Archive for June, 2008
Saturday, June 28th, 2008
I didn't know it until recently, but placing multiple designs on one screen is called "ganging a screen."
It's perfectly okay to burn two (or more) designs into one screen. This will save you time and money. You save on emulsion and emulsion remover, and you are burning one screen instead ...
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Thursday, June 26th, 2008
Proper burn time for screens is key. If you burn too long, you may have trouble washing out the design and/or reclaiming the screen. If you burn too short, when you are washing out the screen the emulsion may fail. If you burn long enough to avoid the emulsion ...
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Wednesday, June 25th, 2008
A good press can cost you $5000. A good exposure unit can cost you $1500. A good wash out hose can cost you $35. Let's talk about cheap and useful stuff related to screen printing.
Wash out hose. These will set you back maybe $35 to $45. I got ...
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Tuesday, June 24th, 2008
One of waterbased ink's biggest downsides, perhaps the biggest downside, is the fact that it will clog in a screen. WB ink air dries, and if you're not careful, it will go ahead and start to air dry while it's in your screen. (And I say it will air ...
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Monday, June 23rd, 2008
Static frames, those that come with mesh that is already stretched and glued and cannot be replaced, either come as wooden frames or as aluminum frames.
Wood frames are cheaper, and a lot of newer and hobbyist printers use them. They will warp over time, and not lay flat. If ...
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Saturday, June 21st, 2008
How far down should the design be from the collar of the t-shirt? Generally, the industry standard is four fingers down. That seems a little arbitrary, as surely different screen printers have different size hands, and therefor there will be a little difference between Big Jim's four finger width and ...
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Friday, June 20th, 2008
I'll be the first to admit: when I started screen printing I didn't know anything. I was taught the very basics. Place the screen on the shirt, pull the squeegee, lift up the screen. I started on an ironing board and did about 30 shirts for my noise band. I ...
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Wednesday, June 18th, 2008
It looks like I'm going to be doing some printing for an organic clothing line. The first thing I'm doing is printing sheets of silk to make hang tags.
It wasn't much different than printing cotton. There is a lot of detail, and I wasn't sure if silk would be more ...
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Tuesday, June 17th, 2008
Off-contact is the distance between the bottom of the screen and the shirt (or other printed item).
Less off-contact is used for non-opaque colors. Less off-contact also prevents bleeding, as it's harder to force too much ink, which will seep around the edges on the bottom of the stencil, so ...
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Sunday, June 15th, 2008
I've only pigmented discharge a few times at a customer's request. I've done it more for my own printing, a situation where if I don't get the exact color I was aiming for, I just accept it usually.
This week a customer wanted American Apparel 2001 Forest Green shirts discharged ...
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