Posted by Ryan Bolin - Outside Sales on 9/5/2016

Texsource Inc. is hosting their annual Open House & Customer Appreciation Day September 30th from 9:30am -4pm at their corporate facility in Kings Mountain, NC.

This event is well known throughout the Southeast not only by the customers who attend, but also by the many different manufacture representatives in the screen printing industry who put on classes and demonstrations throughout the day. These manufactures fly in from all over the U.S. to support Texsource as their events have continued to grow since its first Open House in 2007.




This year Texsource is expanding outside the normal footprint of past open houses into a brand new 5,000sq. Ft. facility. This new addition will not only host these types of events in the future but will also become the new home to all screen printing classes and serve as a fully functional equipment showroom. With this being said it is also open and will be used for vendors to host training seminars.
               
 In addition to the new space Texsource will also be introducing their brand new Automatic Color Matching Dispensing system. This new color matching system is the only one of its kind in the U.S. and will be operating all day for customers to watch the automatic PMS process. Texsource will be giving out free PMS samples (pint container) of the pantone color of your choice!

 Along with the new additions attendees will be able to speak one-on-one with industry leading manufactures, attend seminars, demo new products and screen printing equipment, and receive great discounts. Not to mention the amazing food (which is said to be Ribs and Pulled Pork BBQ) that many of the past attendees come for year after year!

 For more information on this FREE event or to register, please visit www.screenprintingsupply.com or call 1-888-344-4657.
Posted by Ryan Bolin - Outside Sales on 8/22/2016

Printing on shirt pockets can be a bit of a pain for those new to screen printing.  Here are some easy tips to help.

As a screen printer we always try and find ways to make our lives easier when it comes to printing t-shirts. Any shortcut that we can use that will speed up the screen printing process always helps. In my opinion the number one thing on everyone’s wish list would be to find screen printing ink that you only have to print once when printing on dark garments and being able to avoid a ‘print - flash - print’ process. Well, this is the real world and the reality is that it’s not going to happen (at least not any time soon).
However, there are some tricks and tips that screen printers have learned throughout the years to help with this issue, and today ill share one of mine. In the correct application my tip will allow you to be able to print white ink on a black garment with just one stroke, no flash and your print coverage will be great. Although, I have found that this only works with left chest prints, pocket prints, small linear designs or small-bodied designs.


                    adding Puff Additive can help you with whit-on-black prints
My tip is, Puff Additive! Just add a small percentage (5% or less) of Puff Additive to yourwhite ink, print it once and your shirt will be ready for the dryer. By adding the puff additive it causes your design to rise slightly (and I mean very slightly) off the shirt giving your design a good ‘pop’ and vibrant look to it. Whereas before, printing normally without the puff additive and with printing one stroke you loose the nice bright white and your design looks dull. By using this tip you eliminate having to flash cure your design after your first squeegee pull as well as skipping the second stroke, thus allowing you to save a lot of time and money. It is very important though to make a couple test prints or strike-offs FIRST before printing an entire job! This is key for getting the correct percentage of Puff Additive added to your ink and for your finished product to look perfect. No one likes having to eat a hundred shirts after the customer refuses to take them. This handy tip can help!
Posted by Josh Gilbert - Outside Sales on 8/8/2016

Many visitors to the Texsource website may be concerned with the accuracy of the color swatches in the ink section - here are some step that we use and that you can use to ensure that what you are seeing on your screen is as close as possible to the product that you receive. 


It always starts with the actual screen printing ink manufacturer.  In the case of Texsource, we carry more brands than any other distributor in America - brands that you know and have an established reputation for quality.  Names like Rutland, Union, QCM, Triangle, International Coatings, and our own highly regarded Texsource GEN ink line.  These manufacturers provide us with the most accurate color samples that they can generate.  From there, an accurately sampled hex code is generated for that particular sample, which we use to generate a larger, more convenient color swatch to post on our site.  A sample of these can be seen here - 


We have here 2 different brands of screen printing ink (International Coatings and Rutland).  The new color swatches we are using indicate the manufacturer, the series, and present the color.  If you were to go to our site and perform a search for Orange Ink, you can now more easily find not only our entire selection of orange inks, but can also quickly tell the manufacturer and ink series that you may be looking for.  

