[sudoroom] Glass and Screen Printing

[Daniel Finlay]

When the process is streamlined and staffed, the shop can print up to a four-color shirt every 30 seconds.

The equipment would pretty much fill one of those rooms, for the various phases of the process, but I already own it all, and soon may not have a place to keep it.

The shop isn't currently a full-time job for me, but I've never actively pursued clients, just word of mouth.  I'm not sure if the shop would be a better resource if it already had full-time work coming through it, or if I kept it open to people to bring their own work.  I guess supplying enough client work that members could work for money, and in turn bring down the hourly cost for the whole organization.

Maybe I should ask that guy who works on the same floor, who came to tonight's meeting to help get clients.  Does anyone have his contact info?  He said growing businesses is what he did.  If he could bring enough clients in to keep the shop paying for itself, then it could become a community resource the rest of the time.  I'd be open to excessive revenue being used to pay for more hack-space, particularly if I didn't have to be constantly supervising the space, and could simply rent it like anyone else.

I was imagining free workshops on Saturday to gain membership.  Proper maintaining of the shop would keep membership, etc...

What I need most right now is perspective, although if I were to make the move I might consider a kickstarter to help hold the doors open while we found our sea-legs.  Do enough people want to print their own ware, or need the work?  Could a flexibly-scheduled workspace be more efficient than a centrally owned one?  Would this be too big of a liability to be feasible?  Are there ways to make a space usable by lots of different people?

These are interesting questions, I'm going to sleep on it for now.  I'll look forward to the talk on Saturday about making a worker-owned business!

-Dan



On Nov 15, 2012, at 1:57 AM, Jae Kwon <jkwon.work at gmail.com> wrote:

> Wow. That design is beautiful. I hope that happens.
> 
> RE your post, it sounds great. How easy is it to book a session consistently every day? Are you already working on this full time?
> 
> How much equipment and space do you need run a screen printing operation?
> 
> How can we help? What do you need?
> 
> How long does it take to get a t-shirt made? (can I make one in 2hours?)
> 
> - Jae