www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 2 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. by Michelle SaintOnge for printcutsew.com printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 2 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Welcome to printcutsews guide to Screen Printing: The Cheap and Easy Way. This guide is everything you need to know to get started screen printing without an expensive set-up and costly material investments. This is the guide I wished was around when I started my screen printing business seven years ago. It would have saved me thousands of dollars and gotten my business off the ground much faster. So, I decided to share everything I have learned about the screen printing business with you so you can learn this great craft and get started building your own income right now for less than $50.00! Table of Contents 1. Introduction 2. Getting Started 3. The Printing Screen 4. Making Your Own Screen 5. Stencil Types and Techniques 6. Making a Film Positive 7. Shooting a Screen 8. Washing Out A Screen 9. How to Register a Print 10. Printing Inks 11. One and MultI Colour Printing 12. Printing Paper 13. Printing Fabric 14. Printing T-Shirts 15. CMYK Printing 16. Heat Setting Your Work 17. Reclaiming Your Screen 18. Appendix A: terms and definitions 19. Appendix B: materials sourcing Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 11 Page 17 Page 23 Page 27 Page 28 Page 36 Page 40 Page 41 Page 45 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 54 Page 54 printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 3 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use.
Silkscreening is a printing technique thats hundreds of years old yet still mystifies lots of people. The truth is, with just a few simple rules, tools and some practice even the most novice of designers can be printing professional quality prints in no time. Its arguably the most versatile of all printing processes. You can print onto almost any surface; fabric, paper, metal, ceramic, wood, leather, walls- you can let your imagination run wild. Its really exciting to be a silkscreen printer and so I'm happy to share everything I know about it with you! Its easy to get started printing; all you need is some basic equipment, a design, a few supplies and a bit of instruction. Introduction printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 4 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Getting Started The first things you need to get are the supplies and equipment for printing. Dont let this step intimidate you, the supplies are readily available and Ill tell where and what to ask for when you have to source some of it outside your home. And Ill show you how to make or build your own if its possible. For those of you who would like get all your supplies at once, Blick Art Materials makes a great screen printing kit if you want to order all your supplies at once. If you want to build your own screen print kit heres what youll need: A printing screen A light source for exposing the screen (task light and a 150-250 watt photo flood bulb or the sun!) A table to print on- the printing surface differs if you print onto fabric or onto paper. You'll need a flat smooth table for paper printing and one with some felt padding for fabric printing. A piece of glass to fit the inside dimension of your screen less 1/2 or photo spray adhesive A film positive (made from your artwork) Silk screen inks (I recommend Permaset Fabric Inks) Scoop coater Rubber gloves Dishwashing soap Photo emulsion or other stencil system A water source with a garden hose attachment or a sprayer attachment and a sink or tub large enough to wash out your screen A rubber spatula A squeegee Black bristol board, or black cloth or black felt A timer Masking Tape Optional fan (not heated) photo emulsion remover (to clean your screen of an old stencil and start over) printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 5 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. The Printing Screen You need to have a screen printing frame. This is the foundation of all the work you will do in the future whether you use paper cut-out stencils, found objects, drawing fluids or photo-sensitive emulsion stencils- you still need to attach the stencil to a frame. The screen print frame allows you to apply ink or any other suitable liquid to the surface smoothly and evenly- thats what makes it look so professional. You can buy a screen print frame often at a craft or art supply store or you can see if there is a sign and graphics supply store in your area; they will sell screen print frames as well. But you dont have to buy a frame. You can make one yourself and its not that hard at all. I have built many frames using just curtain sheer fabric and old picture frames Ive bought at a local Salvation Army. (I even showed Martha Stewart how to build one on her show). Or if youre handy with a saw you can build one from wood with scratch. (Tutorials for both these options are in Chapter 3) Personally, I would buy one, they arent expensive ($25- 45$) and theyll save you lots of time. Blick Art Materials has some screen print frames online you can buy and have delivered to your house! No matter where you buy your screen, online or at your local screen printing supply store or even at your local arts and craft store, there are a few things you need to look for when you are searching out a screen that will be right for the project you wish to undertake. The screen size: Likely youll start out with a small screen that is ideal for t-shirt making and other small projects, approximately 20x24 (outside dimensions). If youre going to buy a large screen (over 24x24) youll want to make sure the frame is at least 1.5- 2 thick around otherwise it will warp too easily. The screen mesh: Different mesh sizes are used for different applications in the screen printing process. If you plan on printing on fabric I would recommend a 110 mesh count and if you are working with paper you could start with 160 mesh count. Try to buy a screen with white monofilament polyester mesh (this is generally standard with most pre-made screens). If you are going to make your own screen with curtain sheers the thread count should not be too low, in other words the weave of the sheer should be fairly tight. The Frame Type: Youll want to purchase either a wood screen frame or an aluminum frame. I use aluminum frames which are more stable and wont warp like wood frames- If you buy large frames they should be stored flat. Larger frames will not maintain their straight edges either if they are stored upright instead of horizontally. printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 6 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Making Your Own Screen Option #1: Old Picture Frame + Curtain Sheers= Your Very Own Screen Print Frame! You can build your very own silkscreen printing frame with just a few simple items from your own home. I have built a lot of frames this way. It will cost you less than $5.00 for all your materials! Here's what you'll need to get started. 1. a picture frame with the glass and backing removed 2. old curtain sheers 3. utility duct tape or solvent resistant tape for silkscreening 4. acrylic varnish sealer and paint brush an electric staple gun Step 1- Find a picture frame It needs to be sturdy without any wobble to it. Step 2- Remove hardware from the back of the frame If there is any hardware on the back of the frame remove it now and sand off any raised or rough bits so that back of the frame sits nicely on a at surface. Step 3- Cut Curtain Sheers Pick out an old pair of curtain sheers or buy a small bit of new sheers from the fabric store. You should make certain that the sheers do not have too much of an open weave. Then trim the sheer so that it is about 2-3 inches larger than the frame!s outside dimensions. You can buy the curtain sheers at fabric.com (up to 70% off retail.) printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 7 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Step 4- Stapling the Fabric to the Screen You are going to want to use an electric staple gun or a power assist staple gun- a manual stapler is just too difcult to use while holding down your sheer fabric. And it!s a good idea that you use one that has a safety built in so you don!t accidentally staple your ngers! The size of staple that I use is 3/8. I don!t recommend anything longer than that because if you make a mistake they are too hard to get back out. You might even try a 1/4 staple. And for goodness sake don!t forget to use safety goggles! Step 5- How to properly staple your sheers to the frame Turn over your frame so the front is on a at surface. I like to put down a non-slip mat too. Lay your sheer piece on top of it so it looks fairly square. Put in your rst staple- it should be placed in the center of the frame bar and about 1/3 from the outside edge. (too close to the inside or the outside edge you risk stapling off a whole chunk of frame!) Your second staple should go directly across from your rst and you should pull the sheer enough so that you can!t pull it much more- but not so much that your sheer starts to rip on the other side. This step may take some practice- but I promise you!ll get better at knowing how much is too much or too little the more you do this. Essentially you are going to want a screen that is rm to the touch where you could rest something light on it without the sheer dipping. Follow the same steps until each of the four sides is completed. Make sure that you have kept the