screen printing

Being interested in but never having tried it i bought a screen printing kit yesterday. The instructions it came with said there are three different ways to transfer your picture on the screen.

I wanted to make a t-shirt with one of my face drawings on it and my husband wanted to make t-shirts for his band. Since these were both drawings that we wanted to transfer the screens we chose to try out the photographic emulsion method which picks up fine lines.

Ok, so far the screen printing kit by speedball from hobby lobby was $59.99 with a 40% of coupon obtained and printed out from the website came to $38.96. After looking at the instructions a trip to ACE hardware was made where a spotlight(the kind with a clip and long extension cord), 150w flood light bulb, plastic tarp, plastic gloves, masking tape, scotch tape came out to $21.32. Then we went to Kinkos and got transparencies made of the two drawings we wanted to make into our two screens, that cost $1.62

1.First step was to place to masking tape over the frame and the screen fabric evenly on both sides. This helps to keep the screen tight which prevents leaking under screen frame during printing meaning clean printed edges. It said not to choose a design that comes within an inch a the tape and that rubbing the tape with a spoon makes it stick the best.

2. on the back side of the screen (where it lies flat on the ground or the side that will be touching the fabric when you make prints) put four punch pins in the four corners to pick it up from touching the ground.

3. Now to mix the solution. The kit came with a little bottle of diazo sensitizer (yellow black fluid)it said to fill bottle halfway with cold water shake well and then pour into diazo photo emulsion (blue fluid) bottle and shake some more. Make sure the top is on tightly because it leaked some with us. although my husband thought is would shake well by throwing it into the air and it hitting the ceiling(on accident).

4. we laid out the plastic tarp for renters floor protection and plastic gloves prepaired, placed the screen on top of the box the kit came in. Starting with the top of the screen. Pouring a little at a time in a spot or a line of the photo emulsion mixture along the top and sqweeging back and forth on both sides making the entire thing even

5. we placed newspaper at the bottom of the drawer and placed the screen bottom with the thumb tacks on bottom in the drawer and closing it, making it the dark environment it needs to dry in.