In addition to this, we are now providing the most accurate Pantone match for each ink color (when available).  Again, these are taken directly from the manufacturers own documented information.  If you have a Pantone color chart available while you are browsing our inks, you can easily see the Pantone value for all available inks and can easily cross reference your chart to see if your screen or display settings are varying the color in any way.  

Speaking of this, how exactly do you setup a screen for accurate color?  Well, for us in the states, monitor calibration is generally done to the accepted NTSC standard color temperature, which is 6500k.  Generally, this is the 'warm' setting on most monitors when asked for the 'color temperature' setting.  Any other color enhancements should be disabled for the most accurate color representation that you monitor is capable of (this will vary among monitor manufacturers, of course).  

So there you have it - how we ensure the most accurate ink color shopping possible.  Of course, if you do not see an ink that quite fits the Pantone color you are looking for, we offer customer PMS ink mixing for any color imaginable, shipped out same-day if ordered by 2pm. 
Posted by Ronnie Cannon - Outside Sales on 8/3/2016

In late summer and early fall, many screen printers can look forward to some of their busiest times of the year.  But waiting until the last minute can be costly both to productivity and to the bottom line.

Usually when a screen printer thinks of this time of year the first thing that comes to mind is 'jerseys', as just about every school, university, and YMCA league in America will be looking for football jerseys.  But you also have to consider the numerous opportunities that come with that time.  Sports has long been a huge driver of business for screen printers, so be mindful of the plethora of football and sports-related team items that can be printed and sold by schools for fundraisers, booster clubs, school stores, etc.  Everything from t-shirts to umbrellas and everything in between.  

If you are new to screen printing, you may be wondering what the absolute best way to be productive with such opportunities.  Fortunately with regards to numbering and jerseys, there are several excellent options.  One is to use simple numbering stencils.  These products are easy to use, versatile, look great, and come in a variety of sizes.  Best of all, they work with most any screen printing press that is available.  Make sure that you use a proper type of athletic ink when printing and you should have no problems at all.  

When you are ready to move up from that (for shops who may do a LOT of jersey numbering) you should consider a special press attachment like the Vastex DiGIT Numbering System.  This special attachment for your manual screen printing press is designed to make printing numbers easy and foolproof, and will easily pay for itself in increased productivity.  Once properly setup on your press, the system can be adjusted for any number configuration for either single or double-digit prints.  


Have your screen printing equipment ready to go, have the proper screen printing ink in stock and on the shelf, and be ready to take advantage of one of our busiest times of the year!
Posted by Harvey Cole - Outside Sales on 7/11/2016
With so many different types of inks and so many different types of substrates it can be difficult as a relatively new screen printer to find good information on curing techniques - these tips are here to help you get started.

Find any old-school screen printer who has been around the block a few times and a large percentage of them will likely tell you 'just get your dryer good and hot - we never touch the temperature, we just speed the belt up or slow it down'.  Well, if you are printing pretty much the same shirts and same inks over and over and over, this technique may work.  For the rest of us, we might want a more scientific and researched method of curing.  

At one of our recent How To Screen Print classes an industry rep from Rutland Group (manufacturer of Rutland, Union, and QCM ink lines) had a question on general guidelines on dryer temperature.  His answer was, of course, that there was no set number, temperature, or belt speed.  However, for most general purpose inks he recommended a temperature of 320 degrees for 60 seconds.  This number was supported by research from their own chemists and R&D department.  The problem comes with the vastly different quality of substrates and screen printing equipment that you use.


When your screen printing dryer is running and set to a temperature of around 300, running many shirts through quickly can dissipate the heat and make it difficult for your dryer to maintain a consistent temperature.  Spacing your shirts out and running a slower belt speed can help maintain a constant temperature.

The next logical question may be 'what about polyester substrates and polyester inks?'  Indeed, high heat can be the enemy of polyester material, as at a temperature usually required for standard plastisol inks, polyester material will tend to release the actual dyes in the shirt and cause dye migration issues.  Well, one of the big innovations happening in the screen printing industry right now is the introduction of silicone screen printing ink.  These are a brand new type of ink that are sold and fully supported by Texsource that are formulated to cure at a lower temperature than most polyester materials will typically release their dye at.  Recommended curing temperature for silicone inks are in the 260-280 degree range.  Silicone inks also offer the advantage of being extremely elastic, making them perfect for athletic wear.  


dye migration issues that typically plague polyester materials and inks can be remedied by using new Silicone screen printing inks.