grain of the fabric fairly straight (I have only done a so-so job on that as you can see). The straighter the fabric the better your results in the end. printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 8 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Now staple the corners. Again, keeping the fabric pulled tightly and in this case towards the corner. Do each subsequent corner- always stapling the opposite side from the staple you just nished. Make certain to keep the fabric from being pulled too much to one side or the other. Now ll in between those staples, pulling the fabric tightly until the staples are only about 1/4 apart. The number of total staples will depend on the size of your frame. If you have some staples that are a bit raised from the frame it!s a good idea to hammer then down gently to make them ush with the edge. printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 9 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Step 6- Sealing the frame and sheers This great acrylic varnish sealer is sold at most craft and art stores. We!ll use it to keep ink and water from getting under the staples when printing and washing. Paint it on and cover the entire edge of the frame. Be mindful not to get any onto the printing area of your screen- it will act as a resist for the inks and you may have to redo your screen. If you do get some on your printing area you can try to wash it off right away with some soap and water- since it!s a water-based varnish. If that happens let you screen dry completely and then nish the sealing. Once you nish let the frame dry for at least 30 minutes. Step 7- Taping off the frame Now you want to tape off the underside of the frame- which is often referred to as the substrate side. The tape will help to keep ink from squishing out onto your work as you print and will also act as a way of protecting your work from the staples and raw edges of the fabric which become hard with the sealant. I like to put the tape on so that the corners meet and I can trim the excess off and have a neat and tidy frame. Step 8- LAST STEP! Wash the frame You are almost nished. You just need to wash the fabric of your screen. This will ensure that any sizing, detergents or fabric softener is washed away; they can really interfere with your printing projects. I just use dish soap. Once you are nished you can let your screen dry and then it!s ready for your silkscreen printing projects! printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 10 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Making Your Own Screen Option #2: Get Handy! Make you Own Screen Print Frame for $10.00. To make your own screen print frame from scratch you'll first need wood- hardwood is the best option. You should use wood at least 1 inch thick, and about 1 1/2 inches wide with no major knots and it should be very straight without warps or bows. Cut the pieces to the size of the frame you want to make. If you want a 22! x 18! frame, cut two pieces to 22! long, and two pieces to 18! long. Now you want to make the half-lap joints. Using a table saw or a router table, set the cutting height to half the thickness of the wood. If the wood is 1! thick, set the cutting height to 1/2!. Now set the fence on your table saw to cut to the width of the wood. If the wood you are using 1 1/2! wide, set the fence to 1 1/2!. Now lay one of the boards with the end against the fence. Make repeated cuts in the board until you have completely cut away the wood 1/2! deep from 1 1/2! in to to the end of the board. Flip the board around, and do the same thing on the other end of the board on the same side. Do this with all of the boards. Using a square, make sure the pieces are square. Clamp the pieces together using one or two c-clamps. Put together the rest of the the frame in the same way. Put the frame aside for the glue to cure. Later when the glue has cured, remove the clamps. Clean up the joints with some sandpaper if needed. Then follow steps 3-8 in Making Your Own Screen Option #1. You can use monofilament polyester mesh for screen print frames instead of the curtain sheers. That mesh can be bought at a sign and graphics supply store or you can buy the screen mesh online. printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 11 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Stencil Types and Techniques In order to screen print your image onto anything you need to create a stencil of your image that will be afxed to your frame. You can make that stencil a lot of different ways. They all have their own benets and advantages and I!ll explain a few of them here from the most simple to the most advanced techniques. Paper Cut Stencils This happens to be one of my favorite ways to make a stencil. Simply cutting paper into shapes and sticking the paper to the screen print frame couldn!t be easier. It can as simple or as complicated as you wish. The thing to remember when you are making a paper stencil is that you ideally want the stencil to be one piece. Of course you can stick multiple pieces onto the screen with double sided tape but you!ll make your job harder and increase your #oops factor! with the number of pieces your stencil is in. *One of the best things you can do if you are interested in making paper stencils that you can reuse is to cut them out of map making paper. This paper allows you to wash and dry your stencil so you can use it over and over again. I cut mine from this paper and store my stencils in plastic sleeves to reuse them another time.* A short list of the kinds of screen print stencils might include: Paper cut stencil Found object stencil Drawing uid and block out emulsion Direct stencil with photographic emulsion My top three tips for making a successful paper cut stencil are: 1. Use tools like hole punches and stamp punches to create details that would otherwise be too hard to cut by hand. 2. Place scotch tape over small delicate sections of the stencil to add reinforcement. 3. Cut out all the small delicate parts of your stencil rst then the larger pieces. printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 12 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Here!s an example of a very simple paper stencil I made to make a broccolI shaped hangtag for a handbag I use to take to the market. It!s made with two over-lapping colours and I used a 1/16th hole punch and a 1/4 hole punch to create the top edge of the broccoli. I have made other more complicated stencils. Like my stencil called Do Not Disturb that can be downloaded on my site for your personal use. It!s the stencil I used to create the t- shirts for Martha Stewart's French bulldogs and as the silkscreen demo on her show. If you are going to cut out detailed stencils like this then I would denitely use a reusable paper such as National Geographic Adventure Paper. printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 13 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Found Object Stencils Equally as fun as paper stencils and maybe even easier are #found object! stencils. Simply put, this technique involves taking objects and taping or spray adhering them to the screen and printing. The objects act as a resist to the ink and creates the pattern or shape. I often use doilies or lace as found objects and I have written a complete DIY tutorial on printcutsew.com on the subject. Tips for Great Found Object Printing Use objects that are relatively thin and at, bulky objects won!t allow the ink to pass over smoothly. Layer objects with different patterns to produce unique results. If you want to reuse your object but it is very porous and would break down when washed then spray it rst with a sealant or varnish to make it more water resistant. printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 14 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Drawing Fluid Stencils with Screen Filler Drawing uid is a 2 part process that doesn!t involve any special equipment but still creates a semI permanent stencil that can used over and over again. You don!t necessarily need to be a great painter but some skill here helps as you will be painting your image directly onto the screen with the uid. Materials Needed: A silk screen Drawing Fluid Screen Filler Squeegee Thin Brush Gloves Newspaper or craft paper First thing you!ll do is paint the drawing uid on all areas you want to print and let them dry completely. I have put a few pieces of cardboard under the corners of my screen so that it is elevated off the print surface. This gives me some room to place the image I want to silkscreen underneath. You can, of course, paint the uid on free-hand but I would like to stay as close to my original drawing as possible. Since I am going to do a two colour print I will have to do two separate drawings with the uid. Luckily, I have enough space on my screen to t them both. printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 15 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. You!ll then pour a bead of the ller across the top of the screen (which is still elevated off the print table) and with a squeegee you!ll pull the ller across the screen- that way it!s an even and smooth application. Once you nish your rst drawing with the uid you can slide the image underneath to the other area of the screen and then complete your second colour for the image. Nice thing is if you don!t like your design you can just wash it out and start again when your screen has dried. So there!s no pressure to get it right the rst time. You!ll want to wait until your screen ller has dried completely before you