers away from your competitors. Your selling price becomes 90 cents, your cost is still 70 cents and your profit per item becomes 20 cents.
Now here is the big question… How many units must you produce to just be back at a total monthly profit of $3.00? The answer is 15 (15 items at 20 cents per item is $3.00). This means that you have to work 50% harder producing 15 items instead of the usual 10 to just to make what you made before. If you are to achieve your 25% increase in total profit, you have to work almost 90% harder than before. And all of this assumes that the market even has that additional volume for you and that you have the financial and other resources to handle the increased volume.
Just to underscore the point, if you had cut your price by 20% (as low-ballers have been known to do) you would have had to have trebled production to 30 units to just stay even at $3.00 on the bottom line, not taking into account additional costs.
So if low-balling doesn’t stand up to rational thinking, then why do they do it? Well, over the years we have found that some of the traits that low-ballers have in common are poor business acumen, desperation and a tendency to kid themselves. Some go bankrupt repeatedly and re-surface each time apparently not having learned anything at all – these are the really worrying ones that severely damage the industry.
We recognize that intelligent, carefully-considered occasional price cutting can be a justifiable business strategy in certain circumstances. But we also know that the persistent low-balling that we see in the textile screen printing industry in Canada is hardly ever intelligent, carefully-considered occasional price cutting. It is just bad business practice.
Next week we’ll be sharing an encouraging story about a successful textile screen printing shop in a big-centre market that includes a couple of low-balling competitors. We’ll explain why the low-ballers think that they are “winning” (like a certain Hollywood star) but in fact everyone knows that they are actually delusional (like a certain Hollywood star).
In the meantime, if you want a simple spread sheet that illustrates the math used above, please email us at info@screenflex.ca and we will be happy to send it to you.
By The Screenflex team, on March 9th, 2011
We have seen every type of textile screen printing shop from those that are absolutely spotlessly clean, to those where everything is covered in a layer of lint or “fuzz”, as some people refer to it.
If you have fuzz adhering to anything in the shop, we suggest that since spring is in the air and the busy season is about to begin, now would be a good time to clean up. Time to get all that fuzz off the equipment, off the floor, off the walls, out of the dryer exhaust system, and off everywhere else it has settled. Besides the fact that a shop with “furry” equipment doesn’t look too good to visitors, particularly potential customers, it can be a serious fire hazard.
The owner of a Vancouver shop once told us how one day he was looking through the window of his office into the print shop when, for a reason we do not recall, the fuzz around the dryer caught alight. He said that because they had a few years of fuzz on the pillars in the shop as well as the exposed overhead metal beams, flames ran up the pillars and back and forth across the overhead beams like those gunpowder fuses in the old cowboy movies. By the time the fire truck arrived the fuzz had all burnt out but there was considerable smoke damage.
In another incident in a Calgary shop, someone knocked a can of spray adhesive onto the dryer belt and of course it exploded halfway through the dryer. That set the build-up of lint in the exhaust system alight and it needed a fire truck to put the flames out.
If you have any fuzz fire stories of your own, how about sharing them with us? Just drop us a line at info@screenflex.ca.
By The Screenflex team, on March 8th, 2011
You might or might not have come across this particular online scam, but in case you have not, we want to share it with you because we have noticed it popping up more and more lately.
The approach is received by email and in each instance the wording just differs slightly. The company name and country of origin is also different each time.
We are not sure how the fraud is intended to work but we think that the clue lies in “we would like to know if you accept credit card payment” which is the one phrase that is consistent every time. They also try to inject a sense of urgency with phrases like, “looking forward to your quick response.”
What they are trading on of course is that if you have a business you will be flattered by the opportunity to sell abroad. There are clues though that makes it unlikely that any of these unsolicited approaches are anything but scams. For instance: often the person’s name does not seem to fit with the country of origin; the business name cannot be found in an internet search; and the email has grammatical errors. In addition, the type of business suggested by the name often seems unlikely to have any use for your particular product. It should not pass the savvy business person’s smell test.
Here is an example received today (we have taken out the identifying information):
“Hello Sales,
Greetings from [Company name] Ltd. Introduction, I am [First and last name] the founder of the above named company here in [Country name]. We are making inquiry if you ship internationally but specifically to our location here in [Country name].
In addition, we would like to know if you accept credit card payment and will be appreciated if you return to us by email with your Website or attached wholesale price sheets.
Looking forward to your quick response.”
Doing this post has reminded us of a number of frauds and scams that we have encountered over the years. We’ll share some of them over the next few weeks. Some are good for a laugh, if nothing else.
By The Screenflex team, on March 7th, 2011
The screen shop owner we told you about last Monday didn’t have much luck finding anyone among the job applicants he interviewed, so he advertised again during the week and conducted more interviews this past Saturday morning.
