Built a silkscreen shop in my garage in under 2 weeks...

[alexfugazi]

Hey guys, I want to TOTALLY thank GP and the forums here for all the great process threads on how to build this shit. I've been paying people to do my printing for a while, and realized (at least w/ the simpler jobs) I could totally do them on my own, and work my way up to the more complex stuff fairly quickly.

But first I had to build a shop. Back at last Flatstock Austin, Clint Wilson and I started talking about setting up a shop in my garage, and we started cranking on it after my wedding.

So over the last 2 weeks, we here at Nakatomi have been busting ass getting our print studio up and running... and now we totally want to show off.

This whole thing fits into a 10x15 garage, and ran us just under 2K. We finished our first print in the new studio last night, and we couldn't be more proud (or smug.)


Satch Grimley is a local printer here in Austin, and all it took was a quick "Hey Satch, know where we can score a rack on the cheap?" and he had the answer.



This was fun and pretty simple. Just build a box, and slap it on two furniture dolly's. Sand it and add a layer of paint. I found pro exposure booths costing upwards of 7K. Screw that noise. The glass was a bit to bite off, but it does the job. Tempered means it'll break into thousands of little pieces one day, as opposed to a few Jugular-cutting shards that normal glass breaks into. The REAL kicker is that the glass shop (Binswanger) left the invoice from the place THEY got the top from taped to it...and they paid $103 for it...and charged me $300. Whatevs.



So the next thing we needed was a Washout booth to clean our screens and equiment. BUT- we didn't want to splash junk all over the house and garage whenever we printed-






It was also pretty important that the whole thing be able to breakdown for transport and cleaning and maintenance if needed. So...



Of course, spraying water at something I just built was a little scary...especially if we were running eletricity to it, SO..






And because it wasn't awesome ENOUGH...




And most importantly, we needed a table to do the printing on-





So, there you have it. We still have a few details to square away, but for all intents and purposes, we have a fully functioning shop in under 2 weeks and 2K in expenses. If you're in Austin and want to come by and check it out, drop me an email!

[scrojo]

sweet mazn. may need to pick your brain for a few ideas soon.

[boatdreams]

Killer set up. That mobile washout booth is really nice.

[squeegeethree]

Wow, great job. I have an extreme hatred for those husky power washers though.

[clinttw]

Damn I look good/terrible.

I'm totally stoked about this and glad I could divulge any knowledge left in my hollow head. This was a really fun project and I can't wait to start printing. It's amazing how cheap and easy it really is if you just put your mind/elbow grease into it.

[Effzio]

dude very cool

[clinttw]

Killer set up. That mobile washout booth is really nice.

Yeah, putting the washout booth on wheels was genius. Tim worked really hard on that and it turned out freaking amazing.

Tim or I would be willing to answer any questions you might have about the setup, Scrojo.

[ohdanielsan]

Dudes! You did it! Rock fuckin out! I miss you guys and I miss Austin. Glad to see things are going so well and can't wait to see what comes of your new setup. I just moved to a new place, so I may have to share photos of the new setup soon.

[clinttw]

Man, I miss you guys too. I'd love to see your new place!

Hope to see you guys soon.

[Josh Rickun]

that's awesome, i'm loving that tub.