Here's Everything You Need To Start Screen Printing?

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[billyriordan]

I worked as a screen printer for several years, primarily printing shirts. We had a 6 color manual press. A few things I'd recommend to make things easier/better would be to coat both sides of the screens, use a vacuum bed to expose the screens for more crisp details, center the artwork further from the frame to make printing easier, use bullseye registration marks centered on the design, and pair your screen mesh with the type of ink you're using. Some inks are much thicker than others. For example, white ink made for polyester fabrics(designed to stop color bleed through) is VERY thick, and it's very difficult to push through a high mesh count screen. Ideally, you want to use the lowest count screen you can get the design to hold in with ink like that. Also, when washing out the high mesh screens, I liked to use the mist setting to wet both sides of the design and let them soak for a bit before washing out the details. It comes out much clearer that way.

[jordanrowlands]

I was a screen printer in a CD/DVD pressing plant for a few years. We used a 6 colour auto print press, but the screens we made by hand. A few tips to make your screens better.
1. When you emulsion the screen do two passes on the front, one on the back. All while it's wet. This gives you a nice thick coating for the film to expose on. It's worth it for image quality.
2. When you do the emulsion, make sure you do it with as little light on as possible - a dark room setting. If you do it with the lights on, that stuff is so light sensitive that it's curing while you're laying it on.
3. We used to dry our screens in a purpose built oven where they would be stacked in. The quicker you can dry them the less time the emulsion has to run, or go off.
4. The screen mesh, you can go for finer screens, we would 180 for all work and this was printing fine images onto CD's and DVDs. It'll be fine around that. The higher you go it doesn't really make that much difference especially on a t-shirt.
5. When you expose your screen to UV it's important that you use scotch tape as it can be removed and replaced over and over again and also the light will go through it easily. Stick it on all four corners of the image so it can't move. We used to then place it in a vacuum light box where the lid would pull a vacuum and hold the image on to the screen as close as possible. This is why you're getting images with feathered edges, because the light is creeping around the edges of the image.
6. When you wash the image out, use a powerful water jet, cold water and the emulsion should come off really easily and leave a nice sharp image behind.
7. Stick some silver tape around the inside of the screen so ink doesn't leak between the mesh and the frame and you can peel it off for a cleaner finish at the end.

Loving the T-shirts though - great work!

[jaeric]

Having the sponsor over the footage of you rinsing the screen was a good idea. It felt less like an interruption because we could still see you working on the project.

[glosoya]

I screen printed shirts for extra money in college. I had bought my own equipment and watched a lot of youtube videos to figure it all out. I really enjoyed the whole printing process. This video really brought back some memories.

[didhk]

i have to say you are the only channel whos sponsor-ads i dont just skip - you alwys pick interresting enough footage to overlay. sponsors, you need to pay this man more! he actually deserves it!

[hutduggler]

A lot of other people were commenting similar things but my advice is to coat both sides of the screen. when exposing, you can lay a piece of glass on top of the transparency to get a cleaner result. after exposing you can wet both sides of the screen to allow it to soak, helps wash out much easier.

For the actual printing, Tape up the edges of the screen so ink doesn't spill out. Most importantly you want to flood your design with the ink before you do your pass, just lightly coat the whole design before using any pressure, this ensures that even if you run low on ink you wont have a blank spot on your print media.

Hope this helps!

[Art_Murder]

13:09 don't use the palette knife to push the ink back to the top. What you want to do is elevate your screen slightly with a block or something on the opposite end from the hinges, then with the same 45-60 degree angle that you would pull as if you had paper, but with less pressure, you'll pre-wet your screen with ink. Then, remove the block and place your screen ontop of your paper. This time do the real pull. Lift up your screen, remove your paper, then pre-wet your image again, pulling the ink back to the other side of the screen (to the hinge side).
We do this for 2 reasons, 1 for a consistent amount of ink per pull, and 2 so that our screen doesn't dry and the little tiny holes don't get clogged.