One applicant came in looking pretty sharp and confident. He handed over a very neatly printed résumé and right up front stated what he expected for an hourly wage. The screen shop owner looked over his résumé and noticed that he had absolutely no screen printing experience at all.
He looked up from the résumé and said, “For someone with no screen printing experience at all, you are asking for a high wage.”
“Well,” replied the applicant, “the work is so much harder when you don’t know what you are doing.”
By The Screenflex team, on March 3rd, 2011
As mentioned before, we are addressing all the elements of product pricing of which we are aware in this series of Thursday posts. What we are offering is a kind of smorgasbord of elements knowing that not everything will apply to everybody. The intention is that you will find useful the ones that do apply to your circumstances, and that you will just pass on the rest.
This is a focus on main-stream direct contract printing; only some of it applies to transfer and other specialty printing. It obviously cannot apply to niche markets either.
We will keep repeating that there is no magic math formula that can set a price in all circumstances. The only universal pricing truth is that if you set your price where it does not cover your expenses plus profit, your business will not last.
But, even after you have done the basic math, there are still many real-life elements in the Canadian textile screen printing market place that will affect how you prepare your published price list or how you price individual orders; we are going to explore them one at a time.
The impact of location on pricing:
Where you are located in Canada will have an impact on your pricing but it will not necessarily be the small town versus big centre impact that many have long believed to exist. Our inquiries have shown that while there are differences in pricing, they are more regional, as in provincial.
For instance, we have found that in Toronto the “average” going rate for a one or two-colour print on a dark shirt in a run of say 4,000 prints, is about 45 cents per print. By contrast, in Vancouver the “average” going rate for the same one or two-colour print is about 80 cents. And by the way, since the flight of most of the 5,000 to 10,000 or larger runs to offshore locations, we are told that 4,000 prints is now considered a large order.
For smaller print runs of say 500, the location aspect between Toronto and Vancouver becomes even more puzzling. In Toronto, we have been told that for a run of 500 the price is likely to be $1.40 per print, more than 3 times the large run per-print price. But in Vancouver, the smaller print run is only marginally higher at about $1.00 per print. We have no idea why this disparity exists.
In small-town Canada where mostly manual presses are in use serving the local community, we expected to find that the prices that could be charged would be higher than in the bigger centres. What we have found though is that there is nothing consistent about the prices charged in small-town Canada. In some instances where there are special circumstances such as the need for quick turnaround or there is a special local loyalty, the price per unit can be higher than what could be charged in a big centre. But where the local small-town customer had the option of sending the order to a bigger centre, it affected the small-town price. So, in short, thanks partly to the search facilities on the internet, small town printers can find that they are in competition with the more competitive big centre pricing.
Not to be overlooked though is the fact that even where a small-town printer is forced to match a big centre price, the small-town printer is better off on the bottom line because of typically lower overheads in the small town. This might in fact present an opportunity for small-town printers if they run out of well-paying local orders.
We are not suggesting that every textile screen printer is necessarily tied into the apparent price ranges indicated above. In fact, a future post in this series will deal with examples of successful textile screen printers who set their prices regardless of the competition (particularly the “low-ballers”) and back it with quality and service that ensures that they have a loyal clientele. But next week we’ll deal with “low-ballers”, how they impact the market and how some printers cope with them.
By The Screenflex team, on March 2nd, 2011
The best advice concerning pin-holes? Prevent them from happening, but if they do (as they will from time-to-time) then fix them before the screens get to the press. If they make it to the press, they suddenly become a real nuisance and a time waster. It seems absurd to be press down because of something as small as a pin hole, especially when it can be prevented.
So first of all, how to minimize the chances of them even happening? Keep in mind that no matter what brand of emulsion you are using, it is never the emulsion’s fault. How many times have we seen printers change emulsions because they firmly believe that it is the emulsion’s fault? Well, we have never heard of a manufacturer packing pin holes into their emulsion. So let’s deal with the real causes.
Before the screens go for coating we recommend that you degrease every time. It is insurance against pin holes and emulsion de-lamination due to the “greasiness” left on the surface of the mesh after the previous use.
But the biggie is dust. It is generally agreed that dust in the darkroom is the most common cause of pin holes in stencils. Before anything is taken into the dark room, it should be wiped, washed or cleaned up to ensure that it is not a dust carrier; that includes people too. The rule should be laboratory-like conditions in the darkroom with dust filters on vents, clean floors, clean work surfaces and clean equipment.
The drying of the screen is when it is very susceptible to dust. A wet screen left standing about to dry will attract air-borne dust. If you use a fan for more rapid drying, it too will propel any air-borne dust at the screen. The ideal solution is a dust-free drying cupboard.