wash out the drawing uid. printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 16 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Once dry, spray cold water onto the top of the screen to wash out the areas covered by drawing uid. Let the screen dry completely again and then hold it up to a window or light. This will allow you to check for any small holes that weren!t covered with the ller. I simply paint on the ller with a small brush. Once your touch-ups are dry you can tape off one of your drawings and get ready to print the other. printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 17 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Direct Stencil Method Using Photosensitive Emulsion The direct stencil method is what most professional printers will use. It!s a semI permanent stencil that has very few limitations for the types of images it can reproduce as a stencil. It!s use of photosensitive emulsion allows even the smallest of dots to expose. With this type of stencil you can create an image that has large open ares of colour or small micro dots that give the illusion of shading and gradients. Your artwork needs to be transformed into a lm positive which is used in the direct stencil method to re-create a replica of your artwork on the screen. The lm positive represents one colour layer of your image and is usually on a piece of transparency lm. Therefore, for each colour in your design, a separate positive will need to be made. You can create the positive by computer or by hand. There are four main steps involved in making a stencil with this method. Turning your artwork into the lm positive Coating Your Screen Exposing your screen Washing Out Your Screen 1. Artwork to Film Positive printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 18 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Making a Positive by Computer If you are designing your image on the computer then you should keep each colour you use on a separate layer. To print out a lm positive, turn on the layer you wish to print and select all elements on that layer, adjust the hue saturation values so that what you have selected is completely opaque and black. Now print that layer onto transparency paper for your printer type. Make certain to use a high quality setting so that the black prints out opaque. Continue this way with all subsequent layers of colours, if you have any. It!s a great idea to print registration marks with each page. It will help you greatly when it comes time to matching up the colours when printing. Making a Positive by Hand You have a wide variety of options when you make your positive by hand. But the same rule remains; you need to produce a separate positive for each layer of colour in your print. You can photocopy each colour layer onto transparency paper or draw each color onto transparency paper with an opaque black marker. It!s also possible to paint each colour layer with black acrylic ink, cut the image out of masking lm, rub dry transfer lettering or even cut the image out of heavy card-stock or cardboard. If you are making a multicolor print then it!s a good idea to use a registration mark- either drawn by you or one that you purchase on each transparency to match up each of the layers. Regardless of what technique you use, your film positive should be on translucent or transparent paper/ film (vellum, mylar, transparency paper) and the image should be opaque. When you hold your film positive up to the light, the light should pass through (or mostly) the clear areas of the positive and none should pass through the black areas. When this image is used to expose your screen the black areas will absorb the light from your exposure unit and the clear areas will let the light pass through effectively hardening the photosensitive emulsion where it is clear. Computer print-out positives on paper Using opaque markers to draw a positive printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 19 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. The next step in the direct stencil method is coating your screen with the photosensitive emulsion. You need to properly do a few things here to make the rest of the process go smoothly. 2. Coating Your Screen Step 1 In a dark room mix the sensitizer into the emulsion as per the directions to activate it. Let it sit in a cool dark room for at least two hours with the lid closed. You!ll want to use a dual cure emulsion which works well with both solvent inks and water-based inks. Also, mix this in a well ventilated area of your house. The safety instructions do no indicate you have to wear a vapor mask when using it but if you are sensitive to odors then I would advise you to wear one. Step 2 Set up your screen, make sure it's clean and completely dry. Lean your screen against a wall and put a piece of 2x4 behind it on the ground. this will keep the screen at an angle and it will keep it from moving as you press the scoop coater against it. Troubleshooting Tip For Screen Coating: If you have a lot of pin-holes in your screen once it!s been exposed- there may have been air bubbles in the emulsion when you coated it. Let your emulsion sit for two hours undisturbed with the lid on and then retry on a clean screen. Do not over mix the emulsion- just gently stir it before pouring. printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 20 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Step 3 Pour the emulsion into the scoop coater. Fill the scoop coater 3/4 full. If you!re scoop coater has two different edges to it then use the side with the sharper edge. Your emulsion will go on thinner- which is better for most cases. Step 4 Hold the scoop coater from the bottom centered, making sure that it is level so that the emulsion does not run out from the sides of each end. Firmly push into the screen and angle the scoop at against the screen, press against the screen and pull upward to the top and end your stroke by quickly angling the scoop coater back to the centered position. Step 5 Turn the screen to the inside (where the ink goes) and turn it upside down. Repeat coating this side of the screen. (tip: If you coat your screens too thick they may not wash out. This can be tricky because it mimics over exposure, when in fact the emulsion is just too thick and is really under exposed, parts of the image may wash out and ner parts may not rinse out altogether. So, rule of thumb is one coat for each side.) And often I will run the scoop coater over each side without angling it so it actually will skim off excess emulsion. printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 21 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. 6. Lay your screen flat to dry with the ink side of the screen facing up. Put some sort of spacer under each of the corners of the screen to keep the bottom of the screen off the floor if you don't have a drying rack. (I use bottle caps or slim pieces of wood). Turn off the safety light and let your screen dry in complete darkness. It is important that its not hot in the room where you dry your screen- that can cause problems with exposing your screen later. You can use a fan to dry your screens more quickly but again use a fan without heat. 7. Your screen is dry when the emulsion is no longer tacky. 3. Exposing Your Screens There are a few different ways you can expose your direct emulsion stencil and they all have their benefits and drawbacks. You can build your own exposure unit or you can buy one. Each type involves varying levels of time and difficulty. Using sunshine costs nothing but is unreliable and buying one obviously requires money but can be more reliable and give you more flexibility. If you have time and less money you can make one for very little and in my experience have high quality stencils nonetheless. Owning both a $10,000.00 unit and a $30.00 homemade unit I can say that I am pleasantly surprised (and to my dismay) to see my homemade version expose screens just as well as my expensive larger unit. Of course my larger unit exposes my very large screens and can achieve a very high quality stencil with intricate images but its also so big it needs a room of its own and my $30.00 unit is portable and I can use it almost anywhere. Top Down Light Sources Outdoor Sun- The fastest and Easiest Task lamps- Cheap and Easy to Set-up Bottom Up Light Sources Bank of UV Fluorescent lights Single Point light Source Types of Exposure Light Sources printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 22 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. If your exposure light source comes from the top then youll place the film positive on the print side of the screen. If the light comes from the bottom, place the film positive on the substrate side of the screen and place it on backwards. I also strongly advise you take the time to run a test for the right exposure time for your light source and your emulsion. Each one is different. Heres a great way to test which time will work best for you. Print a transparency with numbers from 10 to 90 in increments of 5. With the light set up, place the screen under the light to be exposed. After 10 minutes, cover the 5 with an opaque piece of paper. After another 10 minutes passes, cover the 10. Do this until all of the numbers are covered. Then wash out the screen. The lowest numbers that are distinctly printed will give you your correct exposure time. If your image is not exposing properly here are some quick troubleshooting checks: Emulsion wont wash out: emulsion is too old film positive was not opaque screen was exposed to light