So it finally happened:
Tuesday after picking up Isaac from daycare I got on craigslist to fart around looking at motorcycles and scooters to see what all is out there. Of course I can’t go on craigslist for long without looking for a possible cheap e30. Just so happens one had been posted that morning. I showed the link to Cody who said if the guy would go down just 50 bucks on the price he would drive up to Cedar Park to go get it for me.
Well, the guy agreed. 
I finally have my e30. After 4 years and about 7 attempts there is finally one in my driveway. There are some major differences in this model vs the one I had back in high school. The biggest is probably the fact my old one was a coupe and this one is a sedan which is super cool. This is also an “eta”, which means the engine is modified to conserve fuel and give good gas mileage from the inline 6 in the engine bay. I seem to recall my old 325is getting hysterically horrible mileage driving just from the house to school. Cody got this from Cedar Park to San Marcos on about a quarter tank.
So yes, the engine runs great, no stalling, no sudden death while driving down the road like the 325is did so many times. Most of the power devices work including the windows, sunroof, and cd player. It has tinted windows as well as 3 near perfect tires, the one that gets power is pretty bald though.
And here you see why it was 600 dollars. The car had run into something quite recently as the inspection stickers are from 09. Possibly a pole or something but interestingly enough only the outer portion of the bumper is harmed. Of course the hood is dented as well as that fender but I’m not too worried about those because I can easily replace them on my own. Since the bumper is busted I want to do a full plastic bumper conversion on the front and rear. However, I will be taking it to a local body shop for installation because I can’t stand body-kits flapping in the wind. Also I need the entire car primed. While it’s getting updated and primed for paint I’ll have them fix the massive dent in the hood. Cody thought it had been rolled, but there is no damage to the doors and all the glass is factory. My guess is a tree branch fell on it or something.
Great news, this car has about HALF the miles my old one did! The engine starts quickly every time with no trouble. There are a few other problems I’ll need to get fixed during my painting process. As of now the power steering is totally shot. I filled up the reservoir this morning and took it for a little drive around the neighborhood to no effect. However, fluid remained at the same level so at least that means there is not a massive leak, but possibly a busted pump. Whatever it is it will be fixed at some point during painting. The brakes work but not well enough for stop and go traffic so that too will be assessed before painting is done. It will be a very long process and by the time I am done with painting, brakes, steering and suspension the engine may be toast.
So basically here is a rundown/timeline of work that will go into the car:
1. Body prep – Purchase bumpers and rear window moldings, send to shop for bodywork and priming. During this time the car will be started every day and let run 10 minutes to keep parts lubricated, it will be driven around the block average twice a week.
2. Painting – Once body is complete and primed I will be hand painting the entirety of the vehicle with a most awesome design that I have not yet come up with but totally will here shortly. Basically my own BMW Art Car.
3. Functionality – Because I can still paint the thing with a blown engine it only needs to stay running/operating long enough for me to get it to the local shop for the bodywork, brakes, and power steering. So at some point during painting or afterwards (Depends on how long it takes and how much money I have) I will assess the aging mechanics of the car to get it street legal in the sense of passing inspection.
4. Engine Swap – Because its inevitable that the engine will probably eat itself at some point during this process I am not even thinking about updating the exhaust, intake, etc until a clean rebuilt engine is installed. I also do not yet know what kind of engine I want to use for the swap. It could be anything from a stock m20b25 to a rb20det. So until then no changes will be made to anything that would potentially be attached to such engine.
Let the fun begin!
So I ordered the shirts Monday from BlankApparel and they came in Tuesday. O_O I ran to Herwecks after work yesterday to pick up a quart of emulsion and an extra screen and headed home.
Today I brought the screens to work to expose them because I don’t have my own exposure unit yet. Well I mixed the emulsion before 8am, coated the screens at noon during lunch, and checked on them around 2. They LOOKED dry but I must have gotten this new stuff too thick because it wasn’t completely dry enough because as soon as I got it out of the exposure unit and hosed the screen off the emulsion began to pull away from the screen. So I’m letting the other two screens dry overnight and hopefully they will work as I only need two screens to do the shirts. I have one set of art for the adult (parents) sizes and one size for the kids shirts. To make the art fit the screens I had to omit my Austin Apparel sponsor on the back of the shirt, but it should look better in the end.
In other Isaac birthday news its totally going to rain on Saturday which is making pretty angry as we went to all this trouble to get the back yard in shape for a party. If it rains we’ll all just sit inside and do whatever, any kids that show can just attack the pinata in the living room like a zombie horde.
So I got a little surprise this week in my package from Permaset. I had ordered a couple of colors for the upcoming Austin Apparel shirts I will be printing this month. (Which is also the reason I haven’t been keeping up with the blog or much else recently.) Anyway, in with my light blue and scarlet inks was a small sample of their new waterbased phosphorescent green. Now, from looking at the website I assumed the green was going to be a neon color or something like that. However, when I opened the small container I realized it was much more pale and slightly transparent. Suddenly it hit me what in the world phosphorescent meant! I quickly ran over to the desk light and held the small clear container near the bright light for a few seconds. When I pulled it away from the bulb the entire container began to glow a lovely radioactive green! THIS STUFF GLOWS IN THE DARK YALL!
So after the initial shock and six-year-old-in-a-candybar-buffett levels of excitement wore off I had to test the stuff out. I had picked up a few 99 cent T’s at Fallas in town for testing and registration purposes. I used a dark grey and a white shirt for comparison as the jar and site said it worked on both light and dark shirts. Just a few notes on the ink itself: go with a low mesh screen, I used a 156 and had no problems getting the ink through but a 110 would have been perfect for this and laid down more ink than I got as this stuff is very thick but easy to work with none the less!