Even after degreasing, coating in laboratory-like conditions, drying in a drying cupboard, exposing and washing out, the routine should still be to put the screen on a light table and look for pin holes. Right there on the light table a good blockout can be applied to seal any pin holes. On the other hand, if you are one of those printers that likes to post-harden your screens, then you can treat the pin holes with emulsion before putting the screen back on the exposure unit.
What you don’t want to have to do is stop the press and mess about fixing pin holes once the production run has started. It is messy and, worst of all, inefficient. Not only will it waste the press operator’s time and that of the supporting staff, but someone will have to take time spot removing.
And one final note. All of this assumes a good coating technique that ensures that you are not going to trap air bubbles in the mesh between layers of emulsion. If you do that, the screen will still look fine but when it gets on the press under the pressure of the squeegee, those bubbles can break and create pin holes.
By The Screenflex team, on March 1st, 2011
Here is an article by Malcolm Moore that appeared in The London Telegraph on 26th February 2010. Given the devastating impact of low-cost offshore production on our industry over almost the past decade, we think that this article should be of interest to anyone involved in the Canadian textile industry. It is longer than our usual post, but we think that it is well worth reading in full…
Sitting on a bale of denim in an idled factory, 24-year-old Wei Xiaofeng has a message for the West – the era of Chinese factories churning out dirt-cheap goods is over.
For years, her company, along with thousands of others in China, has helped British high street stores to offer cheaper and cheaper fashion – jeans that cost less than £10 or t-shirts for £3 – and turned the likes of Zara, H&M and Topshop into global giants.
But now the system has broken down. Mrs Wei’s company is in crisis and has stopped taking orders from the West.
“We are still getting orders from abroad – all the factories are,” she said. “But no one is taking them because we would make a loss. The foreigners do not want to pay a reasonable price. We have not made any profits for two years.”
The Sea Mountain Clothing company, set up seven years ago by Mrs Wei and her 34-year-old husband Tian Yi, is one of around 5,000 jeans-making factories in Xintang, a southern Chinese town that has become the denim capital of the world.
If you own a pair of jeans, there is a strong chance that it was stitched in Xintang, or that its denim was woven there. A sleepy farming town 30 years ago, it is now home to a million factory workers and turns out 260 million pairs of jeans a year – more than a third of the world’s supply.
The town’s geography maps out an anatomy of the denim trade. Along the wide arterial motorways leading out of Xintang are the large factories, some capable of producing 60,000 pairs a day for the likes of Calvin Klein, Levi’s, Lee and Wrangler.
Their technology is world-class – good enough for even the more esoteric and high-end denim labels like True Religion, Evisu and Diesel that were once only made in Japan or Italy.
Meanwhile, along the main streets in the city centre, every shopfront also belongs to a denim company. In each window sits a boss, inviting in prospective buyers with cigarettes and walnut shell-sized cups of strong Chinese tea. Upstairs, floor after floor is filled with rows of workers sewing together jeans.
The side streets are taken up with the accessories of the trade: button and rivet shops, stores selling zippers, and long rows of businesses selling yards of denim, with trucks buzzing between them to load and unload bales of the dark blue fabric.
Finally there are the dusty suburbs. Here, family workshops spill out onto the road, with groups of women clustered around piles of jeans, stitching on labels, using heat guns to burn off loose threads and bagging them for sale.
The local environment has suffered. Last year Greenpeace released a satellite image showing the run-off from the large cotton dyeing plants colouring all of the town’s water, and much of the Pearl river, a deep indigo.
Xintang whirred into life 30 years ago, when Huang Lin, a businessman living in Hong Kong, saw the potential of moving his jeans business to the mainland. Other firms quickly blossomed and soon every country in the world began taking advantage of Xintang’s seemingly endless pool of cheap and hard-working labour.
Along one road, the factories have stencilled the countries they ship to along their windows, a long list of everywhere from Poland to Russia and Korea. One factory boss boasted that his company’s competitiveness had helped put the hard-working denim mills in Eastern Europe to the sword.
Now, however, the Chinese factories have hit a wall. The workers who were once happy to work for as little as £30 a month now want ten to 15 times that sum.
Young men with the latest mobile phones and foppish haircuts stood around two outdoor pool tables on the streets of Dadun avenue, gambling on the games. Their factory is only paying them for six hours a day in a bid to trim its costs.
More and more workers are choosing not to travel to the South to find work, preferring to try their luck at one of the new factories or construction projects popping up in inland China, where life is cheaper and they can be closer to their families.
“It is becoming impossible to find people to work,” said Han Zhongliang, a 46-year-old factory boss from Hubei. “I have been here ten years and I used to have 30 to 40 employees. But this year I will be lucky to find 20 who can do the job are willing to work for the wage we offer: 5,000 yuan (£490) a month. If things keep on like this, there won’t be any labour at all in South China in five years time. Since the Olympics, it has just been worse and worse for our business.”
