Any good pointers for an ameteur?

By WallyMoccassins on Mar. 19, 2009

I am going to try screenprinting to produce and sell t-shirts to help pay for my wedding. Anyone out there have advice for me. What I don't want to do is to be fooled into buying stuff i don't need because i don't know any better. My goal is to buy a 2 color 1 station setup so that i can produce small runs of custom t-shirts. Any advice on what I should buy first. I have been messing around with GIMP and for the simple designs i want to produce it works fine. What is mandatory and what is not? Can I use my HP Photosmart C5280 to print on the film. I know we got a lot of pros on this site so any help you could offer would be gratly appreciated.

Thanks.

Submitted by Flint54 on Mon, 01/03/2011 - 16:49

IMO you will spend more $$ than you will make. Unless you are SERIOUS about getting into screen printing don't bother with the cheep stuff! If you are not SERIOUS about QUALITY ITEMS Stay away, there are already too many junk producers out there.

Seriously, you will make more with a second part time job than you will going with the other, you don't have the market share to even break even. I wish you the best upon my 33rd anniversary!!

tompainesbones's picture
Submitted by tompainesbones on Fri, 03/20/2009 - 15:53

It depends what you want to do, almost all functions can be outsourced to some extent.
Usual screenprinting needs:
Source of positives.
Screen coating setup.
Exposure unit with vacuum.
Washout facility.
Somewhere to print.
Somewhere to dry.
Reclaim screen facility.
You can outsource or bodge most of these functions - the sun can expose your screen, you can cut masks, washout in the shower etc.
Can you design? Try Inkscape for vector graphics or Scribus - Scribus will separate better.
You can buy pre-coated screens if you can't coat yourself - there's a knack to it.
The HP isn't what I'd choose but you can probably get away with it.
You'll probably make a lot of mistakes, so be prepared for it and good luck with the wedding.

Dave UK imagesetters and Wasatch RIP

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