What is your set up?

[Leadfoot]

As the number of people being active in the forum has increased I am curious to see what kind of screen printing set ups everyone has. This could also help others who are looking to make the most out of the space they have or look into the next step.

So post here any of the following you wish to share as well as pics if you want:

How long have you been screen printing?
Do you do screen printing full time, part time or as a hobby?
Type of "shop" (in home, garage, retail space, etc...)
Press type and size (manual or auto, # colors/stations, etc)
Ink Types you use (plastisol, water based, discharge, etc...)
Curing Equipment
Anything else you want to share

[Leadfoot]

*Been printing for about 2 1/2 years off and on...opened business in December 2011
*Part time, pretty much weekends only
*In home, spare bedroom right now but about to move to the vacant dining room
*Manual table top press, 4 color/1 station
*Started with water based ink but now use Phthalate free Plastisol
*BBC Black 16x16 Flash Dryer for main cure, Wagner heat gun for "flashing"

I started with dual cure emulsion & 4 bulb table top exposure unit but have since switched to a dry stencil system due to my small space and limited area to properly coat and expose screens

Plan is to build a garage and make the back half of it my shop, eventually, and upgrade to at least a 6 color/4 station manual press and conveyor dryer.

[Shamax]

When: Whenever I have time or a job to work on. I'll usually coat screens in the evening while it's dark so they can dry overnight, and I try exposing.developing the following evening. Printing I'll usually do any time my wife's not home, since she doesn't handle the smell of ink very well, and art design I do just about any time I feel like it.

Where: Wherever I have room in our 2 bedroom apartment. I use the bathroom as my dark room & washout room, and the kitchen table to setup my press and do prints.

Equipment: I got one of the Ryonet starter kits, so it's just a 1-color/1-station press mounted on a spare piece of wood that I can clamp down to the table. It came with a single 500w halogen lamp to use for exposures and waterbased inks. I picked up a Wagner heatgun for flashing and curing.

I'm still a neophyte, and getting ready to do my first run of shirts for a friend at church who wants them for her homeschool group. So we'll see how this works out going forward. I've learned a lot of valuable lessons so far - some that probably should have been painstakingly obvious, but the old saying goes "the burned hand teaches best".

[Leadfoot]

Awesome post Shamax, and almost exactly how I started myself. You are doing a smart thing by starting small ad adapting to your space. What kind of ink are you using? I have upgraded to, at least I consider it an upgrade, phthalate free plastisol that have virtually no odor. When I was using water based there was some but it was not bad. I had a fan to blow it out the open window if I was doing more than a few shirts at a time.

[Shamax]

Currently I'm just using the water-based inks that came with the kit which I believe are part of Ryonet's EnviroLine inks. The smell wasn't too strong, but my wife's pretty sensitive to any kind of scent like that, so I'll probably just do my prints during the day with fans on in adjacent rooms and window open for some circulation. And thanks, I *am* trying to start slow and adapt - I'm not wanting to go too overboard up-front if this turns out to be something I just do really infrequently. If all goes well, however, my next purchase will likely be a good flash unit to use for curing and a possible switch to plastisol inks, especially if there's less odor with the phthalate-free ones as you say.

I started looking into printing as an extension of another project I'm working on: starting my own record label. It just happens that the more I've learned about screen printing, the more interested I've become in it and its possibilities.

[ApeShirt]

My 1st print was 6 months ago. I'm building my business to hopefully sustain me full time. Continued learning, creating, networking, and business management is like full time work though.
I run a 4/1 press using plastisol inks from my home. I have setup shop in my basement. I currently use a flash dryer for my curing but will upgrade as soon as funds allow it. I will also upgrade to at least a 4/2 when I can. Hoping to expand into heat transfer soon.

[Free Man]

closed in dark room

before dark room

Had a 2 car garage, extended, walls were open no insulation, pretty basic. Got a Harco 6 color 4 station, flash, harco conveyor dryer, all used. New computer just for printing. built the rest, like wash out, exposure, etc. Got a big swing 16x20 heat press. Put in some new wiring, outlets, and light sockets, plus 220 for the conveyor dryer. dry walled all in. built a couple of shelves for blank incoming product/back stock, and outgoing printed product. Some counter tops to fold and work on. Put in an attic and pull down ladder to store non print shop stuff in. Built a dark room. Went with one of those two part epoxy floors with the paint chip flakes all over. Moved everything and or covered all for paint and what not except the dinosaur 6/4, put new floor around it even, haha. Those floors look good and clean up well, but dont put any thing on them that will rust, rust dont come out, have to paint over it, and eventually tries to come through. Built drying cabinet in dark room. Currently building a big vacuum top exposure. No water in the garage. Thought about running some in but the laundry is next door and just built my own back lit wash out there. Split lines from there for water and torch cut an old electric metal box into my wash out. Will attach a couple of before, then after pics, with a couple of current messy shop pics too. I love my shop, its cold in the winter though, sometimes single digits. that concrete floor is frozen! I crack the garage door and use a propane out side heater to warm up fast and then the conveyor dryer helps to maintain heat; unless printing a lot of black stuff, sometimes printing black means opening doors and turning on fans, which also affects your flash and conveyor. Got all the necessary business license stuff, though still dont understand it all and wonder if Im doing things 100% legit. Mostly print one to two color stuff, I have a learning curve to go through, but getting there. I think my shop deserves a better printer with more knowledge. Im getting there. Soon, only here, no more bartending! All my pics wouldnt load, so I have to make smaller and load lil later.

[Free Man]

dark room and paint

[Free Man]

current set up

[Free Man]

laundry/wash out pic is sideways, sorry

Free Man Gear T

one of my boards on wall

few more pics if you could really tell whats going on? I should learn to upload a video. would be way better and only take few seconds to see what is really going on here.