No Sleep Til' LONG BEACH - T-shirt Printing Tradeshow

I am always overwhelmed by how much information I can find at tradeshows and the Imprinted Sportswear tradeshow has not been a let down. First off I must warn you, I don't care that much about the latest trendy cut of t-shirts, there is always something there, but in the end my customers stay within a range of available goods and when they ask for it I get it. So I can find anything and I simply add a bunch of new companies product catalogs to my product line, but not very much of it performs over the long run. However, technical details with "experts" is my way of entertaining myself and finding out how little I have been doing to expand my t-shirt printing universe.

I focused on mesh adhesion and emulsions with my questioning of the Ulano and Sefert and IT sales people. I have found out that mesh is pourous, which means it will absorb chemicals that it is submerged, or embedded in, such as photosensitive emulsions for screen printing. I also found out that there is a clear, although not optically clear, emulsion and it may be possible to add pigment (liquid) to the emulsion in a variety of colors.

My other interesting exchanges were about discharge inks and Wilflex has a discharge ink that does not emit an odor or sulfur smell and does not require the final garment to be washed before it is sold. This ink has been popular in Europe, but is just being released in the United States and I'm all in. I've done some discharge through contractors, but have avoided using it directly as the smell and toxicity of the garments remains a problem if the shirts aren't washed before they are sold. Next step is to make samples of some new designs.