Screen Printing Blog

How To ScreenPrint T-Shirts Video

steve — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 08:51:52 +0000

Learning To Screen Print Your Own T-Shirts

Nice little video showing the basics for printing t-shirts. Some of these basics include:

Choosing a silk screen and where to get it
How to apply light sensitive emulsion
Light sources to burn the screen. (They show an exposure unit like the one I built) CLICK HERE
How to burn the screen
Washing out the screen
How to print the image on the t-shirt

As a bonus, the video will show you how to add LED lights and sounds to your t-shirt.

Check it out…

Vastex Screen Printing Art Class

steve — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 10:17:52 +0000

Vastex is holding a screen printing art class in Allentown, PA on April 10 and again on August 21, 2010
The class is Instructed by Douglas Grigar Industry Trainer & Master Screen Printer.

I have never been to a vastex class and cannot vouch for the training but I do use their equipment and have been happy with the company. I am thinking about maybe attending a class and thought I would pass along this information.

Steve

Some information below from Vastex:

“If you are a graphics professional or heavily involved in the art-to-positive graphics process, this full day art production workshop was designed for you.”
-Douglas Grigar

Class Outline…

- Reviewing vector drawing and Photoshop programs
- Basic positive and stencil needs
- Choosing the right positives and printer for your needs
- Understanding, Preparing, and printing color separations
- Printing positives and positives overview
- Dots and “halftones”
- Matching art to mesh and stencil
- Dealing with customer provided or outside art
- Screen printing limitations on graphics
- Art-to-print concepts and terminology (choke, trap, butt, what they are and when and how to use them)
- The effects of garment color on printed graphics and how to use that to your advantage
- Under-base or underlay colors
- Overview of four color process
- Overview of spot colors and “spot process/simulated process”
- Design tips for graphics on garments
- Effects of mesh and emulsion on printed graphics
- Open forum to answer session specific to art production

Want more info or need to register?
Call 1-800-4-VASTEX or Email Us

Price $195 per person
April 10 or August 21
9am-5pm (approx)
Location: Vastex Factory
1032 N. Irving St. Allentown, PA 18109
Laptops are welcome but not required.

Prerequisite: A basic working knowledge of vector drawing and photo- manipulation programs is necessary. I.E. Corel or Illustrator. With your own knowledge base to build upon, this workshop will help you understand the specific graphic needs for screen printing.
Need more details?…

We are hosting this class in response to the overwhelming demand we have received over the years for an advanced, technical class covering the process and demands of graphics production specific to the needs in the screen printing industry.

This graphics course goes into much greater detail than time can allow for in our full three-day screen printing class on art subjects. Douglas’ full day screen printing art production workshop expands upon the art needs information from our full three-day course by offering specific detail about art production for screen printing.

This workshop is a very casual round-table type of conversation on your needs with a projected computer screen review of specific issues and direct action to question review of steps and tips for art production. Students are encouraged to ask Douglas detailed, technical questions. Feel free to bring your art questions to the class in order to take full advantage of this workshop. This subject requires open dialogue between the students and instructor and any questions enhance the entire classroom experience.

Over the last decade Vastex has hosted screen printing education expert and technical authority, Douglas Grigar. Douglas’ career in art production started well over 25 years ago and he has combined his art production experience with his screen printing production experience to become the most trusted and popular printer’s advocate in the industry.

How Long Do I Expose My Screen For?

steve — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:36:03 +0000

This is a question I get a lot. Any my answer is, That depends. Many things factor into the equation of how long to expose the screen for like, screen mesh, type and age of emulsion, type of lamps in the exposure unit, how old that lamps are, and the list goes on. So what to do? You need to do a step wedge test. A step wedge test is basicaly exposing the screen for a few different times and seeing which time produced the best image on wash out. There are a few ways to do this test. The expensive way is to buy a test strip for $30 bucks which is a piece of transparency that has a gradient of darker shades. The benefit of this test is you only have to expose once and the strip lets different levels of light hit the screen.

The cheap way to do a test wedge. Take construction paper and do 4-5 different exposures. Move the paper to expose more of the image each time. At the end you will have 4-5 different exposure times. Just pick the one that washes out the best and there ya go.

10 Tips For Applying Emulsion On A Screen

steve — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 22:53:10 +0000

When you grab your scoop coater your mission is to create a gasket in which ink will pass through the screen and create a clean crisp image on your t-shirt. many people over look the basics and the output shows it. The reason we coat the screen is two fold. Number one is we want to create a coating that will block the ink so it doesn’t go through where we don’t want it to. Second, we want to have crisp lines around the art work.

A lot of screen printers don’t follow the basics and create allot of grief for themselves including pin holes and emulsion breaking down during the print run. Sure, they are coating screens and getting by but, they could be producing better screens in a much more efficient way. I have put together 10 points to remember when coating your screens for screen printing.

Make sure you are using the right screen for the type of ink you are using and the item you are printing on.
The screen tension is tight. Tight screens will give you better prints and constancy.
Degrease the screens with “Simple Green” or a similar degreaser.
make sure the screen is completely dry prior to coating.
Mix your emulsion 2 hours prior to coating you screen. This will let air bubbles bleed out so you don’t get pin holes.
Use the sharp edge of your scoop coater.
Coat the t-shirt side of the screen first and then the squeegee side.
Do one coat on each side. Some people have other methods which involve more coats but this is what I do.
Dry your screen t-shirt side down.
make sure your screen is completely dry before you start printing.

I hope these tips help. I didn’t go into much detail here but I may break them out in more detail in future posts.

as always, if you don’t have the book “How to Print T-Shirts for Fun and Profit! By: Scott Fresener” you should pick it up.

Have Fun..

Steve