Why We Got ECO FRAMES for Screen Printing - Inventory, Costs, & Quality!

I've got something I'm stoked to get into the shop. We just bought set of Eco Frames, so I wanted to talk about how I landed on the choice and made the decision, and then I wanna stretch one to show how easy it is. I already know we're gunna see way higher tensions than the typical static frame, so I'm already pretty pumped on what that's going to do for our setups, production, and print quality. So, let's dig right in.

Okay right off the bat I gotta say this is not a sponsored post. We do not have some sorta deal with any company. So when I break this down you can rest assured that I made this decision based on nothing else but our shop and the info I had. For the viewers and other shops in our industry I do NOT see the value in a paid review, or a product trade for a review, or for anything that resembles a review like testing the product. That doesn't mean I would refuse a sponsor from our industry for like, our improvement video series for example, but never in exchange for a favourable review. Remember that I make my living doing custom screen printing, and I share these videos to encourage discussion and ideas between shops. And so you can trust that if I like something it's because I have a business-only reason to like it. Make sense? Okay so let's talk about how we ended up with this stack of screens.

The idea here is that you buy pre-made panels with these locking strips in them, and you stretch them onto the frames yourself. But there is no glue, so no fumes or drying time involved, and the frames are a lot easier to prepare for a restretch.

These panels and frames are not new though, they've been around a long time, and so have roller frames. But the last time I looked into this, a couple things didn't add up for me. First, was a lack of mesh selection, which is kinda amplified by me being in Canada. Second, I don't remember the upfront cost looking this good the last time I looked into these.

So first I've tried a couple stretchers here in Canada. Some are better than others, but the statics that arrive here work out to right around $60 per screen after all is said and done.

Inventory is a big reason I made this choice, but let's finish this upfront cost thing, first.

So $60 for a frame, now let's do the math on this Eco Frame package from Ryonet. So x12 frames, and x24 panels and the tool, worked out to like $1100, and $150 for me to get it over the border. Which works out to... $52 per screen. So it was actually cheaper for me to TRY these screens than it was to go our usual route. No complaints there. And obviously, since you're only replacing the panel and not the whole frame, they're going to get cheaper every time you put another panel in the frame. Plus all the other savings...

So like I said our fleet is sometimes missing x20 statics. If we were shipping them on a skid for stretching, they do that 100 at a time so we'd need enough inventory to handle missing 100 broken screens. And we'd need a place to put them.
With these panels, you can build yourself a little cart like mine here, and you can stretch a frame yourself the same day that it breaks. Just remove the mesh, clean the channels, and put a new one in. Shipping these panels is super easy, they come in a small box like this, so the sustainability factor is hugeeee here. This reduces a massive amount of transport waste shipping frames around the country. No solvent glues, no crazy prep to remove it from the frames.
It lets us keep a smaller amount of inventory in our fleet, and we don't need a ton of these panels in stock either to be able to keep a full fleet.

So the next big savings is all in the print and the setup. The average static is landing in our shop at like 22 newtons. This is decent, but higher tension will give you more consistent setups, it'll be easier to get ink through that screen so you can do it with less pressure. It'll leave a brighter, smoother, thinner print. So we're going to be saving time on press, we're going to use less ink, and have better quality prints. Even with quality being hard to measure in that context, it's still pretty clear to me this is going to pay for itself in a couple ways.

So that's how I made my choice, but the thing I'm most excited for is the tension and for being able to get that tension without having to deal with fussy roller frames.

So I really think these Eco Frames are gunna hit the sweet spot for us. So yeah, let me know what you think, if you have any questions, anything like that. I will be in the comments, and in the Instagram DMs, so I'll talk to you soon!

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Floodway Print Company is located in Winnipeg, Canada.

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Видео Why We Got ECO FRAMES for Screen Printing - Inventory, Costs, & Quality! канала Cory @ Floodway Print Co.