Many other factories have already shut down. On the street where Mrs Wei’s factory sits, only four of the 17 factories are open. In one desolate room, a former factory boss sat on a stool in shame: having lost all of his family’s money, he was too ashamed to return home for the Chinese New Year holiday.
Other bosses complained that new labour laws have empowered workers far too much, and that the government has no love for the polluting denim industry, and offers no help.
“Only the fittest will survive. And they will have to go upmarket and stop making cheap clothes,” said Zhan Xueju, the powerful head of the local Denim Association.
Meanwhile, the price of cotton has sky-rocketed to levels not seen for 30 years. Floods in Pakistan and Australia, an export ban from India and now the wave of revolutions across the Middle East has made cotton unaffordable.
Already, designers have begun lacing their jeans with polyester in order to offset costs – a trend that explains the spread of new jeans with a “shiny” finish on the high street.
“Last July, cotton cost 70 cents a pound,” said Richard Atkins, a denim expert in Hong Kong and former creative director of All Saints, a high-end clothing brand. “Last week, it was three times that price. I tried to place an order with a denim mill for one million yards and they told me they could not accept it because the cotton is now worth more than the denim.”
The margin between success and failure in the denim business, and in the clothing trade in general, is razor thin. During the fat years, manufacturers could make 10p to 20p on each pair of jeans. Now they make 5p if they are lucky.
The shockwaves rippling out of Xintang have already started to be felt. H&M, the giant Swedish clothes store, saw the profit margins that it makes on its clothes “collapse” at the end of last year, according to city analysts. Next and Primark have both warned they plan to raise their prices.
Nor is there any alternative, realistically, to manufacturing in China. Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines, and Indonesia may be cheaper, but they cannot compete when it comes to infrastructure and scale.
As a result, Mr Atkins, the Hong Kong-based denim expert, warns that high street fashion may have to slow down in pace a little. The days of so-called “throwaway fashion”, where stores could sell garments cheap enough to be worn for a just a few months and then discarded, could be over, he said.
“Companies should be very scared, as throwaway fashion is now dead,” he claimed. “For years they wanted to get more and pay less. They have pillaged the system in China. But now they are going to suffer.”
By The Screenflex team, on February 28th, 2011
This past Saturday morning the owner of a screen printing company was interviewing job applicants. He looked at the résumé of an applicant leaning on the opposite side of the table and said, “If you don’t mind me saying so, your employment history is a bit shocking. You’ve been fired from ten different screen shops!”
“Yah, I know,” agreed the applicant.
“Well, that’s not much of a recommendation. Can you think of one good reason why I should hire you based on your employment record?”
“Well,” said the applicant, “at least it shows that I’m not a quitter!”
By The Screenflex team, on February 25th, 2011
This is our weekly Friday feature for the industry’s artists and designers where we show cool or crazy ideas that you might not have seen yet. Obviously we are not suggesting that they should be copied, but often one creative idea will lead to another.
This week we have a ventian blind design. The string is not a print, but a real string, which can be pulled to open the blinds, as shown on the image below. Expecting a hot summer? (Designed by shikisai)
By The Screenflex team, on February 24th, 2011
Determining the value of your work can be very puzzling and it needs to be thought through very carefully because it can make or break your textile screen printing business.
Over the next few Thursdays we’ll be addressing the issue of pricing your product. There are a lot of elements to take into account in setting prices and it would be great if there were a magic pricing formula that suited everybody in every circumstance but, unfortunately, there isn’t.
There are a lot of different opinions about pricing and a lot has been written about it. We will present various opinions and ideas, but let us make this point right up front – it is not simply a matter of “charging the going rate” or even adding up your costs, slapping on a margin and calling that your price. We will be explaining why and offering as much useful information as possible in this series of posts.
There have been many examples in the industry where poor pricing practices have resulted in failure or have at least minimized success. For instance, there once was a large printer with many presses in one of Canada’s big metropolitan areas. One of their main customers at the time was a sales organization for which they did large and frequent t-shirt runs. Two of the key staff quit and started their own screen printing company with a brand new multi-station automatic press. They were able to do that because they had cut a deal with their former employer’s customer.
During a visit shortly after they had started up in full production they told us that they had lured the customer away from their former employer by offering a price lower than the customer had previously been paying. These two partners had assumed that if their former employer’s price was fine for him, then it had to be fine for them. What they did not realize, because they had not done their homework, was that their former employer’s price was already a rock-bottom bare-bones price and was based on an entirely different overhead structure from their own. Six months later the new venture was out of business.
Over the coming weeks as we explore the tricky issue of pricing, we will include more observations and anecdotes gathered over the past 22 years. We don’t expect everything to apply to everyone, but hopefully you will be able to pick out those concepts and ideas that could be useful to you in your particular circumstances.
By The Screenflex team, on February 23rd, 2011
Another job for Ghostbusters.
