We had a cool time with some fellow printers and a few chill vendors this week. A good time was had by all at our Ink Kitchen “East Coast Scrubdown and BBQ.”

Three customers of mine hooked us up big time. Best Q around from Blue Ribbon BBQ, best brews around with Summer Ale and my personal fave Porch Rockers from Sam Adams, and what the NY Times and yours truly call the best ice cream in the world from Toscanini’s in Cambridge, MA.

Greg Jensen the reclaim guru from Saati was in the house and he is a rare guy that has all the technical info you could want but instead leads with all the common sense information and demonstration that you really want. You also have to love a guy that in great detail tells you how you can use less of his product (non-mist spray) and not to waste it (dip tanks and pour bottles.) We wanted him to come into our shop and figured while he was there to get our local pals in as well. More on that in future posts.

Brian Lessard the ink tech dude from Rutland was also in the house. He doesn’t have a hard sell bone in his body, so he was the perfect guy to have in attendance. We were lucky to pick his brain on printing triblends, camo poly and garment dyed shirts. More on that in future posts.

My pal Peter Rinnig of QRST’s started these shindigs. When you really think about it, mostly we don’t compete; we all have our own niches. Besides shooting the breeze with your peers (hey, they want to talk about biz more than your employees or families do) we have had a fringe benefit of sending work to each other. A bunch of printers send their DTG work to Peter, some of the local hand press guys send me their big jobs on dark shirts. It isn’t a bad thing to have a dozen guys within an hour away that would lend you a gallon of ink.