Every Piece of Equipment I Use in My Home Print Shop

I started this business in a 6x10 room in the basement of a rental house, washing screens in the bathtub and exposing them on a unit that sat on the bathroom counter. If you are trying to figure out what equipment you actually need to start, and you are worried you don’t have enough space or enough money, I want you to know that is exactly where I started too.

We moved a few months later to another rental with a bigger, unfinished basement, and that’s where Alpine Apparel Co has run since mid-2017. It’s not a dream shop. It’s a basement in a house I don’t own. But here is every piece of equipment in it, and why I bought what I bought.

The press

The press is the part everyone wants to hear about, so let’s start there.

I ran a Riley Hopkins Jr 4x4 press with joystick registration from 2017 to 2022. That press is no longer made. I came to genuinely dislike the joystick registration by the end, but it was a good press to learn on and it got the business off the ground. Do not let the fact that I eventually wanted something different stop you from starting on whatever press you can afford right now. Mine ran a five-year-old business just fine.

The upgrade happened faster than I expected, and by accident. I saw an Instagram ad for a liquidation auction from a print shop that was closing. In the listing was a practically new Riley 300 8x6 manual press (https://ssp.ink/riley300) — an $8,000 press new, which was nowhere near my budget. I logged on for auction day anyway, mostly out of curiosity, and ended up winning it for under $1,000. That is the press I print on today, and I plan to run it for a long time.

I say this every time someone asks me about equipment: don’t wait for the auction. I printed for five years on a press with a registration system I didn’t love, and the business still worked. Fix your process and your pricing first. The press comes when it comes.

Curing

For curing, I run a small 16x16 Riley flash dryer (https://ssp.ink/riley-flash). It’s not ideal, especially for water-based ink, which needs more heat and more time than plastisol to cure properly. I’ve had it since day one and it has never once failed on me. Someday I’d like a forced-air flash and a conveyor dryer, but as long as I’m in this rental, the flash I have does the job.

Water-based only

While we’re on curing: I print with water-based ink exclusively. I worked at a plastisol-only shop for four years before starting Alpine, and I knew going in that I wanted to do this differently. Water-based ink was harder to learn — the curing window is less forgiving and the mesh counts behave differently — but I have never regretted the switch and I’m not going back.

Washout booth

The first big purchase I made after my first full year in business, before I upgraded my dryer or my exposure unit, was a 48” Sgreen washout booth with an Sgreen filtration system. I put this ahead of other upgrades on purpose. I’m running a business out of a rental in a residential neighborhood, and keeping reclaim water and emulsion out of places it doesn’t belong matters more to me than a faster flash dryer. If you’re printing at home, I’d make the same call again — get a real washout booth and filtration before you spend money on almost anything else.

Water source and power

The washout booth needs water, and in my basement that means a hose running from the outside faucet, through a window, down to where I wash out. It’s not elegant. It’s what a rental allows.

For cleaning and washing screens, I use a Sunjoe SPX3000 electric power washer. I chose electric specifically because I needed something quiet enough to run in a basement without becoming a problem, and it has held up well for what it cost. I don’t expect it to last forever, but it hasn’t needed to — it was cheap enough that replacing it isn’t a big deal when the day comes.

Air compressor

You don’t strictly need an air compressor, but I’d call it close to essential once you’re running real volume. After you wash out a screen, emulsion residue can remain in a thin film, and blasting it dry with compressed air keeps that residue from running back down into the stencil and hardening there. I run a California Air Tools compressor for this, and the reason is the same as with the power washer: noise. You can stand right next to it having a normal conversation while it’s running. I won’t buy another brand for a basement shop.

Film printer

For printing films, I use an Epson Artisan 1430. New, it runs $2,000 or more, but I found mine used on eBay for $400. Before this printer, I used a standard Epson Workforce inkjet and constantly fought screens that wouldn’t expose cleanly because the black on my film wasn’t opaque enough — plus I was capped at 8.5”x11” artwork. Since switching to the Artisan two years ago, my exposures have been far more consistent.

I also run a Blackmax ink kit, which replaces all the color cartridges with refillable black cartridges. The opacity is noticeably better than standard ink, and it makes a real difference in how cleanly a screen exposes. If you’re burning your own screens on an inkjet printer, this is the upgrade I’d make before almost anything else on this list.

Exposure unit

My exposure unit is an RXP tabletop unit — no yellow safe lights, no vacuum top, nothing fancy. I expose for about 25 to 30 seconds using Baselayr Complete emulsion, and it works. I’d like a vacuum exposure unit eventually for better detail on finer halftones, but this one hasn’t held me back yet.

Furniture

Last item, and it’s a boring one: my shop furniture is all from Sam’s Club, made by a brand called Seville Classics. It’s technically garage furniture, not shop furniture, but it’s solid and it’s held up well in a basement that sees ink, water, and a lot of foot traffic.

Where I’d point you next

None of this is a “buy this exact list” recommendation. It’s what happened to be available to me, at the prices I could afford, at the time I needed it. Equipment recommendations go stale fast, and mine will too. If you want a list that actually gets updated as gear changes and prices move, that’s what Screen Printing Toolbox (https://screenprintingtoolbox.com) is for — it’s free, and it’s the resource I point people to instead of trying to keep this article current forever.

If you’re still deciding what to buy first for your own basement or garage setup, start with the washout booth and the water-based ink decision. Everything else on this list, I bought over years, not all at once. You can too.