It starts with “ghosting” or “hazing” in your screens and then it can start doing funny things in your prints. We are referring to the feint images left in the mesh on a screen after it has been reclaimed. When these “ghost” images are not removed before the screen is re-used, we have seen them actually appear as feint ghostly images in later prints. It has been known to have mystified more than one screen printer, but fortunately the solution to the problem is quite simple.
Before dealing with the answer to this problem, you should know there are two types of ghosting. One type is caused by stains left by the ink used in previous runs, and the other is the result of emulsion being “burned” onto the screen during the exposure process of earlier runs. It doesn’t really matter what the cause is though, ghosts in your screens can become ghosts in your prints.
Ink ghosts…
To avoid ink ghosting, you should make sure that you do not leave ink (regardless of whether it is plastisol ink, solvent ink or any other type of ink) just sitting in the open image areas on the screen. What this does is allow the more staining types of pigments in the inks to discolour the mesh. Ink should be cleaned out of the screen (at least in the image area) as soon as you have finished the print run.
A quick word on ink removers… unfortunately, the cheaper type of ink removers that are also not great for your health (thinners and varsols), actually work against you as far as ghosting is concerned. Their chemistry is not designed to be compatible with screen printing inks so they tend to attack the “oily” side of ink chemistry but cause resins to swell, which means that the ink becomes more stubborn in hanging around in the mesh.
Emulsion ghosts…
The biggest cause of emulsion haze (”ghosting”) is under-exposing. Some of the under-exposed emulsion material sticks around on the surface of the mesh threads and does not wash away when you develop the image with your spray gun. Then when you wipe your screen, particularly with an aggressive or solvent-based ink remover, it causes a bonding of the under-exposed material to the mesh. The result looks like a stain but, in fact, it is a thin deposit of solid emulsion material clinging to the mesh. Over time with continuous build up, the mesh openings become smaller and smaller and then start to clog up.
Haze removal (exorcising ghosts) …
Haze remover chemicals are aggressive so we strongly recommend that when you de-haze ghosted screens, you should use protective gear such as gloves, overalls and goggles. You definitely do not want haze remover chemicals on your skin or in your eyes. The most effective chemistry for the removal of ghosting is designed to be aggressive with stains, which also means that it will be aggressive with you.
Faster or slower…
Generally, the faster the haze remover promises to be, the more aggressive it is going to be. For the sake of minimizing the risk to health, we prefer the slower-acting haze removers.
A final note…
If you allow the build-up of stains to continue without eliminating them between print jobs, you will eventually land up with mesh that is so difficult to clean that even calling Ghostbusters won’t help.
By The Screenflex team, on February 21st, 2011
A Canadian screen printer was down south this weekend at the screen printing show. She was looking for a new press and wanted to see all the options. At one booth she listened to the salesman’s spiel and then asked him, “If you are selling these machines way under cost like you say that you are, how do you stay in business?”
“Oh”, said the salesman with a straight face, “we make our money fixing them.”
Well, come on, at least he admitted it!
By The Screenflex team, on February 18th, 2011
Thanks to the Comic Relief Media Team in the UK for sending us the picture of Pixie Lott modelling the Vivienne Westwood designed t-shirt and for granting us permission to use it on our blog. And, get this, the picture was shot by Bryan Adams.
This is all about a huge charitable campaign in the UK, Red Nose Day. It culminates with a brilliant night of TV on Friday, 18th of March on BBC One. Check it out at www.rednoseday.com and see if there is a way you can support this very worthwhile campaign.
We are posting it as part of our weekly Contagious Creativity feature as an example of the creative use of t-shirts (and red rubber noses) in a big campaign. As we keep saying… one creative idea can lead to another.
By The Screenflex team, on February 17th, 2011
Ordering supplies online is fast gaining popularity as a way to do business in Canada, and that includes the textile screen printing industry.
By now we are becoming accustomed to online catalogues that provide us with the convenience of 24/7 access to ordering, technical support and product information. We also expect the better suppliers to share their online admin savings with us in the form of lower prices or online discounts.
If you don’t mind us getting a bit of a plug in here, screenflex.ca offers such a service (including an online discount) to Canadian textile screen printers. There are of course other online services and we encourage you to compare.
If you are starting out, you will know that you need all the help that you can get. In that regard, you will find that ordering, researching product information and getting technical support online, is a great way to go.
Oh, and one more important point that should not be forgotten… just picture yourself vacationing some place warm on those points that you earn from the credit card company when you pay online…
By The Screenflex team, on February 16th, 2011
Sooner or later most printers experience trouble with “ghost” images appearing on the back of dyed or dark garments. This happens most frequently when the print is a large white one printed with a low-bleed or bleed-resistant white ink.