before exposing emulsion was too think Image washes away: emulsion is underexposed screen was not properly washed and dried prior to coating image and screen are too far away from the light source Lines of the image are blurry: contact between film positive and screen not sufficient film positive not opaque enough You also need to take care to attach your lm positive properly to your screen. As a general rule you would want to make certain that your image is centered with 2-3 inches of space from the bottom of your image to the bottom inside edge of the screen. We call this area #the well. Use a clear tape to attach it- anything else will impede that area of exposing. printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 23 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Exposing With the Outdoor Sunshine. Top Down Light Sources Using the sun is a very fast and easy way to expose your screens. All you need to do is to prepare your screen in your dark room by placing the screen on top of a piece of black foam core board then place the film positive on the print side of the screen and laying a piece of glass that fits within the inside dimensions of your screen overtop. The black board underneath absorbs any light that passes through the screen so that it does not bounce and create a blurred line and shadow on the underside of the screen. You need to test out how long the sun will take to expose your screens. Since its the UV light that exposes your screen not the actual sunshine you can expose even on a cloudy day. Generally mid-day sun takes only 60-90 seconds to expose a screen, but that may change with the time of year and amount of cloud cover. Top down light source = black cloth<screen<film positive<glass<light source Exposing With Task Lamps Ta s k l a mp s a r e a n o t h e r inexpensive way to expose your screens. I have used a 75Watt fluorescent flood reflector bulb that I bought at a home hardware store. It was more expensive than the average bulb but it uses only the equivalent of a 20Watt bulb so its a greener choice and its $12. 00 pr i c e t ag i s v er y affordable. The bulb is fitted into a $15.00 desk lamp and attaches to a black table top. printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 24 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. I use two lamps but one would suffice if your screen was smaller than 21x23. Since mine is slightly larger I need to evenly expose all areas and two bulbs is the best way to do that. You want to position the light high enough that the whole frame gets equally exposed, probably about 12-15. Once you have the light and placement figured out youll want to figure out some rough times. For a 150W clear incandescent bulb the following times might apply: Screen size, bulb height, exposure time 8"10, 12 inches, 45 minutes 10"14, 12 inches, 45 minutes 12"18, 15 inches, 74 minutes 16"20, 17 inches, 92 minutes 18"20, 17 inches, 92 minutes The higher the bulb is above the screen, the longer it needs to be exposed. If the wattage of the bulb is lower, you need to exposure it longer. I generally need to expose my screens for 75 minutes. Its a very long time compared to the sun or my metal halide light but I manage by planning my exposures so that I do other work until its finished. Exposing With A Bank Of Fluorescent Bulbs Bottom Up Light Sources Bottom up light source = light source<film positive<screen<glass<cover Exposing with a bank of fluorescent bulbs is another way to expose your screens. You can buy an exposure unit like this or you can make one. The benefit is that you can make a very large unit just by increasing the number of bulbs and the size of the glass. This type of exposure unit is available in many sizes and in many different brands and is fairly affordable. But you can make your own as well. printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 25 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Youre dimensions will depend on what size lights you can buy and how big your exposure unit needs to be. Once you determine your dimensions, you can build the box from 2x4 lengths of wood for the sides and plywood for the bottom. You should be able to set the lights down inside the box. Remember to drill a hole in the side of the box for your wiring or cords. Have a pane of glass made the same size as the top of your box- tempered glass is best and then get some sort of black cover, foam core, felt or painted board to put over top. Your top cover will have to be weighted down to achieve close contact with your image. You will want to buy 40 watt black light bulbs, these bulbs look just like regular fluorescent, but do not have the 'visible light' filters that make black lights that deep violet color. Sometimes they are carried at home building stores or at lighting supply stores. You can likely buy the fixtures for the bulbs at the same store. If you are not handy at electrical wiring I recommend you buy fixtures that you can plug into a wall socket. The drawback with fluorescent exposure units is that the lamps tend to scatter the light in all directions and can produce undercutting of the image, which will destroy fine lines and other details. They may, however, be fine for large images such as signs and athletic lettering or big graphic details. printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 26 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Single Point Light Source- Metal Halide Light A single source metal halide light is the cadillac of exposure units. It uses a single 1000watt metal halide bulb to cast a shadow from your film positive onto your screen to create the image; a heavy rubber blanket is vacuum suctioned to your screen to eliminate any light bounce that could happen. These machines are known for precise exposures and short exposure times but their price tag is often $4,000-$15,000 although they tend to last for 20-30 years. I bought mine when I started my business but now since I have moved to a new studio its too big and wont fit through my door- it sits in storage. Thats how I came to build my own smaller unit which works really well. If I had known I could get great results with a homemade unit when I started I would have skipped spending thousands on this unit. printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 27 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Continue to rinse on one side only, the side that had been directly exposed to the light source, until all the image has been removed. You can hold your screen up to the light to see if there is any emulsion remaining in the image area. Its not necessary but some people wish to do this, you can turn your screen around and quickly wash the opposite side of the screen. Once all the emulsion is removed set your screen aside to dry completely. *If you have small spots of emulsion that are hard to remove you can use the pad of your finger to rub them a bit while you are spraying. This friction is generally enough to help remove stubborn spots. Immediately after you have finished exposing your screens you should bring your screen to your wash out area and remove the film positive from the screen. You will notice that there will be a slight change in the colour of the emulsion where it has hardened. With warm water rinse quickly each side of your screen and let it sit for 30 seconds. Youll notice that the emulsion starts to soften and fall away from the screen. This will soften up the image areas that were not exposed. Next, use a sprayer attachment from your shower head, sink, garden hose or pressure washer to gently washout the image emulsion on the side that was facing the light source. Concentrate spraying the areas where the image is. Washing Out Your Newly Exposed Screens If you use a pressure washer you must use it on the least powerful setting- less than 650psI otherwise you risk removing parts of the stencil that you shouldnt, and use it on the widest spray setting available. printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 28 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Once dry, you should check your screen for pin-holes. These are tiny 1 mm. holes the size of a pin head that will allow small specs of ink to pass through them when printing. You can check your screen by holding it over a light table or by holding it up to a window or light source. If there are any, then you can take some emulsion and a small paint brush and paint in the hole. You can do this in fully lit conditions since you want the emulsion to harden anyhow. Let the spots dry once again and expose your screen for at least 1/4 of the full exposure time to harden the small spots or leave your screen in the sun for 2 minutes. Print Registration Print registration happens at two levels; at the image level and the print surface level. And it could quite easily be the least enjoyable part of the entire printing process. Well, I think so. But its more important than anything else you do when printing and if you can do it well, then the entire process will be easier- much much easier. Print registration for fabric and paper are two different techniques. Registration for paper is much simpler, mostly because paper is printed with the screen staying in the same place and the newly printed paper being moved in and out while fabric is pinned or adhered to a table and the screen is moved. Also, fabric printing on a table usually involves a repeating pattern that must seamlessly fit together when its done- this can only be achieved my proper registration. Print Registration for Paper Check for Pin-Holes printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 29 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Your screen should be secured into hinge clamps that are attached to your print surface. The screen is not removed from these clamps until you have printed your entire run of prints. Paper Registration Step 1 Paper Registration Step 2 Lay a large piece of clear acetate on your print surface and tape it securely into place with masking tape on one side only so it can be flipped out of the way. Paper Registration Step 3 With your screen lowered onto the acetate print one pass of your image. This image on the acetate now lets you know where your screen will print each time. printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 30 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Paper Registration Step 4 Slide a piece of the paper you will be printing underneath the acetate until the paper is in the position you want it to be. Then flip the acetate out of the way of your printing. Paper Registration Step 5 Take two pieces of masking tape and line them up with the bottom of the paper and the side of the paper- these are your registration tabs. When you remove the paper to print the next piece you will line up the same edge with your tape and thats how your image prints consistently in the same place with each piece of paper. If your print has multiple colours then youll follow the same technique to print the second colour and so on. When your first colour is printed, remove the paper print and flip the acetate back onto the print surface. Wash off the first colour and place the second screen into the hinge clamps and print the second colour. Now youll line up one of your printed pieces underneath the acetate and move it until t he col ours l i ne up. Then move your registration tabs so they line up with the new position for the paper. Paper Registration Step 6 printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 31 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Print Registration for Fabric and Repeating Patterns Print registration for fabric is crucial. And you need to do two registrations; once with your image on the screen before you expose it then a second calculation for the screens on the table when you are about the print. The reason for this is because printing fabric on a long table, printing a repeating pattern, involves printing every second print and then waiting for the first series to dry then printing the in between prints to fill in the entire fabric with a seamless print. If you didnt do it this way and printed every successive print, the frame of the screen would mark up the wet ink on the print before it- effectively ruining your print. So if you wanted to print a long repeating pattern of hearts, like in this example, you would design your film positive so that each screen fits with the next like a puzzle piece. You would never want to make a repeat that fit with the next with a straight edge. While this may be more simple, if you are off in your registration by even the slightest amount it will be glaringly obvious when its all printed. Having pieces fit like a puzzle will make registration mistakes less noticeable. printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 32 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Fabric Registration Step 1 Your first step in proper registration for fabric starts when you make your film positives. You need to include a registration mark or a crop mark that is in the same place on every colour separation for your print; so that when you place your film positives on top of one another all the registration marks will line up. Youll use these marks to register your screens later- so you need to be confident that they will align when printed on top of one another. You need to have at least three registration points on your film positive. A registration dot usually is a circle with an x inside it. You can draw one or they can be bought (but are hard to find) or your can print them out from a computer. Generally you can find them in your work processors character palette (where you would find symbols and accented letters). Fabric Registration Step 2 Once you have developed your film positive with the registration marks then youll place your film positive on the surface where you will shoot your screens or you can place the film positive directly on your unexposed screens and register it there (work under a safe light though). You make a measurement from a single point to see how far the registration mark is from that (I use the edge of the table- or the edge of the screen) and record that. Then take a second measurement of how far away you second point is (I try to make them the same distance from the edge) and youll record that. Tape your positive in place. Use these same measurements for each positive- that way youll know they are all on the exactly same spot for each screen. printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 33 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Its a good idea to record on paper what your measurements are as well. If you registered your film positive on your print surface you will also have to record where your screen is when you placed it on top of the film positive so you can place the next screens in the same place. I use tape to mark the screen position. Fabric Registration Step 3 Now that you have exposed your screens and are relatively sure that each image has been properly registered you can set up your table registration. You are going to make certain two things: that the images will print straight and that the repeat distance is properly measured out. Since you first print only repeat 1, 3, 5 and so on you will have to make sure that you leave the right amount of space in between for repeat 2, 4, 6 and so on. printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 34 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Once you have pinned or adhered your fabric to your print table you will want to use a T- bar to mark the registration points along the tables edge. Fabric Registration Step 4 A T-bar is a tool which you can make yourself that you will slide along your table to each registration point. Your screen will lay flush with its edges so the screen stays consistently straight along the entire table. To make a T-bar, all you need is two pieces of very straight 2x4 pine. Attach them as you see in this image so that one piece fits flush with the side edge of the table and the other spans to width of the table. Put a handle on it so its easy to lift and move to the next registration position. printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 35 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Measure the repeat of the print which is the distance between the first and second repeats. Note: This is not the same as the width of the image. It is the width of the image plus the space until the new repeat starts. I will make a mark on a ruler or tape measure and use that as a guide and mark off each registration point. Ill first mark it on the table then Ill place my T-bar at that line, draw a line along the edge of the T-bar and name the mark. I generally write RR1 or RR2 etc. which stands for right registration position 1 so I know that this is the first registration point and it should be on the right side of the T-bar. Fabric Registration Step 5 Once you have marked the tabl e registration, you will mark the the vertical position of the screen for each print repeat. As I butt up the screen to the T- bar I note where I want the print to be placed on the fabric and I tape the bottom edge of the screen where it meets the t- bar. Ill use the mark so that I place the screen in the same place each time I move it to the new repeat registration point. printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 36 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Printing Inks Printing onto paper allows you a lot of flexibility with what you use to print. If the substance is not too thin or too dense you can likely print paper with it. But with fabric you need to print with a printing ink that has the necessary chemicals in it so the ink adheres to the fabric so it can be washed and dried. For fabric you can use either pigments or dyes to print. Pigment inks are colours that need a binder agent to attach them to the surface of the cloth. While dye actually forms a bond with the fiber. Pigments can be used on just about any type of fabric whether its a natural fibre or a synthetic fibre. So for that reason pigment inks are a very popular choice. The draw back with pigments is that you can feel them on the surface of the garment; which is called the hand feel. Higher quality pigment inks will have a softer hand feel to them, like the Permaset Ink brand. Pigment inks can be water based or solvent based. I choose to use water based inks because they are less toxic to be around, easier on the environment and can be heat cured with regular heat or will self cure on their own in about a month. Pigment inks The alternative to water based inks are solvent inks which are very popular (but not necessary) for commercial t-shirt printing. Solvent inks require the use of a UV curing lamp or a UV flash dryer for them to dry. They will remain wet forever unless you use a UV lamp. Solvent inks come in a large range of colours and specialty applications, like gel ink and sparkle inks. But the solvents that they are made from are harmful to the environment. And the cleaners that are used to clean the screens are even more toxic. Lately, there have been some soy