What about substrates that are not designed to be heated to the temperature required for a certain type of ink?  What about plastics, nylons, or other materials that might melt, burn, or otherwise be damaged by such heat exposure?  For those materials, Texsource recommends using an Air Dry Ink such as those from ColorFX.  Air Dry Inks, as the name implies, does not require heat to cure, and has excellent adhesion to a variety of materials including plastics, woods, glass, and metals.  An exact list of supported materials can be found on the subsequent product pages for those inks.  They offer an excellent alternative to standard screen printing inks when heat curing may not be advised.  

All of the screen printing inks that Texsource sells typically include a product spec sheet located on their product page.  This sheet can offer help with topics such as curing, mesh count, additives, application, and more.  Following the manufacturer specified guidelines is always the most important advice, but hopefully some of these tips will be able to stay in your memory and help as well.  
Posted by Doug Smith - Texsource Indiana on 6/16/2016
In an ongoing effort to always make your online shopping as easy as possible, Texsource has some new changes and upgrades to our site make it easier than ever to find the screen printing equipment and supplies you need.


Likely the most noticeable change is in our Screen Printing Ink section.  We spent quite a bit of time going through this section and found numerous ways that we could improve.  First, whenever you do a simple search on our site for something like 'Green Ink', you will now get more accurate results.  But in the past where you would simply see a screen filled with green color swatches that you had to click through to find out more important information (such as the manufacturer or ink series), we now have that information right on the color swatch itself, for all inks and all manufacturers.  The new color swatches look like this - 

As you can see from the 2 color swatches in this image, it is now easy at a glace to see the exact color (taken directly from the manufacturer source), the ink manufacturer, and the exact ink type or series.  Having such information available at a quick glance can not only help you find the ink you need faster, but can also eliminate errors in ordering.  

In addition to re-thinking our ink swatches, we also looked at our overall ink product pages.  We have updated the newly formatted SDS sheets (where available - as of this writing sheets for all products are not yet available), new product and series descriptions, and printing and curing instructions.  The idea is to provide you with as much important information about the products as possible, but still make a product page easy and quick to read so that you can get back to other important tasks.  

The changes don't just pertain to the Ink section.  If you haven't visited our site in a while you will likely notice an increase in new larger photos of products, with multiple product photos when available.  You can now ask a question about any product right on that product page, and get an answer directly from our expert sales staff.  New updated product descriptions for our screen printing equipment have been (and are being) written, product demo videos are being produced and added as we get them, our website 'Search' function has been improved to give you more accurate results, and more relevant related products are now shown for each product.  

Texsource works hard to be the best online experience possible, and we are always looking for ways to improve.  It is all in an effort to make your shopping easier and more accurate so that your shop and your business can run as smoothly and efficiently as possible.  If you ever see a way that we can improve, let us know!
Posted by Bubba Thomas - Outside Sales on 5/25/2016

Why would you want to use a screen printed transfer that uses extra materials, extra labor, and more equipment when you can print directly onto the garment? There are several situations where transfer are more efficient, economical, and profitable than direct printing.

For example, if you have a once a year event that you print for but you have no way of knowing how many shirts will be sold. If you print too few shirts, you will limit your sales. If you print too many shirts, you take an expensive loss. However, if you print the design on transfer paper, you can take the transfers, heat press, and blank shirts to the event and press the shirts as ordered. If you have any transfer left over, you can throw them away and not be losing the money that you would if you were throwing printed shirts away.

If you do the same design over and over for a certain customer and they only get a small number of shirts every time. It is cheaper to go ahead and print enough transfers to last a while, than it is to set up the job on the press and run a dozen or two shirts at a time. You save a lot of time and labor by using transfers for this customer.


 Equipment Needed for Transfers
Transfer paper, Transfer powder( if necessary), Heat Press, Conveyor Dryer, Flash Unit (if doing multiple color design).