The immediate assumption is that the print has somehow penetrated all the way through the garment to the back. In most cases though, it is not that at all. The usual explanation is that the hot garments have been piled in a single stack as they come off the dryer belt. What happens then is that the white dye-block ink film is still hot and, because of that, the dye-block chemicals are still activated. As each hot shirt coming off the belt is stacked on the one beneath, the still active dye-block chemicals in the print beneath “bleaches” the dye in the back of the shirt stacked on top of it. The result is a “ghost” image of the print on the back of the garment.
Fortunately the solution is very simple. Instead of creating a single stack of the garments at the end of the belt, have say 5 or 6 stacks going and put each shirt off the belt onto the next stack. By the time you come back to stack number one, the print on the top of the stack will usually have cooled enough for the dye-block activity to have stopped and you can then safely stack the next shirt on top of it.
No need to call Ghostbusters.
By The Screenflex team, on February 15th, 2011
Are Canadian textile screen printers staying away from the trade shows and, if so, why?
The only remaining large North American show with a significantly textile screen printing focus, the ISS Show in Long Beach, was apparently well attended this year, but not by Canadian textile printers. The SGIA show, which long ago lost its screen printing focus when the graphics side of the industry went significantly digital, holds very little attraction for textile screen printers, which is probably why it too is poorly attended by Canadian textile screen printers.
Back here in Canada, the most significant “trade” show for textile screen printers is the Toronto Imprint Show. However, while the organizers recently released their “post-show survey results” that indicate that an impressive 90% of attendees rated the show as “good to excellent”, the accompanying sheet of “attendee comments” is a bit disturbing from a textile screen printing perspective.
We don’t know whether the 22 comments quoted on the sheet accurately represent the attending audience, but a little research shows that only 1 of the 22 comments quoted was by someone from a business that actually does textile screen printing. Even then, the business in question advertises on its web site that, in addition to textile screen printing, it also does twill lettering, embroidery, graphics screen printing, vinyl lettering, decals, signs, banners, graphics and lettering on vehicles, engraving on trophies, plaques and promotional items. So, it can’t really be said to be a specialized textile screen printing company.
The remaining 21 of the 22 quoted attendees seem to be primarily agencies for a broad range of promotional products. As one of them commented, “The Imprint Canada Show provides a venue that houses everything.” Clearly the Toronto Imprint show successfully addresses a need, particularly if you are looking for the latest and greatest in garments, but is it a textile screen printing trade show? And if it is not, and if there are no other textile screen printing shows in Canada, does that really matter to the textile screen printers?
All of this prompts us to ask the following questions:
- Are there enough specialist Canadian textile screen printers to support a specialist Canadian textile screen printing show?
- If there were such a show that focused its exhibits, lectures and presentations purely on textile screen printing, would textile screen printers attend in reasonable numbers?
- Are there enough textile-focused Canadian screen printers to justify the business risk of running such a trade show?
- Would the big manufacturers of better-quality inks, emulsions, chemicals, film, equipment, mesh, re-tensionable frames and other textile screen printing products exhibit?
- Does the Canadian Textile screen printing industry even need a dedicated trade show, or does the internet now provide most of what it needs to know?
- And finally, if a dedicated Canadian textile screen printing trade show can generate enough support, should it only take place every second or third year rather than every year?
Are we missing something? Do you have answers to any of the questions? Have questions of your own? We’d welcome your comments below or, if you’d prefer, an email to info@screenflex.ca
By The Screenflex team, on February 14th, 2011
We don’t know what the owner of a large screen shop in Toronto (yes, there still are a few) did this weekend, but it put him in a foul mood. He came in this morning and decided that he was going to fire the first slacker that he saw.
He walked through the print shop, checked the art department and then checked the screen room. Everyone was working. But when he got to the shipping dock he saw a young guy leaning against the wall doing nothing. He walked up to him and said, ”Hey you, how much do you get paid a day?”
The guy replied, “150 dollars.”
The owner pulled out his wallet, gave him $150 and told him, “Now get out and never come back!”
Just after that the shipping clerk appeared and asked the owner, “Have you seen the UPS driver? I asked him to wait here for me!”
By The Screenflex team, on February 11th, 2011
This is our weekly Friday feature for the industry’s artists and designers where we show cool or crazy ideas that you might not have seen yet. Obviously we are not suggesting that they should be copied, but often one creative idea will lead to another.
This week we have a shirt that was designed for the Dutch Football Federation for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. We’re not sure how practical it is but at hockey games it might be a better option than a Loblaws paper bag.
It has to be better than this…
By The Screenflex team, on February 10th, 2011
We’d suggest that you give serious consideration to including about $850.00 (only about $400.00 if you already have a digital scale) in your start-up budget for a small ink mixing kit. There is also a bigger start-up kit and, in time, you can build either of the kits into a mixing system as large as your growth requires it to be.
