by Michael Best | Jun 27, 2024 | General interest
Look, we all know that no matter how many labels we hang or print on a T-shirt about washing in cool water with mild detergent on the gentle cycle, that tee is going to be tossed into the wash with the towels, socks, and dog’s blanket, on the heavy cycle in hot water.
And we also know that if the print on the tee wasn’t properly cured, some or all of it, along with your reputation as a textile screen printer and whatever washes out of the dog’s blanket, is going down the drain.
So, you need to do two things to ensure that all your prints are properly cured. First, test your dryer at least a couple of times a day to ensure that it is still reaching cure temperature. The best way to do this is with a Thermoprobe.. The second thing to do is a wash test, particularly on critical jobs when there may be a lot at stake in terms of money and reputation.
A good way to do a wash test is to cut the print in half. Wash one half with three heavy bath towels in hot water and liquid detergent. Tumble-dry the load on high until dry.. When you compare the washed half with the unwashed half, there should be no cracking or loss of part or all of the print. If there is, the print wasn’t properly cured. Then you can establish the cause and correct it.
It’s much better to have a failure in your washing machine before the tees are delivered, than afterwards in the customers’ washing machines.
by Michael Best | Jun 24, 2024 | General interest
I realize that right now during the busy summer season you would prefer that your screen shop production staff not see this post—and you probably don’t like the message implied by the headline either. However, there really is a danger inherent in long hours.
Even Henry Ford who famously said that as a business owner you need to to always be thinking about your business, eventually realized that he had an overwork problem. He cut his employees’ schedules from 48-hour weeks to 40 hours a week because the longer hours had been causing them to make many errors.
From my own experience I can assure you that working long hours often leads to productivity-killing distractions as fatigue leads to a lack of focus. Work less and you’ll tend to work better.
Enlightened organizations understand the dangers inherent in long hours. I once read how the Michigan-based software company, Menlo Innovations, looks down on employees who clock more than 40 hours a week. They see overwork not as a sign of dedication, but as a indication of inefficiency.
I know that many a business owner falls into the trap of long hours. I also know that those long hours become a habit and, in the final analysis, are not really productive. I know this because I was in that trap for many years.
Think about it.
by Michael Best | Jun 20, 2024 | General interest
A recent article in the Guardian should alarm you, not just as a consumer, but as a printer who probably handles outdoor garments regularly in the shop.
Ethical Consumer, a campaigning magazine, examined 27 companies that make outdoor clothing such as fleeces and waterproof jackets, and found that 82% were still using per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. Some chemicals classed as PFAS have been associated with some serious health problems such as immune system disorders and cancers.
Some of the companies examined use no PFAS, others said they had plans to discontinue using them, but half had no plans in that regard at all. These PFAS are used extensively including for waterproofing outdoor garments, as you might know if you’ve ever printed on nylon jackets. The bad news is that PFAS has been found in many locations including rivers, on the slopes of Mount Everest, and in more than 600 species of animals from polar bears to dolphins.
If you weren’t aware of this before, you may now want to be cautious about where you resource your outdoor garments.
by Michael Best | Jun 17, 2024 | General interest
A paper by BDC about how to hire and retain the best employees has a section on marketing your business to potential employees that, in my experience, can be helpful in solving an age-old problem—recruiting good employees.
They broke it down into 6 key points:
- Tell candidates why they would want to work for your business. This will make you think about how your business can be differentiated from the competition. Then write a job description for the kind of employee you are trying to attract.
- Be conscious of your shop’s image. Assume that potential recruits will research your shop, so avoid exaggerating and be truthful when describing why your business is a great place to work.
- If you have an email list (you really should have one), take advantage of it as a marketing tool. Your email could land in the inbox of someone looking for a business like yours to work at.
- Personalize your pitch because top performers have their own goals. Tell them how they can achieve those goals at your shop but don’t make promises you can’t keep.
- Encourage referrals from your existing employees and reward them.
- Offer more than the basic compensation package. Flexible work schedules, perks etc. can help close the deal.
Hiring successfully is hard. But with these six points you’d be off to a good start.
by Michael Best | Jun 13, 2024 | General interest
I once read that it was a good idea to neither store plastisol ink near an exposed wall that faces the afternoon sun, nor to store it on a source of heat such as a flash cure unit or a dryer. I agree that this is good advice and quite easily carried out. But then the author went a step too far by writing that in the summer months it is best to store plastisol on the floor “as this is the coolest place”. That is where it got a bit silly considering that even the lowest-curing of the low-cure plastisols require 82 degrees Celsius (180 degrees Fahrenheit) before it will gel. Think about that . . . If the temperature in your shop is so high for so long that your plastisol ink is gelling in the bucket because it is not stored on the floor (“as this is the coolest place”), it will be a shop with medical problems long before it’s a shop with ink problems.
Consider the results of an experiment that won a medal for two ten-year-olds at a Calgary science fair a number of years ago. They simulated the shipping of Wilflex plastisol ink in extreme weather conditions from Atlanta to Calgary to gauge the impact on the product. They assumed a slow truck delivery of ten days. One was assumed to be in winter at minus 18 degrees Celsius (zero degrees Fahrenheit) and the other in summer at 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit). A third quart (the control) was kept at room temperature. After ten days the two experimental quarts were allowed to return to room temperature and then all three were test printed. There was no noticeable difference between the three in the consistency of the ink, the on-press performance or the cured print.
There’s more reason not to worry. In a discussion once with a technical expert at Avient, he pointed out that it takes consistently extreme heat (say more than 50 degrees Celsius or 122 degrees Fahrenheit) over a period of time (say two weeks) to begin to affect plastisol ink in a sealed container. In most storage environments, even if the temperature reached those extreme highs, it would not be consistently high over an extended period of time as, for one thing, temperatures in most places drop at night. But again, two weeks of 50 degrees Celsius in your shop and you won’t be around to experience how it might affect the performance of your stored ink.
The bottom line? It’s not a smart idea to place ink containers on flash cure units or dryers at any time. It is probably a smart idea to store your plastisol ink away from an obvious source of extreme heat, especially puff inks that tend to expand when they get warm in the container. But don’t lose sleep about summer heat affecting plastisol inks.
And by way of an afterthought . . . storing ink on the floor could be a tripping hazard.
