Route 66 screen printers offer custom for cheap

For three bucks, Josh Roper will print whatever you like.

Josh Roper, the manager of Sixty Six Silk Screening, has supervised the inventory and sales of the company since it was founded, in addition to working the printer. He and his friend started the company because his friend was interested in making custom shirts.

“It’s really rewarding to be able to wear a shirt that you made,” Roper said. “I screen shirts because there are not a lot of places like us in town.”

Unlike a lot of retailers, Roper said Sixty Six Silk Screening is flexible with its customers and allows clients to bring in their own designs.

“I think college students in particular have great ideas for shirts, but they don’t have a way to print them themselves,” he said.

Before being involved with the company, Roper said he never tried shirt screening, but once he learned the screening process, it captivated him.

“I was hooked to it once I saw the graphic on the computer becoming a graphic printed on the shirt,” he said.

Roper said the process of screen printing starts with a frame similar to one used in painting. A screen is used instead of stretching canvas over it. From there, an emulsion coat is sprayed and dried on the screen. Then the artwork is made into a transparency, which is placed on the screen and exposed to light and then washed out. Roper said it takes about a day to transform a design concept into a finished product. Screening is $3 dollars a print for one color print. It is $5 for a two-color print and an additional dollar for each extra color, but customers are given a price break for any purchase of 100 shirts or more.

Marie Byers, an organizer for the Las Vegas Memorial Day Fiesta run, said she has contracted the company the last two years.

“We picked them because they are a local group,” she said. “They do not disappoint. The logos turned out beautiful. We even had to order extra in the last minute and the company was able to get the extra done right on time.”