Remember When?

Printwizard · March 13th, 2012, 03:35 PM

Said the old man to the apprentice......"less talking and more listening for I have forgotten more than you have learned"......

Winston, there is comfort in common shared knowledge and histories. Sometimes experience gets us out of trouble when we have learned from our mistakes (although some don't and keep repeating them). Experimentation is great and technology is so better now from machinery to consumables. The end client has better outcomes in their work. If you ever open a 20 year old job bag up and look at the film and the print sample it's embarrassing, yet at the time it may have rated internationally in terms of quality and finish, yet today it would be rejected.....
Yet for all that, efficiencies and increased production I don't think we make more money or better lifestyle than we had then. Harder lead times, more stress, more overtime, 24/7 operations where it was forty hours then fishing with a beer.

californiadreamin · March 13th, 2012, 04:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Printwizard

Said the old man to the apprentice......"less talking and more listening for I have forgotten more than you have learned"......

Winston, there is comfort in common shared knowledge and histories. Sometimes experience gets us out of trouble when we have learned from our mistakes (although some don't and keep repeating them). Experimentation is great and technology is so better now from machinery to consumables. The end client has better outcomes in their work. If you ever open a 20 year old job bag up and look at the film and the print sample it's embarrassing, yet at the time it may have rated internationally in terms of quality and finish, yet today it would be rejected.....
Yet for all that, efficiencies and increased production I don't think we make more money or better lifestyle than we had then. Harder lead times, more stress, more overtime, 24/7 operations where it was forty hours then fishing with a beer.

Well spoken PW!
It is aways important to have a goal, but the journey
is where it is at.
Enjoy life !

winston

Evo · March 13th, 2012, 04:38 PM

I remember a face shield, elbow length rubber gloves and a full length rubber apron to de-haze screens.

First day:
"Why do I need all this stuff?"

After a pin-head sized dot of caustic haze remover paste gets on your skin:
"OH GAAWWD IT BURRRRRNSSSSS!!!"

danlilsade · March 15th, 2012, 07:53 PM

Screens exposed in the sun, screens reclaimed with Clorox, abraded with Comet and neutralized with Ivory dishwashing soap.

ALEEISS · March 16th, 2012, 03:21 AM

Getting Rutland M1 Yellow to clear any mesh count straight out of the bucket

Robert Young · March 16th, 2012, 05:54 PM

what about DIGITIZING?

I remember blowing all art up to 600% on a Xerox copier and taping all the pages together.. marking each stitch with a pencil on the drafting table and then taping the entire mess to the Digitrac to virtually repunch the entire thing... only 80 stitches at a time though.. press the run button and sew on the melco superstar... IF you liked those 80 stitches you printed them on paper tape and went back to the digitrac for the next 80 stitches... there was NO editing. Computers were not available for digitizing. We learned to read the code on the paper tapes and would splice them as needed. And we also had paper punches that we would use by hand to modify as needed.

Facit machines anyone?

BUT we charged more than $25 per thousand stitches and got it! I remember jacket back logos costing $1800 for digitizing alone that today you could get for $95.

tonypep · March 17th, 2012, 10:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ALEEISS

Getting Rutland M1 Yellow to clear any mesh count straight out of the bucket

Aliass was that before or after your company burned to the ground?

Earl Smith · March 28th, 2012, 05:08 AM

This post reminds me of this old sketch by Monty Python.
We´ve never had it so good....

arttex · April 18th, 2012, 11:28 AM

I really liked this nostalgia colored thread so I thought maybe some of you guys would like to see some images of the stuff I've recently found. My father pulled out some forgotten boxes full of equipment brochures, catalogs, magazines, photographs, even technical drawings and machine projects of some companies, mostly from 80's.
I was a bit surprised to see that some parts of the equipment line in our industry haven't see much change in almost 30 years. However, some textile printing presses really looks funny comparing to today's standards. here you go:

Have any of you guys visited this show in Houston?

By the way, what's going on with that "Svecia" company? They seem to have been pretty advanced for that time. "Sias" too.

RichN · April 18th, 2012, 05:49 PM

I remember about 30 years ago I got a phone call from Rich Hoffman at American Equipment. Told me I had to come down and see the First Flash Dryer that Advance / American had just made. First time I'd ever seen anything like it. Funny how far we've come.
Remember Plax White?