T-shirt customization with next day pickup
I managed to do this too, without working too hard. The simple story goes something like this:
The customer called on Friday at 11:10 AM to ask if I could customize 4 adult and child t-shirts, black and white, with next day pickup. I waived the 5-piece minimum order limit because I was having a good day and said yes. I gave a verbal price over the phone.
I went to the workshop to look in the existing stock of unprinted t-shirts to see if I have sizes for a 4-year-old child and what color I have. I don't have inventory files, because for now I keep a fairly small stock of unprinted t-shirts and it's still too soon to count them.
I didn't even have an emulsion screen for stencils, so I just used emulsion on two 230 US density screens. I thought I would have one or two graphics or maybe something in two colors on all the shirts the same. How wrong I was.
While the sites were starting to dry out, the client decided to order from me (probably he was looking for other offers? I don't know). After the price quote given briefly on WhatsApp in writing so that there were no doubts and a few images sent by the client - found on Google, I started working on the vectorization around 12:30.
At 3:30 PM the graphics were sent and I received approval (everything on WhatsApp, no hassle)
Break - doing various chores around the house or hanging out with the kids - possibly waiting for dinner to be ready and the sieves to dry.
At 7:30 PM the emulsion was still slightly shiny in some corners, so I put a gentle stream of warm air into my screen drying cabinet.
At 8:30 PM I started printing the positive film with the graphics. Then I went straight into developing the stencils with ultraviolet light. They're called screens in Romanian, right?
I dried the stencils in the flash dryer and around 9:30 PM I started printing. Each stencil had 2 text logos and one of them had a second color.
At 10:30 PM we finished printing and the stencils were cleaned of paint and washed, the t-shirts dried for 4 minutes at 160 degrees Celsius each.
The next morning, Saturday, I tidied up the workshop and put my frames back together, took some pictures of the products and made the invoice/sent it via email. At 9:30 I notified the customer that the order was ready to be picked up and we agreed on a pick-up time.
Conclusion? I'll do some screen printing the next day, because it was an extreme sport. Even if my emulsion hadn't dried, I would have developed it with the laser. I had tested a few days ago whether I could develop with the laser and a 10 x 10 cm logo can be engraved with the laser. The diode laser hardens the emulsion where it's needed and the air vacuum dries the rest of the emulsion. I spent about 36 minutes on my graphics on the day of the test. So all I have left to do is wash off the excess.
Realistically speaking, will there be any opportunities to screen print for the next day? I don't think there will be any soon this year, because I try to keep a small stock of t-shirts. Black and white, sizes small, medium and large, in case I manage to destroy a t-shirt from a customer's order, so that I don't have to order again from the supplier and have to wait.
Actual work time? It took longer to prepare the graphics in Illustrator than to print them. 6 - 7 hours. Did I end up with more money than after 6 hours of taxiing on Uber or Bolt? I have no idea, but I also said that ridesharing is not for me.