With the start-up kit you will have everything that you need to make any colour known to mankind, including all PANTONE® colours. The kit contains a scale; a PANTONE® colour chart; software on CD that will provide you with formulas, a cost estimate program and a host of other useful features; in the PC kit, a base of your choice (we recommend all-purpose Amazing Base) and 15 pigments; in the MX kit, 15 printable and mixable colours.
Mixing your own ink is a big cost and time saver because:
- You only make as much ink as you need for a particular job instead of accumulating leftovers, which is what happens when you buy your colours (all that unused ink is money sitting on your shelf).
- You can make the colours in a few minutes when you need them and not have to order and then wait for them.
- It costs less to mix your own colours than it does to buy them.
For more detail on the topic, here is the “READ” link on the Screenflex web site where we offer a full discussion on mixing your own ink colours: https://www.screenflex.ca/info_files/Wilflex%20PC%20Kit1.pdf
By The Screenflex team, on February 9th, 2011
It is an interesting coincidence that the above illustration, which is really a graph of atrial fibrillation (a medical problem), is also a kind of microscopic depiction of textile fibrillation (a screen printing problem). Our topic is of course textile fibrillation, but we know of screen printers that have nearly had the medical type of fibrillation because of the textile type of fibrillation.
Fibrillation in our industry has also been described as “fibre show through.” It is the condition that arises when individual fibres break free in large numbers from the screen-printed ink film and stick up above it. This usually happens as a result of abrasion (such as during washing and drying of the garment) with the result that the high contrast between the ends of the fibres and the ink film give the print a faded appearance. It is quite often mistakenly assumed to be an ink problem such as wash-out. The difference though between wash-out (usually as a result of under-curing) and fibrillation, is that wash-out will tend to happen in patches whereas fibrillation tends to be an even “fading”.
It is an inconsistent problem; some fabrics and some printing methods are more prone to fibrillation that others. For instance, the combination of 100% cotton and process inks is a much higher risk for fibrillation than the combination of 100% polyester garments and athletic inks.
So if you don’t want that faded look, what to do about it? We suggest a bit of research on the internet where you will find fairly detailed discussions of fibrillation and many suggested solutions; some good, some not so good. Garment selection and testing is a good place to start though, after which you might have to use fast fusion inks or super opaque inks; both have good mat-down capability. You could also use a clear mat-down base or a clear overprint, but both have their downsides and could affect print quality.
In the end, as with so many aspects of successful textile screen printing, it requires research and testing.
By The Screenflex team, on February 8th, 2011
About six years ago a customer stood at our front counter and amazed us with this folding trick. Even if you have seen it before, we think that it is worth seeing again. It is clever but we are not convinced that it is actually quicker than the traditional way of folding a t-shirt. So, if you are actually using this folding technique in your shop, we’d love to hear from you at info@screenflex.ca
Here is the video link:
http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-fold-a-t-shirt-in-2-seconds
By The Screenflex team, on February 7th, 2011
This past weekend a screen printer and a distributor got a break from the Canadian winter with a quick golfing trip to Florida.
Standing at the first tee, they agreed to play the ball as it lay for the round. The distributor hit a beautiful tee shot 250 yards down the middle of the fairway. The screen printer was not so lucky, shanking his shot dead right with the ball coming to rest dead center on the cart path.
“I get free relief from the cart path”, the screen printer said. “Like hell you do,” said the distributor, “We’re playing it as it lies, remember?” So they hopped in the cart, and the screen printer dropped the distributor close to where his ball was lying in the middle of the fairway. Then he headed back over to where his ball was lying in the middle of the cart path to hit his shot.
The distributor, looking back, began to laugh to himself as he saw the screen printer making a shower of sparks on the concrete as he took his practice swing. Then with another shower of sparks, the screen printer nailed his shot straight at the green. The ball landed softly and stopped three feet from the pin. Then he casually got in the cart and drove back to the distributor. “Great shot”, said the distributor. “What club did you use?”
The screen printer smiled and said, “Your six iron”.
The screen printer swears that it is a true story!
By The Screenflex team, on February 4th, 2011
This is our weekly Friday feature for the industry’s artists and designers where we show cool or crazy designs that you might not have seen yet. Obviously we are not suggesting that they should be copied, but often one creative idea will lead to another.
We would like to give credit to the artist/designer/printer but all we have been able to establish is that that person is ‘anonymous’. So, all we can say is, “Well done Anonymous!”
By The Screenflex team, on February 3rd, 2011
Here is that sales dude again with a start-up equipment deal “that you can’t refuse”.
We also want you to start up in the textile screen printing business because we would like you to become a customer of our online service. BUT after more than 20 years of seeing screen printer start-ups come and go, it would be irresponsible of us to not encourage you to make a properly-informed decision before opening your wallet.
