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Asking a question I'm sure nobody knows the answer to :)


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Okay, so I know this is probably not the right crowd but maybe I'll get lucky.

Does anyone know what sort of silkscreen equipment is used by the major printers out there? I know there's the cheap 'machines' you can get at the craft store, but that's not what I'm after. I'm looking for an actual silk press that would be suitable for large runs of high quality decals. In other words, if anyone knows the make/model of the machines used by Cartograf, that would be a good start. I know they're large and heavy machines.

Thanks

David

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How many hundreds of thousands of dollars do you have to spend? And how many decades do you have to invest in learning how to do it? Both Cartograf and Microscale have been in business since the early 1960s.

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I wish I had an answer for you there David, but if I were in the know of such things and has an inside knowledge of the business I would be more than happy to help you, a fellow modeler, with your goal. EVERY company has to start somewhere and I'm sure all of them had nay sayers.

Bill

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How many hundreds of thousands of dollars do you have to spend? And how many decades do you have to invest in learning how to do it? Both Cartograf and Microscale have been in business since the early 1960s.

Yes, that's true. They've been around a while. But I wish I had a dollar for every time someone said I couldn't do something, I'd be a pretty rich man. Back in 2000 I began working for a small robotics company in BC. I have no formal education in that area. Only a general knowledge of the machines. In about a year I'd designed and implemented the motion control systems for them and the machines were selling for millions of dollars each. Ignoring the fact I worked in a printing shop as a kid, it doesn't take decades for me to learn something. Financing is always available.

Edited by RiderFan
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Possibly worth contacting Systematic Automation, who make quite a wide variety of machines like the F1, 810 & CC-5000.

Cool, yes thanks. I've had a couple of people point me to them so they sound like the best first step. Those machines are a little small but likely good 'getting started' machines.

thanks

David

Edited by RiderFan
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I wish I had a dollar for every time someone said I couldn't do something

I don't see anywhere here that anyone said you can't do something. I've been in the decal biz for over 20 years, and I've worked with just about every decal printer there is at some point. I've been involved in some way or other in the printing business for nigh on 35 years, and silkscreen printing is a WHOLLY different ball of wax. It's a lot less about pushing the button and turning on the press and a lot more about craftsmanship.

Sure, you can teach yourself how to do brain surgery if you want to badly enough. That doesn't mean you're going to be great at it. There are a LOT of really crappy silkscreen printers out there. But the ones who do the really amazing stuff are the craftsmen who have been at it (in the case of Cartograf, handed down through the family) for decades. Not saying you can't do it. Not at all. Just don't think you're going to get financing, buy a silkscreen press, and start giving the big guys a run for their money, that's all. It's far more of an art than a science. People have done it though.

Also, keep in mind that you don't see a lot of decal printers out there driving Porsches and Ferraris and living in Malibu. It's a very low margin business, like everything in the hobby biz.

Edited by Jennings
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So with all that experience and inside knowledge and connections and such, well do you think you could possibly help the dude out and give him the answer he asked for maybe? I would think a simple e-mail to one of the many companies you've worked with would get that unless it's some sort of industrial secret. I'd be interested myself, not so I can try to start a business, but since I work in the industrial machine business I'd be interested to see what those machines look like and how they work.

Bill

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Riderfan,

I owned a screen-printing business from 1987-1998 in London, ON. I started with $5000 that I received from my mother's estate, bought a table-top, two-station printer, a dryer, some inks and some screen frames and learned how to print t-shirts in my garage. When I sold the business in '98, I had moved to my own building, owned an 8-colour automatic press that could print 1000 shirts an hour and the biz was earning over 250 grand a year.

I didn't print decals but did do heat-transfers which would have been a similar process. I am sure you have done a lot of research on the subject but I will run down the process for you just in case. Hopefully, things haven't changed too much and I am not completely out in left field.

Everything starts with the artwork. You are going to need to be able to create computer-generated, colour-separated artwork. Each colour needs a separate screen made for it. For example, if you have a design with four colours, each colour will be represented in its own piece of artwork, and be transferred to vellum or clear acetate as a solid black image (aka a film positive). The film positives are imaged onto the stretched "silk-screen" material (actually fine polyester mesh) that is coated with a photo-sensitive emulsion. The artwork and screen are sandwiched together in a vaccuum table and exposed to intense light for a few minutes. Everything not covered by the film positive hardens and becomes non-water-soluble. The screen is then washed out with water, revealing the image underneath. Once you have exposed all four of your screens, they can then be mounted in your screen-printing machine and the screens adjusted so that the colours are all "in register".

Keep in mind that mounting and stretching the screen mesh onto wooden or metal frames is an art in itself. It took me at least a couple of years and a lot of trial and error to perfect the process. I finally settled on adjustable roller frames (sorry, can't remember the brand name). The virgin mesh is attached to one side using a sliding tongue and groove attachment. You then attach it to the opposite side and slowly tighten the mesh to the desired tension, using a tension meter (this is an indispensable tool). The other two sides are attached to the frame and the screen is then tightened in that direction until you have even tension all over the surface of the mesh. The wonderful thing about the roller frame is, as the mesh ages, stretches and loses tension, it can be re-tightend on the frame. After two or three re-tensionings, the mesh becomes "hardened" and will maintain constant tension for years.

Once you have your screens properly stretched, they have to be degreased, washed out and then left to dry, preferrably in an enclosed, dust-free area. Once they have dried, they are then ready to be coated with emulsion (another process that took me a long time to perfect). You want a very even coating of emulsion on both sides, and, once the screens are coated, they must be stored flat in a dark, dust-free area to dry. Any prolonged exposure to light at this time will harden the emulsion and render them unusable.

