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Best Practices for Setting Up Shop in Your Garage
Tons of print shops start off in basements, spare rooms, and garages. Think about it, they're already investing a good chunk of cash into purchasing the equipment and supplies, why not set up shop in a space they have already paid for?
Ryonet's print experts Darryl Sapp and Nate Oskar (a.k.a RyoNate) share their past experiences of working in a garage shop, offering best practices to make the most efficient workflow in the space you got.
EQUIPMENT
Both Darryl and Nate said that you just need the bare bones to begin – a press, a flash, and an exposure unit. If you have extra space and extra cash, you could consider investing in a conveyor dryer or film output printer.
READ YOUR BRAND STARTS HERE WITH THE RILEY HOPKINS 150 PRESS
Beyond equipment, there are lots of things you can build for yourself to help with shop organization. Construct your own press cart or stand with reclaimed wood and casters. Make a screen rack out of wood and casters. Put up a squeegee rack made of some 2x4 and deck screws. Create a drying cabinet by putting the screen rack in a closet with a fan and dehumidifier.
"The beauty of screen printing is that it's adaptable to a lower budget," Nate said. Just because you can build it yourself doesn't mean you should. Nate suggests looking into the costs of building the product and compare it to buying it completed. If it costs just as much or more to build it yourself, it may be more worth your time and money to buy the completed product.
SETUP
How you set up your equipment in your garage depends on your space and people working in your shop. If you're a one-man show, Darryl says, "The printer shouldn't need to move any further than turning to place the garment on the belt and reaching behind or beside them to grab a new shirt." Have a table with your shirts right by your press, place your conveyor dryer or flash on the other side of the press, and you'll be good to go.
If you have two people working in the shop, you can strategize a bit more. Best way to do it is to assign someone to have the "clean hands" and the other to have the "dirty hands," according to Darryl. The person with clean hands loads and unloads shirts, watching the conveyor dryer to ensure nothing gets backed up. The person with dirty hands does not touch the shirts. The printer is solely operating the squeegee and handling ink management.
LEARN WHAT TO DO WITH YOUR GARAGE DOOR IN YOUR SHOP
Photo by 302 Design Group.
DARKROOM
When it comes to the darkroom, Darryl has two rules. One, make sure it's light-safe. Two, make sure it's light-safe. (So important, had to say it twice.) Make it light-safe by using a yellow lightbulb.
Where you construct your darkroom is up to you. With most houses, there's a bathroom right next to the garage. You can replace the light bulbs with light-safe bulbs and use the shower as a washout booth. Be careful what you're putting down your drains (especially if you are renting the house). Sgreen® chemistry is safe for your drains. You could also use your backyard as a washout booth, but if you have kids or pets, you may want to avoid doing that to prevent them accidentally consuming the waste products. Many printers use their laundry room as a darkroom, so that's a space to consider as well.
Back when Darryl had started printing, he made his own darkroom out of old screens, double sided tape, and black plastic. He had a small setup – a 10 ft by 6 ft area that held a 48 inch washout booth in the front and an exposure area placed in the back.
Nate created his own washout booth out of a laundry sink and storage bin. It wasn't pretty, but it did the job. They didn't have a drain, but they had a water spigot in the garage. Improvise and adapt to what space you have and make it work for you.
From his experience, Darryl says having the exposure unit and washout booth in the same room will help you save a ton of screens. If that isn't possible, he suggests to grab a black garbage bag and a spray bottle. After you expose a screen, spray both sides of the screen, place it in the plastic bag, and bring it outside to your hose or power washer (if you have a power washer, do not have it set higher than 1600 psi). As soon as you take it out of the bag, immediately spray the screen.
Photo by Copper State Academy.
TROUBLESHOOTING POTENTIAL ISSUES
Other factors may rise that can affect your printing like the temperature and humidity within the garage. Inks and chemicals are sensitive to these factors. You can do something to avoid running into any problems.