For instance, you should know that some equipment dealers will say almost anything to make a sale. As long as they can persuade you to buy the equipment, what happens after that is not their problem. And often, if you believe the warm and fuzzy stuff they tell you about the t-shirt market, you might be in for an unpleasant surprise.
For instance, here is a quote directly from an equipment dealer: “T-shirt printing is the fastest growing hobby or home business opportunity. There are limitless possibilities for silk screening for fun and profit, with a hobby or side-business such as t-shirt printing. Sports teams, small business, and non-profit organizations can all benefit from silk screening. You could be the entrepreneur providing screen printing services for them.”
We’d suggest a few questions that could cut through sales dude’s warm and fuzzy stuff and get to the facts:
#1:
Warm and fuzzy: “T-shirt printing is the fastest growing hobby or home business opportunity.”
Questions: The fastest? Really? Can you back that with proof specific to my province/district/town?
#2:
Warm and fuzzy: “There are limitless possibilities for silk screening for fun and profit, with a hobby or side-business such as t-shirt printing.”
Questions: Again, can you back that with proof specific to my province/district/town? Are you suggesting by ‘limitless’ that there is not much competition? When last did you check Google for “t-shirts for sale”? The last time that I did, I got 59,400,000 results!
#3:
Warm and fuzzy: “Sports teams, small business, and non-profit organizations can all benefit from silk screening.”
Questions: Can you say that for sure about my province/district/town and back it with proof? Are you suggesting that they are just sitting there waiting to become my customers because all of the already long-established, reputable screen printing companies are just ignoring them?
#4:
Warm and fuzzy: “You could be the entrepreneur providing screen printing services for them.”
Questions: Would you mind if I took some time to consider your answers to the above questions and do some careful market research first? Can you wait while I decide whether or not I am suited to being all the things that you are implying by ‘entrepreneur’, like a salesperson, artist, screen printer and business administrator? Don’t you think that I should at least first get a job in a screen shop to find out whether or not I even like the t-shirt business?
Those are not the only questions that you should be asking, but they are a start. Owning your own business can be a rush, but do the research. Good luck with it and we look forward to hearing that you have started up successfully.
By The Screenflex team, on February 2nd, 2011
We serve Central and Eastern Canada, but if you are in the West, anything you see on our site is available from the Calgary office of Stanley’s Sign and Screen Supply. In fact, you can order online from screenflex.ca and Stanley’s will ship to you from Calgary, usually the same day. They can colour match, mix custom colours, and do everything that Screenflex once did for Saskatchewan, Alberta and BC.
Stanley’s Calgary and Edmonton branches also carry a full range of supplies for graphics screen and digital printers.
And the best part about their Calgary branch? If you have any technical questions or concerns, Wendy is there to help in her always friendly manner. After 20 years of experience in the industry, there is not much that is going to stump her. Go ahead, give her a call at 1 800 661 1553.
By The Screenflex team, on February 1st, 2011
Just because it is technologically possible, doesn’t mean that it is economically viable. – Einstein Anonymous.
Okay, so we can’t claim that Einstein said that, but we would bet that if he were here today and involved in textile screen printing, it is the kind of wisdom that we would expect from him. He would of course be refering to this era in which we have amazing new technology looking for application opportunities in our industry.
Printing t-shirts as a business is very different from printing t-shirts as a hobby. If new and exciting technology cannot be applied economically, then it might still be fine for a hobby, but it is not of much value to a business.
So, here is the issue. If a business based on a particular technology cannot persuade customers to buy enough of its product at a high enough price to at least cover its expenses and earn the owners a living, then the technology is not suitable to the application. Not only that, but the business will be in danger of failing, in spite of (and probably because of) the amazing technology upon which it is relying.
It is technologically possible to genetically modify corn, build hydrogen vehicles, produce ethanol fuel, drive on Mars, and golf on the Moon, but none of those things are economically viable yet. In our industry, 3D moulded designs on t-shirts and direct-to-garment printing are being promoted as technological breakthroughs, but we are not yet convinced that they will ever have anything but limited application. Most particularly, in spite of all the hype, they have yet to show that they have widespread economic viability.
Einstein might have added: “Crunch the numbers, don’t kid yourself and proceed cautiously.”
By The Screenflex team, on January 31st, 2011
So on Saturday this screen printer wanted to get into a nightclub, but the bouncer said: “Sorry, bud, you need a tie for this place.”
The bouncer didn’t want to hear that screen printers don’t wear ties and he couldn’t even be bribed with free t-shirts for life. So the screen printer went back to his car and rummaged around, to see what he could find.
Being a guy who is used to coming up with creative solutions in his shop, he took his jumper cables, wrapped them around his neck, tied a nice knot, and let the ends dangle free.
He went back to the nightclub, where the bouncer said: “Well… OK, I guess you can come in. But don’t start anything!”
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