I started out with the white shirt. Now, I know what some of you are saying “Omg, I can’t see the ink!”. This can be good or bad depending on how you look at it. For me this is awesome as if I were doing a glow in the dark design I would want it “hidden” in the daytime or even put a hidden message on the shirt to where you can’t see it until the lights are out. Now that would only work on the white shirts to an extent as you can see it slightly so you would need to do an outline or other dark print under it to keep it camouflaged.
And wouldn’t ya know it totally shows up on dark shirts! For me this is awesome as I could do a black shirt with a discharge print for halloween, say an outline of a black cat or something, and print the eyes of the cat with the glow in the dark ink for a really cool effect in the daytime or dark. Now, given I only hit this once to see how it would show up if you were to print-flash-print a few times you may be able to build up an even more opaque layer than this. But even with only one pass its pretty visible which is totally awesome and unexpected. Of course everyone just wants to see this:
It glows like crazy! Super bright and very responsive to light. I know there are lots of plastisol glow in the dark inks out there but this one being waterbased is just way too fun to me. I can see myself ordering a whole gallon of the stuff come October for sure with all the uses for glow in the dark Halloween designs I just can’t wait.
Just like the regular Permaset waterbased inks this ink really digs into the fibers of the fabric and gives you a very clean print with minimal effort. Perfect for hobbyists and beginners, since you just let the ink dry a bit and iron over it a few minutes to cure the design. Later on I want to invest in a heat-press machine when my designs get larger and curing with an iron by hand becomes time consuming. Totally super awesome ink. Watch for this ink on shirts at Austin Apparel this Halloween!
My shirts came in earlier this week and I was just too excited to wait till this weekend to test them! Took them up to work and printed them after hours.
We used Rutland’s natural discharge ink for the test and it came out beautifully. Now, when I say natural I in no way am saying its an eco-friendly natural, rather its the color the shirt naturally was before it was dyed whatever color. So when u discharge it your not going to get a super bright white unless it was that bright to begin with. Thus a “natural” discharge.
#5. Anvil 980
The Anvil shirt was originally my second choice in the line before I ever printed on the shirts. Had I been doing a light color or non-discharge I probably would go with these. However, as you can see in the picture above the Anvil 980 did not naturally discharge very white at all, in fact, it’s down right yellow. This pushes it to the back of the line.
#4 Tultex 0202
The Tultex shirt was a nice dark color before being printed and I had high hopes for it. The discharged color was much whiter than the Anvil but not as white as the next three shirts which leaves it down here at number four. Take note that Tultex is probably the softest of all these shirts so if you want a super soft tee you might want to check these guys out.
#3 Hanes 4980
Now, before this test I was given warning about Hanes being a sub par tee. Before I ever printed on the shirts this one stuck out from the rest as it had a lighter black dye and a lower quality build overall. If I were going by looks alone it would be #5, however this test gives points based on discharge over look and quality therefore it’s up here at #3 with its whiter discharge print than the Tultex.
#2 Gildan 64000
I am not joking yall. If something horrible happens and I somehow can’t afford the shirt at #1 I am totally going to print on these. The cut is nice, the feel is soft and comparable to the Tultex. And if this was based 100% on discharge ability only this would have won the competition hands down. The shirts discharged nearly stark white. The guys at work and I were totally surprised by just how white it came out. The reason it is at number 2 on the list is construction of the garment. While all the other shirts are basically clones of each other, the Gildan has extra stitches around the collar which give it a thick “ridge” around the neck which will make all over prints on the neck very difficult. (You can see this in the first video)
#1 American Apparel 2001
The winner and still champion, American Apparel discharged slightly whiter than the Hanes but not as white as the Gildan. However, the construction and quality of the American Apparel bump it up above the Gildan in this case. Yes, I want the shirt to discharge well, but I also want the best quality garment I can get. As I have said, if AA was a monetary impossibility I would totally go with the new Gildans as they are in now way related to their scratchy 8000 cousins. So yes, this May AA will be the base for my shirts.
It is exactly what you think it is. I’ve ordered one of each of the leading manufacturers lightweight 100% cotton ringspun t-shirts to see who discharges the best. Each shirt is the same size (small) and same color (black). Each shirt will get the same size logo, printed with the same amount of hits/flashes/strokes etc. Once printed each shirt will be heat gun cured to a proper white then brought through the dryer to fully cure the next morning. After proper curing in the dryer all shirts will be washed, together, with dye-free liquid soap in cold water then run through the dryer on low.
The shirts will be graded according to the following:
- Initial feel before being washed/printed.
- How well it takes the ink.
- Clarity of the cured discharge print. (white as opposed to cream)
- Feel and quality after being washed and dried. (does the garment fade?)
Things I wont be judging the shirts on is price, country of origin, warmth or coolness of the black dye in the shirt, and overall cut of the garment as that would be personal preference and have nothing to do with the printing process.
So what does the winner get? The winner will be the shirt I order for my upcoming t-shirt line this summer. Not that anyone really cares who I use but I thought I would have a little fun with my research and development aspect of all this. I’m also in no way affiliated with any of the above companies nor am I being endorsed by anyone to do this, it’s all my goofy little idea and I’d be doing it whether I post it up here or not. I’m not making any money off this, in fact I paid for every shirt that will be used in this process with my own money.
So the question is… WHO DO YOU THINK WILL WIN!?