based cleaners for solvent inks that have been introduced to the marketplace that are much friendlier to the environment. Even so I continue to use water- based inks which now come in glow, puff, phosphorescent and opaque colours and still only require conventional heat for curing. printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 37 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Even if the colour is removable its rare that the colour underneath will be a bright white colour. Often its a pale yellow, pale blue or grey colour. Dark and medium colored fabrics are traditionally hard to print on whether you use water- based or solvent inks. Opaque pigment inks offer some help but the best way to achieve a superior print onto dark fabric is to use discharge paste. This is a printing chemical paste that you print with that will actually remove the ink of your t-shirt fabric in the shape of your image. Discharge paste doesnt always remove the ink completely and every fabric needs to be tested to see if its colour is removable. Discharge Printing Paste The nice thing about discharge paste is that you can add a colour to it. So while taking away the ground colour you can leave another in its place. This is referred to as pigment discharge. printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 38 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Devor Another fantastic printing technique is devor which creates a chemically achieved embroidery look on mixed fibre cloth. The devor print paste dissolves or burns away the image you print on your mixed fibre cloth. There are different print pastes for different kinds of fabrics; youll want to check to see if the print paste you make or buy is the right one for the cloth you are using. Most often there is no colour applied in the process. Strong odors are emitted during the heating process of the cloth when the fibres are being dissolved, so you want to be certain that you are in a very well ventilated room or are wearing a vapors mask. Printing With Dyes You can also print with dyes just as you would pigments. Dyes are different from pigments in that they form a bond with the fibres instead of simply bonding to the surface. Since they become part of the cloth there is no hand feel to them, leaving the printed area very soft. The reactive dye paste has two parts; an active part, the dye colour, and an inactive part, the thickener which gives body to the dye so it can be applied with a screen. To set the colour with dyes the fabric needs to be steamed after the print has dried. During the steaming process the colour often brightens considerably so dont be disheartened when your printed colour doesnt look as expected- it will once you steam wash and dry the printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 39 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Mixing your Ink In my work I use exclusively fabric printing inks and one brand in particular, Permaset. Permaset is a water-based ink that is 100% solvent free. They can also be used on paper but not all fabric ink brands can. Permaset comes in ready mixed bottles which can be combined to make new colours. You can print with almost anything that will pass through your screen mesh as long as it has enough consistency that it wont leak or spill under the screen. The consistency of runny pudding is about right. What you print with will be determined by what your end product is and what you need from it. If its clothing, then pigments or dyes with binders for fabric is needed, if its paper, then acrylic paint may do just fine. There are too many printing inks to list them all. Its always a great idea to test out a few and see how they Tips for Mixing and Storing Inks Store your inks in a cool dry place. A refrigerator will keep them the longest. Old inks can be strained through cheesecloth to remove old dried bits of ink. Mix a new colour by adding a very small amount of colour and build up to a darker colour- its easier than going too dark right away and adding more base to dilute the colour. If youre printing with acrylics you can thin and dilute the colours with wall paper paste which is extremely affordable and prints really well. You can print just adhesive mediums and apply other products once you lift off the screen, like sparkles, faux flocking, or gold foil. Another kind of system uses pure pigments which are added to a transparent base. You can add them to a quick curing base or an opaque base as well. printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 40 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Multi- Colour Printing Printing in more than one colour is an advanced technique. Primarily because it requires knowledge of print registration (which you now know how to do) and the use of multiple screens. But having the ability to play with many colours can add drama, depth and dimension to your prints. The colours can represent a story unto themselves. You can switch colour positions and create photorealistic using four screens with CMYK colours. One Colour Printing By now you have read and learned most everything you need to know to be able to print a one colour print onto paper or fabric. When someone refers to a one colour print it generally means that the entire image is comprised of just a single colour and can be printed with just one screen. One colour prints can be really wonderful. They have a very graphic quality to them and can propose some interesting play on positive and negative shapes. They are also great because they are fast to print and very inexpensive and with just one screen to worry about youre less likely to make an error. Chances are that if you go to any craft show youll likely see one colour prints on stuff for the most part, whether its t-shirts or clothes or cards. They are so much more economical than multi-colored prints. Its a smarter choice for the hand crafter if they want to have a decent profit margin on the product. printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 41 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Printing Onto Paper The difference between printing onto paper and printing onto fabric is that fabric is absorbent and paper is not. So when you pass a squeegee over fabric it will absorb the ink but paper tends to let the ink sit on top of it. When the ink can not be absorbed or penetrate the surface you wish to print, the design will blur/ smudge when printed. So often paper printing is done off-contact. Sounds complicated, but it's not. Printing off- contact means you slightly raise your screen (3-5mm or 1.4") off the print surface. That's Printing onto paper is a very versatile skill to be able to do. You can create posters, cards, art prints, to name a few. You can print over existing printed paper like maps or you can print onto plastic like surfaces such as Con-Tac paper. Wi t h p a p e r p r i n t i n g y o u ABSOLUTELY need to have at least 3-4 inches of space between the inside edge of the screen and the image. Otherwise you won't have enough room for the screen to stretch down to the print surface as the squeegee passes over that area. Another difference between fabric printing and paper printing is that with paper printing your screen will be in hinge clamps and attached to your print surface while you move in and out new paper. The basic technique for paper printing involves raising the screen and flooding it, propping the screen up, placing a new piece of paper underneath and lowering the screen and printing. Generally, one pass can be sufficient but up to three passes can work too. The squeegee youll use for paper printing should have a harder rubber edge than your fabric squeegee (75 durometer or more). printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 42 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. To achieve that slightly raised screen most people tape a small square of cardboard box underneath the two corners of their screen nearest them. The other side of the screen is sitting in hinge clamps. Having this small amount of space when you pass the squeegee over the paper allows the screen to spring back up once you have printed and avoids the blur you would get otherwise. Here are the steps to printing onto paper for one one or multi-color designs: Attache a pair of hinge clamps to your work surface. Make certain they are square and straight when you screw them in. Place your printing screen in the hinge clamps. Tape two pieces of cardboard box to the underside corners of your printing screen Lightly spray your print surface with repositionable photo adhesive or spread a tiny amount of table adhesive or even white glue over the area so that it is slightly tacky. Take a large piece of transparent paper and place it over your work surface; taping it on one side only to your print table. printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 43 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Print one pass of your image onto the transparent paper. Place your paper under the transparency so that your image will print where you want it to. Flip the transparency away from your print area. Mark the bottom and side of the paper edge with masking tape. These will be your registration marks so dont remove them. printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 44 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Raise the screen and flood it again. Prop up the screen with something (I use a roll of tape) and switch in a new piece of paper. Print all pieces of paper with this screen and let them dry. Pour a bead of ink along the bottom