Okay, back to the printing process. You have coated and exposed your screens, mounted them on your printer and registered the colours. The decal paper has been affixed to the printer palette in some way that it won't move. I used spray adhesive on the palettes for t-shirts. When you are printing multiple colours, you don't want the shirt (substrate) to move between colour applications or your colours will go out of register. With garments, all of the colours would go down wet-on-wet, meaning the shirt would not be pulled off the palette and ran through the dryer until every colour was printed. With heat transfers (or decals), you will probably print one colour at a time, remove the substrate and allow the ink to dry, then print the next colour, allow it to dry and so on until all the colours are laid down. With wet-on-wet printing, you get a lot of ink built up on the underside of the screen. This will eventually start to bleed back onto the substrate and mess things up.

I imagine that the inks used for decals will be air-dry inks, so, if you are doing a lot of decals you are going to need some kind of drying rack to hold them until the ink dries. The ink is poured into the screen that is mounted on the printer, the screen is then lowered over the substrate and a squeegee is pulled across the screen, forcing the ink through the opening in the mesh and onto the substrate. Even squeegee pressure is critical here. On an automatic machine, it can be adjusted by turning a dial but if you are pulling a squeegee by hand, you have to learn to maintain steady, consistent pressure for each pass. You then pull off the substrate, put it in the dryer rack, and do another one. Needless to say, if you are printing these manually, it can get very tiresome, as in a four-colour job, you are printing every sheet four times.

I know I haven't gotten into the details of equipment that you were asking for, but I wanted you to know the type of challenges that you will face if you are going to get involved in screen-printing. It is a centuries-old process that, when mastered, can produce beautiful work. In my last few years in the business, I was the only guy doing four-colour process work on garments in the area ( the four colours, cyan, yellow, magenta and black can produce 16-million colour combinations when combined in different percentages). Some of the garments we were producing were real works of art.

My recommendation to you (if you haven't already done it) is read some good books on the process, talk to local screen-printers, and most rewarding of all, talk to people in the business at trade shows. You will see all the latest equipment, newest techniques, and be able to find out from the experts what you will actually need to get going in the business. As I said, I started on a budget of $5000 and that only got me some fairly rudimentary equipment. When I sold the business, I had well over a quarter million invested in equipment, not to mention a business building on top of that.

Good luck!!

BD

Edited by Big Daddy
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As mentioned there are different levels of quality and processes of silk screening. Many of those larger companies who do decals such as Cartograph do more than just decals. Many do such things as fine art printing. The cost of the machines increase with the level of quality, those used for good decals, well you could buy yourself a rather nice new car and the machine will take up as much space and weigh about the same. To say nothing about the operating costs to run them!

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Hi Everyone.

Thanks for the notes.

Yes I do understand the process. As was mentioned, it's been around for eons and the principles are not really rocket science. Believe me, I've tackled far more technically challenging projects and succeeded at them with less foreknowledge on the subject going in. I understand the machines are hefty in both price and physical size. Leasing a small space is part of the business plan being put forward. I really just wanted to know if someone knew the actual make and model of some of the more "professional" machines so I could put a real price, and include some specific information, on the business plan.

Big Daddy, thanks for the overview. From what I've come to learn about the inks, the majority of printers are using UV dry ink for this sort of work. The art stage is easy. I've been creating my own decal art for ages (layering, trapping, spotting, etc...), just have had to outsource the actual printing.

Further to the inks, the CMYK process you're speaking of is what I'd been considering. There are CMYK to FS595B conversion systems out there that would likely get me close to the real colour and I could tweak to perfectly match my 595B chip set book from there (I have one of the real binders of colour chips). That said, I've also been told that there are premixed inks available in that range so there are options available.

I've sourced the raw decal paper, so that's not an issue. What I've not found information on is the clear decal film. There are several types (including vegetable based ones that seem to be problematic) but I've not discovered what one works best and where to source it from.

I really liked your story about how you took a small investment and built a successful venture. It's exactly the attitude you need for something like this. I'm not sure what you did prior to your print business, but it does sound like you just decided that's what you wanted to do, and went out and did it. I did something similar. Waaaay back in 1996 and 97 I played a lot of video games but I was getting frustrated about the lack of games I wanted to play. So you know what I did? I started building the games I wanted to play. I had no formal background in game development (no such thing then). But within a couple of years I'd proposed, designed, coded, and delivered the first officially licensed CFL PC game. Along the way I learned the skills I needed to complete the goal. From 3D modelling and animation to designing and coding complex AI, to understanding AB testing and usability of UI. And picked up some legal skills thrown in for good measure. From there I built other sports titles and have since worked for some of the largest gaming companies in the world (and a couple of the smallest).

So you just have to decide it's something you want to do, then go and do it. Easy.

Anyway, this is unlikely to happen tomorrow but you have to start somewhere.

thanks

David

Edited by RiderFan
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Hey David,

yeah, I figured you had done your research but, you never know.. :rolleyes:

Sounds like you have your ducks in a row and a sound business plan. That's half the battle. So many people jump into business without doing the groundwork. Guess that's why 50% of them fail in the first year, and 50% of them in the second.

I wish you the best of luck and if you ever need any screenprinting advice, I am glad to help (if I can :salute: ). Best of luck!!

Don

PS: Go Riders!!!!

Edited by Big Daddy
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So with all that experience and inside knowledge and connections and such, well do you think you could possibly help the dude out and give him the answer he asked for maybe?

Of course not. What would be the fun in that? :rolleyes:

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I just visited Cartograf's site and they've got a photo of one of their machines.

Have you contacted them, (or another company that prints decals) directly, and just inquired as to their equipment?

You never know, they may be very forthcoming once they realize you're just a modeler looking for some info.

Pete

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