Cheap Tools, Big Hacks: Hardware Store Solutions for Screen Printing

Not too long ago, screen printing relied much more heavily on technology from outside of the industry. Over the past decade, I’ve seen much more innovation specifically for our needs—something that is very much appreciated. For us older guys, we often had to cobble together solutions from our local hardware stores.

With that in mind, here are some ideas that I hope inspire you to foster that same innovation in your own shop. You don’t have to break the bank sourcing these items—you can find a lot of useful tools at Harbor Freight, of all places.
Next time you’re in one of these stores, or any other hardware store for that matter, give yourself time to look at what they offer and see if you can find tools to re-purpose.

Let’s start with magnetic glove box holders and drink holders. Harbor Freight offers a red magnetic holder that fits a standard box of nitrile gloves, which you can stick to the side of your dryer or a metal work table. As crusty as I must look to most people, I’m weird about my hands being dirty or inky, so I often wear gloves when mixing ink or lubricating machines. You can also buy nitrile gloves at Harbor Freight, but if you do some research and can afford to buy in bulk, there are other options that are even more affordable. In my case, I once bought a shipping container of gloves directly from China back when that was easier to do.

Also at HF, they have a magnetic drink holder. I stuck one of these on either side of my Sprint 2000’s in-feed. The standard practice for my guys in the morning was to change out pallet tape or re-apply glue while having their morning coffee and prepping for the day. In the drink holder we had a ketchup bottle (from the dollar store) for water-based pallet glue, plus a spray bottle for re-hydrating the glue. 

In the middle of the drink holder was space for ink cards, razor blades for trimming pallet paper, and a scrubby. When we re-activated the pallet glue by pre-heating the pallets and spraying with water, my guys would use the red scrubby to remove the previous day’s lint from the glue.

Remember when all the Borders bookstores closed years ago? I love checking out liquidation sales. Anyhow, they were selling their re-shelving carts. These carts had three shelves on either side that held four gallons of ink each. We simply rolled the cart from press to press to either add or recover ink at the end of a job. Across the top shelf I kept our four most-used whites: Cotton White, Low-Bleed White, Poly White, and a blend we mixed for tri-blends. The rest of the shelves held the colors we might use when printing sim process.

From the Grainger catalog, I ordered a couple of 5-gallon bucket dollies. This allowed my guys to kick the buckets from one press to the next. Once we adopted the 5-gallon bucket dollies, though, a new problem (really an old one) got worse: those stupid plastic ink knives kept falling into the ink. And once one did—rather than pulling it out and cleaning it—my guys would usually just grab a new knife. Soon, there were two inky knives stuck in the bucket.

So I headed back to Harbor Freight and bought a few cement trowels with rounded points. Then I looked around my shop for something to weld on as a hanger. I had a tool lockup cage with pegboard hooks. I grabbed a couple, cut the ends off with an angle grinder, and welded them on to create a hook that allowed the trowel to hang on the side of the bucket. (To see a picture of this, go to my Instagram @Traveling_Screenprinter and look back to September.)

If I can put something on wheels, I do. You can get several different kinds of casters at Harbor Freight. In the Uline catalog I found metal baskets to act as catch boxes at the end of the dryer. I welded casters directly onto the basket feet. They fit easily under the dryer out-feed. When we were printing large runs of cotton garments—or just short on people—my guys could wheel one under the dryer belt, and when full, roll it out of the way and replace it with an empty one. I ordered four of these baskets since they were easy to store under our stacking tables.

For my spot-cleaning station, I sourced a cheap shop vacuum from (you guessed it) Harbor Freight. I bought a 6”-to-8” PVC reducer fitting and a length of 6” PVC pipe. I drilled a hole into one of my stacking tables, placed the vacuum underneath, and connected it to an 8” PVC pipe that stuck up through the table surface. Attached to the top was the reducer fitting. On the 8” side I placed a piece of metal screen I had lying around, cut to fit with tin snips. Over that I stretched a piece of rag, secured with one of those big rubber bands postal workers use.

From Grainger I sourced a retractable reel. I welded it to an upside-down “L”-shaped piece of square stock, attached it to a 5” x 5” steel plate, and bolted it to the table next to my spot-cleaning PVC tube. This allowed me to attach my spot gun to the retractable reel so it would pull up and out of the way when not in use. Lastly, from Harbor Freight I bought a foot-switch power pedal. You plug the shop vac into the pedal, then the pedal into the outlet. Now you’ve got a foot-operated spot-cleaning station with a retractable spot gun mount.

This article is already getting long, so I’ll stop here. Maybe one day I’ll tell you how I mounted a leaf blower to a utility light stand and bent electrical conduit to create a starch-applicator for all-over prints. Or how I built an elaborate ink mixing table out of four drill presses with low-speed pulleys and spring-loaded boat cleats to grip the bucket bottoms and prevent them from spinning.

Anyhow, the point is: you can save a lot of money by being handy and creative with cheap tools. And if you don’t already own a MIG welder and an angle grinder, go get them. The angle grinder often goes on sale for as cheap as ten bucks at HF. Don’t be afraid to teach yourself some basic welding. If a magnet sticks to it, you can probably MIG-weld it.