of your screen area (the well). Flood the screen with the screen in a raised position, then print with the screen down. If printing a second colour, place that screen in your hinge clamps, Flip your transparency paper back onto your print surface. And print the second colour screen. Use that new print as a guide and place one of the printed pieces of paper so the colours line up with the acetate print. then place new registration tabs for this piece of paper. Print your second colour. Repeat these steps for each colour you have in your design. printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 45 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Secret Tips for Paper Printing Dont buy new paper for every project. Go green and use old or reclaimed paper. Make it wrinkle free and crisp like new by ironing it! Extend your paints and pigments with inexpensive wall paper paste (called clear adhesive) for 1/5th the cost of craft store paint extender. Printing Onto Fabric This section on fabric printing will focus mostly on printing yardage and panels of fabric instead of printing t-shirts which will be covered in the next section. Printing yardage is very exciting but takes a certain amount of patience and attention to detail. Yardage is printed onto a long table that is covered in 1/2 industrial wool felt, 2 layers of heavy weight calico cotton and measures at least 12 feet long or 4 meters. Many large operations use tables that are 20 meters long and Hermes in France uses tables that are 150 meters long! The longer the table the more efficient your operation will be since you have to skip every second print and then go back once theyve dried and fill in between the spaces. once you get started printing it goes relatively quickly- so the more you can print at once the more cost effective and efficient you will be. Rosin Fagan of Bespoke Uprising printing yardage for her childrens wear in our Halifax studio. printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 46 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Once you have designed your image so that it will repeat seamlessly you will register your repeat distance on the print table. But before that youll want to pin down a drop cloth. Ideally a drop cloth is made from medium weight calico so that the pigments or dyes wont seep onto your table. The drop cloth should be pinned to the table taut and with t-pins. Begin by pinning a few on the long side, stretching and pulling taut as you go. Place t-pins every 3-4 inches. Then move to the opposite side of the table and place pins directly opposite the first pins you put in. Then move to the ends and repeat the same procedure. Always keeping the drop cloth pulled taut and fairly straight. Finish at the corners and pin them down as well. If you plan on using a table adhesive to adhere your fabric to the table you might want to consider using a slightly plasticized or vinyl drop cloth since youll want to wash it off between every few uses. printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 47 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Once your drop cloth is pinned you can register your print. I generally draw with a pencil directly onto the drop cloth but some people put down a strip of masking tape then mark their registration points. Some tables have a metal guide rail that is meant to be used instead of a T-bar. If you have a table with a rail then mark your registration on the rail instead of the table. Next, youll want to pin your fabric onto the table. You will want to iron your fabric first and use t-pins to pin the fabric to the table as you did with the drop cloth. The most important thing is to make sure that you keep the grain of the fabric straight. If you pull too hard on any direction, once you take your print off the table youll see that its distorted. Next, tape off your screen and check for pin holes. When you!re ready, print your rst run of prints; printing every second one 1, 3, 5 etc. using the T-bar to keep your screen straight. When you print on fabric you will print on-contact- so there is no need to have cardboard underneath the screen while you print. printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 48 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. SCREEN PRINT: CHEAP AND EASY! When your rst run of prints is dry, place your screen at the second print registration point and print in between the rst run of prints. If you have a second or third colour then follow the same procedure until all of the colours have been printed. Wait for your fabric to dry before you remove it to heat set it. Pour a bead of ink into the well; the bottom 3 inches of the screen nearest you. Using a medium to hard amount of pressure with the squeegee (65 durometer for the blade hardness) and holding it at a 65 degree angle push the ink up the screen, place the squeegee behind the ink and pull it towards you. Repeat the up and back motion once more, this is referred to as #four pulls! of the squeegee. Once nished wash the screen and squeegee before you begin the second run of prints. printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 49 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. T-Shirt Printing T-shirts have become a medium for self-expression and advertising, with any imaginable combination of words, art or photographs, so I wanted to devote a small section just for t- shirt printing. Printing t-shirts easily and economically is best achieved when you use a printing press. You can make one your self- for one colour printing, or buy one for multi-colour printing (they start at about $400.00). They make printing tees so easy that you can do a hundred in an afternoon. A four colour press such as this allows you to have four spot colours or use CMYK process screens to achieve full color prints. Each screen is clamped into one of the raised hinges and the t-shirt is placed on the platen (the flat board with the neck shape). Each screen is lowered, you print and then the next screen moves into place and so on. You can easily build your own single col our t-shi rt press j ust l i ke thi s illustration. printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 50 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. CMYK Printing and Process Colours In silkscreen printing you need to have a solid black image on your film positive to properly expose your stencil with photographic emulsion. If your image requires solid blocks of colour and no gradients or shading then it's no problem. But if your image is more photographic or has significant gradients and varying tone then you have a problem. And thats when you might consider using the CMYK printing process which uses a series of dots that vary in size and shape and spacing to create an optical illusion of varying tones and gradients; called a halftone image. The dots are so small that the human eye blends them together so they appear as smooth tones. The same image is split into the four process colours, cyan, magenta, yellow and black. These four colours comprised of tiny dots combine together to create the illusion of a multitude of colours. Each colour will be a separate screen. So you need to produce four screens for any CMYK project. Creating your halftone image will require some digital manipulation. Adobe photoshop has a number of filters to reproduce your image in a halftone pattern that you can use for your film positive. (filters<pixelate<color halftone, filters<sketch<halftone pattern, mode<grayscale<bitmap). Heres a complete tutorial for creating CMYK images. printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 51 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Heat Setting Your Printing The nicest thing about water based pigments is that they will self cure in about a month. But if you are selling product you want to make certain your print will be wash safe no matter when a client buys it so heat setting is imperative. So once your print is dry you can either: A drying tunnel is what the professionals use. Just hand iron. Initially must air dry. Results supposedly not as good as tunnel drying, but there is no evidence of difference. Again after air drying, fold piece, wrap in aluminum foil and bake at low heat (90C </ =190F) in an oven. After THOROUGH air drying, place in tumble-dryer for say 30 minutes and test. I have found two thirty minute cycles to be the best. All these methods are dependent on your local conditions, moisture content of fabrics etc. Best advice is to do a test piece (or better, multiple pieces). These can be cured with the proper print, then taken out and evaluated at various stages of the curing or heat-set process to test washability. Water-based Inks Solvent Inks Solvent inks have one outstanding characteristic, they must be heated to a very high temperature to dry. They will not dry, or cure, at normal temperatures. For a complete cure, they must reach 290-330 F (143-166 C). Generally a UV lamp is required for those elevated temperatures. When solvent inks are heated, the resin particles absorb the surrounding liquid (plasticizer) and swell, merge with each other and form a tough, elastic film. It is generally impossible to over-cure because the over-cure temperature is above the scorching point of the garment. However, it is not recommended that you heat the ink layer above 350 F (176 C). Solvent inks can generally be fully cured with a flash cure unit if the heater is set to the highest temperature and the unit is placed 2-3 inches (5-7.6 cm) over the garment for 20-30 seconds. For curing between colors where only a