[thehellezell]

I started screen printing back in my dorm room in the 90s, it was a gateway to learning about all kinds of stuff. Never tried to really make money with it but it was great for making t-shirts for bands I was in and art prints.

[drewstew]

Love the video! I would recommend spraying some kind of light tack spray adhesive on the board so the prints don't fly away or stick to the screen when you pull it up. For registration, you can also lay down a piece of mylar or a blank transparency on your board and tape the left edge. You can pull your first print on the mylar and then place your paper underneath to line it up. Then you can just pivot the mylar on the taped edge out of the way and pull the print. This is helpful when you want those lines to be precise. For a textured design like yours, I think the watercolor paper worked great. If you're trying for crisp lines, definitely go with a less porous paper like a bristol board. Hope this helps anyone else interested in jumping in.

[nivlacker]

My family has owned a screen print business for over 65 years running screen presses over 5’ x 12’ (Timsco Graphics). This was great to watch and see all the elements in play. A good screen printer is a true craftsmen. Stretching and coating a 5’x10’ screen can be rather tricky 😅

[ryanfiller]

Pro tip! You can use label maker labels on two sides for alignment, they're a little taller and have a more positive stop than the thinner painters tape.

[KazeKitsune]

Recommendations (my parents used to do this when I was little, and I remember a lot of it):

1. When rinsing the emulsion, take the time and use low pressure. Don't get impatient! Mom used to spend a long time making sure the screens were good.
2. Use masking tape/painter's tape along the inside edges of the screen. That ensures that ink won't go through unexpected places.
3. Make sure you size your screen properly to give plenty of room above and below the print for ink.
4. We used to draw the ink up (no real pressure) to cover the whole print first, then pull down (with pressure) to transfer the image, with our ink reserve toward the bottom. Not sure it matters, but that's what we did when we were printing clothing.

I remember the exposure taking a long time (like an hour or more), but that was 30 years ago.

[JoshWrightWoodworking]

Wow, those posters turned out so nice, especially for how little the set up cost. I need to try this! Thanks for the video!

[evilxone]

a sheet of thick glass over the acetate/transparency will help get a cleaner edge, with that in mind you will need some firm foam underneath the screen to make sure it all stays flat and level, with the weight of the glass on top. Also laying it out with the acetate ink side down so its as close to the emulsion as possible will help with that cleaner edge.

doing a layer of emulsion on either side of the screen will also help you not blow out as much when washing the excess emulsion off.

I'm a small screen printer, but all of those tips really helped me when I was just getting started as for me, wasting material with mistakes took time and money! no way claiming to be a pro, but these things worked for me!

[tendojoe]

14:38 If you want better looking registration without having to be as precise durning printing, you can add trapping to the design. It’s where you offset the paths of your text or graphics so there’s a small amount of overlap between different colors. And you can overprint colors like the two blues in that design.

[fearofchicke]

Great job with the sponsor spot. Learned about an antivirus while watching you struggle with the rinsing.
Now I know if I’m having trouble with the rinsing it’s just part of the process.

[msowdal]

Center the artwork, tape the frame off to aid cleanup, use a vacuum frame to expose the art, vacuum table to hold paper for prints, sand blaster adhesive for textiles, use real registration marks and better guide stops for registation. I operated a 54 x101 inch Argon (Italian) screen press for 4 color process in the 70's

[anchoredprints]

Truly grateful for your generosity in sharing your knowledge with the screenprinting community. Keep up the fantastic work!

[mglenadel]

The screen opening (it's "resolution") has an effect on the productivity of the printing: coarser screens tend to take longer for the ink to dry up between prints, so there's less of a chance of getting the screen clogged with dried-up ink (which would require you to clean the wet ink away, then try to dislodge the dried-up ink from the screen openings). Coarser screens are better for printing on t-shirts, as fabric already has a "resolution" built in (you can't get detail much smaller than the fabric's thread count anyway, so your screen doesn't have to be any finer).

[anthonywaggett]

I tried screen printing single colour in the past, 3 coulor always looked like it needed a huge rig. Cheers for this it makes the idea more realistic for a guy in a 1 bed apartment.