It's winter, and your garage is freezing. When your shop is too cold, you can shock coated screens, meaning they may not be able to be exposed. Inks become stiff. Chemicals and inks can freeze, cloud, congeal, or separate, which means they're no good to use. To save your products, keep them in a temperature-controlled environment. You can also put a space heater in your garage, it will help out a lot.
It's summer, and your garage is hot. Inks become lumpy. Chemicals can denature, now useless. Water-based inks are now a nightmare to print with. With water-based inks, keep a spray bottle near your press. Every few shirts, mist the top of the flooded screen. For the other chemicals and inks, keep them in a temperature-controlled environment. Make sure you and your ink stay hydrated.
Not only is it hot, it's humid in here. Well, at least your water-based inks love this situation. Coated screens, not so much. They might bubble and look off if they're trying to dry in a moist environment. Combat this issue by investing in a dehumidifier or an AC unit.
THEIR BEGINNINGS
DARRYL SAPP
I’ve been screen printing for about six years now. My beginning started hanging out with a homie (Ryan Cassidy) and then working under his business, Portland Prints. When I started we were in an 8 x 10 bedroom with nothing but a 4 x 4 Riley Legacy, 16 x 16 flash, and a heat press. As you can imagine the 4 x 4 legacy took up the majority of the room. And it was hot. With the flash pushing close to 700° and the heat press ready and waiting set a 340 for 30 seconds. As the night went on that small room became a literal sweatshop. Our darkroom was the laundry room with one yellow bulb and a washout booth made out of an old slop sink and linoleum for sides. We had a dry cabinet that was a mod podge of reclaimed wood, a space heater, and a fan out of an old range hood from a stove — it worked great actually. Those beginnings gave us the foundation for what became our bread and butter, which was live events and printing on site.
As we grew, we eventually got a 4 x 1 Riley Junior and a cart, which gave us way more storage space for screens. At first we were requesting a 10 x 10 booth and I will tell you it was cramped with everything in it we barely fit. Not only did we have a press cart with Riley Junior 4x1, a folding table with the heat press and our screen print supplies on it, and flash dryer, we also had a table set up for sales and preprinted merchandise and boxes of blank apparel for printing on site. I would say being cramped was an understatement in those beginnings. The Riley 150 wasn’t even a thought back then, which now would be a dream to have. Some events you have to carry/cart in your equipment. Big presses, heat press, etc. are a real burden when you have to park the equivalent of half a football field away if not further or if there are stairs.
Somewhere in the middle of the screen printing chaos Ryan Cassidy introduced me to the world of Ryonet and boy did I bite that hook hard. After a ton of work, I was offered a job at Ryonet. Been here ever since while screen printing on the side. Business was good, but as with most businesses, working with friends takes its toll on either the business or the friendship. So I bowed out. Ryan is still printing and running Portland Prints and killing it, I’m proud of him. I have had a wonderful and colorful screen printing run and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. You can find all the images we’ve done on insta: @PortlandPrints.
NATE OSKAR (RYONATE)
Nate got into the screen printing industry because of a midlife crisis. Nate and his wife wanted to work for themselves. Screen printing crossed their minds, so Nate started watching Ryonet's screen printing videos and fell in love. They decided to do a clothing line. They started in their garage with a Riley Kit. When they began, they put money into film output and exposure unit because wanted to focus on product quality not shop aesthetics. The duo solely printed with water-based ink because they wanted the challenge. Within a year, they opened a retail space. Once they were in this space, they realized that they were commercial printers because they received a cumbersome amount of requests from others to do printing for them. It wasn't their initial intention, but they bit the bullet. In that year, they grossed at $140k.
For new screen printers, he says that your business comes down to two priorities. Your first priority is to produce quality work. The second priority is quantity. Learn how to print well and then learn how to print more faster and better. He also suggests to purposely make mistakes. Learn what it looks like if it goes wrong so you know how to avoid or fix that issue in the future. "There are a hundred right ways to do one task, but it's what works best for you," Nate said. "Do not be afraid to improvise and have fun."