partial cure is required, the time can be less. Dyes To be safe your print should air dry for 24 hours. Then the fabric must be steamed, rinsed in cold water, then hot with a little soap (Synthrapol brand) and then in cool water until the water runs clear. printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 52 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Reclaiming Your Screen Once you have finished with your screen you will want to strip away the exposed emulsion so that it can be used again. Reclaiming or stripping a screen uses chemicals that are best used with very good ventilation or a vapors mask. The strippers for water based are different from the solvent based ones. Water-based strippers are available in environmentally friendly formulas. (they say they are friendly but I would take that with a grain of salt). Solvent based ones are quite toxic but better soy based ones are now on the market (but not widely in use). The following example is for water based reclaiming. Reclaiming Your Screen (water based) Step 1 Remove all tape from your screen and then wet both sides with water. Reclaiming Your Screen (water based) Step 2 Put on heavy duty gloves and safety goggles. printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 53 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Reclaiming Your Screen (water based) Step 3 Mix your emulsion remover according to manufacturers specs. The liquid is usually a concentrate and needs to be diluted. Some people will pour the solution into a bucket and use a brush to apply it but I use a spray bottle to spray it onto my screen. As I am spraying I scrub the screen with a nylon bristle brush to loosen the emulsion (30 seconds/ side). It is vitally important that you do not leave the remover on the screen for more than a minute or two at the most. It will have the opposite effect of hardening your emulsion on permanently! I spray and scrub both sides. You should see the emulsion run off a bit at this point. Once I have scrubbed both sides I use a pressure washer to remove the emulsion. If you dont have a pressure washer you can use a sprayer attachment from a garden hose. I have often used the sprayer head from my shower. Reclaiming Your Screen (water based) Step 4 If there are stubborn bits of emulsion you may want to spray and scrub again and rinse off right away. Once your screen is clear of emulsion then you can let it dry to be used again! printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 54 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Appendix A Terms and Definitions Silkscreen printing is a great way to have fun, make some money and expand yourself as the creative being you know you are! But it's hard to get started sometimes when you have no idea what you're talking about. So this is my beginners guide to the meanings and uses for all the terms silkscreen printing pros use to, well, sound like pros. Learn these and you can walk into any supply store, art store or printing shop and get the respect you deserve- and the products you'll need. Silkscreen Printing: Other wise known as screen printing, silkscreening, silk screening and serigraph. These are ALL the same things. The most common way to refer to the process is 'screen print' mostly because there is significant confusion in the general public about the 'silk' in the term silkscreen printing. Frankly, silk isn't really any part of the process- not since the 60's at least. It was used as the mesh for the screen print frame but has been replaced by polyester mesh which is vastly superior. Officially, screen printing is a printing technique that uses a woven mesh to support some sort of stencil (we'll look at stencil definitions in another post). That stencil can be made of a lot of different things but each stencil system will act as a resist for ink, blocking out some areas and leaving others open to the mesh. The printer passes a squeegee over the screen which forces the ink into the open areas of the stencil and through the mesh onto your substrate. Substrate: This is the term that screen printers use when they talk about the surface that they will be printing onto. So 'substrate' can represent just about anything you can manage to print onto; paper, fabric, plastic or glass just to name a few. (I'm sure if you thought about it long enough you could come up with a few novel substrate surfaces to print onto.) The substrate doesn't even have to be flat; silkscreen printing machines often print onto round surfaces like bottles. You'll notice that when screen printers are referring to their screen print frames they might refer to the squeegee side and the substrate side. So it would follow that when referring to the frame the substrate side would be the side that touches the surface to be printed. The squeegee side is the side on which the squeegee is used. printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 55 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. Screen Mesh: The mesh is the fabric part of your silk screen frame. It is made from high grade monofilament polyester. The mesh can be yellow or white and range in thread count from 40 to 400. Fabric printers might use 80 or 110 thread/in. for applications where they need to lay down white or light colored inks on dark fabrics. As the mesh count rises, the amount of ink flow and deposit thickness decreases. In graphics applications on non- porous materials like paper, less ink is required for coverage, and higher mesh counts above 300 threads/in. allow finer images and details to be printed. I use a white 110 mesh and sometimes a white 156 mesh most often because I print onto fabric and with water based pigment inks. There are some inks that have specific characteristics that put limitations on mesh counts. UV inks require thin ink deposits for proper curing and wont dry in the screen, so mesh counts above 305 are used. When you get different fabrics in the higher mesh counts, you will notice there are white meshes and yellow meshes, many in the same counts. Generally, whites are less expensive than the dyed/colored mesh. When exposing a positive on white mesh, especially halftones and fine lines, you may notice the edge definition and the quality of the image is rougher than the positive. This is due to light bounce. The white threads reflect light in different directions and produce soft edges on the stencil. Yellow mesh minimizes this effect and produces sharper images. This is not so critical on coarser meshes where details are bolder (i.e. for t-shirts or basic designs with flat colors) But it does become critical in halftone or fine-detail printing. You can buy the screen mesh here online. Squeegee: A screen print squeegee is a longish rectangular tool often made from wood with a rubber blade inserted into it. As you pass the squeegee over the silkscreen frame mesh it squeezes the ink through the open areas of the mesh depositing it onto your substrate surface. The squeegee comes in quite a few shapes and sizes. The handle part of the component is of least importance. What you really need to know are the technical specs on the blade- the rubber part. The squeegee blade can be square, rounded or pointy and it can be hard or soft. Generally, flexible squeegees with rounded blade edges are used for fabric printing, while hard, square edged squeegees are for printing on paper, wood and other surfaces. The lower the durometer the softer the blade. I have always used a 60 durometer square blade. (I print mainly on fabric and I like the sharper image that a square blade gives me and the softness of the 60 durometer blade). 60 durometer is great for high density printing because it allows a good amount of ink to roll through the stencil. It can be a tough blade for thicker inks but I have always managed nevertheless. There are many companies that sell a 70 durometer blade as their standard and that is OK too. And there are some blades that have multiple durometers within a single blade. The triple durometer squeegee is great for more difficult types of printing applications. Many screen printers use it for process printing or printing of thicker inks (such as white or opaque inks). 75/90/75 durometer blade means that your blade has softer edges for smooth printing application but a stiff center for a rigid blade angle. 80 Durometer squeegee is great for more difficult types of printing applications and thicker inks. printcutsew.com SCREEN PRINT : THE ULTIMATE GUIDE www.printcutsew.com and www.michellesaintonge.com 2009 Michelle SaintOnge 56 This document and its contents are for personal use only, not for commercial use. flood Stroke: Flooding ink across the entire image area before every print is necessary to stop air-drying inks from drying in the screen. This is done with the screen raised. Print Stroke: The screen is lowered, but is not actually touching the substrate (off-contact) because the edges have been slightly built up. The print stroke requires slightly firmer pressure on the squeegee than the flood stroke, to push the ink through the open mesh to the substrate. As the squeegee passes over the screen moves down and then lifts, and is again off-contact. Happy Printing! Michelle SaintOnge www.printcutsew.com www.michellesaintonge.com Materials Sourcing List Click to go directly to the Online Resource Complete screen printing kit Appendix B Screen mesh Permaset Fabric Inks Scoop coater Photo emulsion Squeegee Screen print frames fabric.com (up to 70% off retail.) Acrylic varnish Power assist staple gun Drawing Fluid Exposure unit Hinge clamps Table adhesive UV flash dryer