Types of Transfers
There are two most common types of transfers, Hot Split and Cold Peel. The main difference in the two are the way they are applied. When applying hot split transfers, the transfer paper is removed immediately after pressing the garment. This method will give you a softer feel but will take away the opacity of the print, especially on dark garment.
When cold peel, the paper is not removed until the ink and garment have cooled off. This method will allow all of the ink to adhere to the garment, making it a more stiff, opaque, glossy look.

Avoid Fine Line and Large Solid Color
In transfer printing, fine detail causes trouble because it is hard to print enough ink and control the temperature of the ink closely enough to insure that the fine lines will adhere to the t-shirt. Lines should be no thinner than 1/16th of an inch and half tone dots should be no finer than .33-.38 millimeters. If you have to print fine lines or small half tones, you should always print an underbase over the entire design, making it the last color down. The underbase will adhere to the garment and the other colors in the transfer, including the fine detail.
Large areas of solid colors may cause problems because they require a very even layer of ink, very evenly gelled. Any imperfections in the thickness of the ink layer or degree of gelling of the transfer may result in an uneven thickness of ink transferred to the t-shirt and an obviously defective design.

Avoid Trapping Colors
Trapping colors creates different thicknesses of ink on the transfers, making is complicate the gelling process, and when using a hot split, it may cause the wrong ink to split when applying it to the garment. It is always better to use butt registration.

Allow for Paper Shrinkage
Since the transfers cannot be printed wet-on-wet, the paper is getting heated in between every color. Making the paper shrink. Always run the paper through a dryer at 180-220 degrees to insure that you will get minimum shrinkage.

Ink Selection
You can use many types of inks when transfer printing, but you will get the best results when using an ink that is formulated for transfers. The most common ink that w carry is Union Ultrasoft Series. It can be used as a hot-split or cold peel. But keep in mind, it will not be as opaque when using it as a hot split on a dark garment. I recommend the Maxopake series from Union, and adding transfer powder the the image, before senfing it down the dryer.

Temperature
Typically you will press your transfers for 10-18 seconds, 35-50lbs of pressure, at 350-400 degrees. Hot splits can run at higher temperature, shorter time, and less pressure. Cold peels should be ran at a lower temperature, longer time, and higher pressure.  
Posted by Dawn Dellinger - Customer Service on 5/2/2016
It is time once again for us to begin promoting our biggest annual event of the year, the Texsource Open House Event, and here is just some of what you can expect if you have never attended (you should!).

The Texsource Open House event is definitely my favorite time of the year on my job.  For a whole day I get to finally put faces with some of the names that I see on my screen every day, voices that I would hear on my phone, company names that I am familiar with, but not always the people behind the name.  Texsource goes all out for this event.  Normally in years past the event has been held over 2 days, usually a Thursday and a Friday.  This year we are narrowing it down to only 1 day, but we are holding an Open House at 2 of our 4 locations; Georgia and our headquarters in NC.  The NC open house will held here on September 30.  

Our open house has deals so good you'll swear they were illegal!

So what can you expect?  Well, anything and everything related to our industry.  If you are a user ofscreen printing equipment or screen printing supplies, then this event will have a good bit of everything for you to check out.  We have vendors who will be showing the very latest screen printing presses, automatic screen printing presses,  the latest technology in screen printing ink(including the very latest advancement, silicone screen printing ink), new printing techniques, supply items and chemicals, and more.  

If you are relatively new to screen printing, or you are looking for new techniques that you may not have tried before, there are a host of demonstrations and clinics that go on all day from all the various vendors on how to screen print.  Since actual vendor reps will be here with their products, this is an outstanding chance to get some hands-on demonstrations and ask questions to those at the very top!  

Ah, the food.  Our owner is an exceptional cook, and nothing but the very best will do when it comes to serving others.  I do not yet know exactly what our menu will be, but I can tell you that the last few years we have served BBQ that is worthy of bragging about.  The free lunch is a highlight for many at the event (including all of the Texsource staff) and you will certainly not leave here hungry!

Best of all, the only cost to you is your gas to get here - everything here is on us (although you might want to bring your wallet with you - there are show deals galore and usually a few racks full of clearance items that gets picked clean fairly quickly).  Since we need an accurate food count, all we ask is that you register in advance here before the date of the event.  Bring out your entire shop and enjoy a full day with us.  

We hope to see you here and we hope to further prove our worth to you as your most trusted industry supplier of screen printing equipment and supplies.  
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