DLH Screen Printing

My first “shop” outside of my mom’s garage came to life circa 2008, fresh out of high school. My days were spent hanging with bandmates and printing band merch. The shop was far from comfortable. I shared the space with a plumber who clearly wasn’t into cleanliness. His half of the shop was basically a pile of pipes and trash.

There was no insulation, no lights, no running water, and just one shared restroom. That same restroom doubled as my screen washout area after hours since the landlord didn’t appreciate a punk kid with long hair getting emulsion in his sink. Looking back, it probably wasn’t the nicest move, but I always tried to clean up after myself.

Remember how I said there were no lights? I screwed four halogen shop lights to the walls and plugged them in with an extension cord. Printing felt like working under a stage spotlight most nights. I’d even take one light down to use for screen exposure. Each screen took about 14 minutes. So, if I wanted to print a four color design, that was nearly an hour just for exposure time. Good thing I had a trusty CRT T.V and a PS2 running GTA3 to keep me company.
And that lack of insulation? Brutal. Printing at night in the winter meant wearing full snow gear. My business partner and I would take turns huddling in front of a tiny space heater, trying to warm our bones. One night we both fell asleep in front of it and woke up at 4 am, realizing we still had to finish the job to meet the deadline.

My third press (the first two were tabletop setups) was a 4 station, 6 color ’90s model Hopkins International. I actually kept that press until a few years ago. It was an absolute workhorse. I didn’t get a conveyor dryer for a couple more years, so I used two flash dryers: one on press between colors and another to “final cure” the prints. Or at least I hoped it did.
This was the era of massive full front prints. 20 inch tall designs under a 16x16 flash dryer. Let’s just say it was time consuming.

I think back on those early days often. Would I change anything? Maybe. But honestly, the way it started is exactly why we are where we are today.