SCREEN PRINTING: PHOTO EMULSION

Alright, so I have never taken any classes on screen printing and I know nothing about it other than from experimenting and from what I have been told. I haven't found any good sites online and I don't have the money to buy books, so I turn to you 12oz.

Alright, so I have my screen, my photo emulsion("Speedball Screen Printing Photo Emulsion" and "Speedball Sensitizer" --the bottle says it's cancerous!!)

From what I understand I apply the emulsion to the screen, place said image on top, expose to light.

I printed my image on clear plastic overhead sheets using an inkjet printer. I printed it in red because from what I understand the emulsion is blind to red, so the image wont expose in those areas.

Now, I don't have a special light for this. Can I use florescent lighting? And if so, how long do I expose it?

ok first, you have the idea right, as far as applying the emulsion and then the image. i always printed all my images in black, since the black absorbs the light, therefore burning the image on to the screen. you want the image to be exposed on your screen, so try printing it in black. i'm not sure if red really has any effect on it, but it may not work.

also, it always helped me to burn a stronger image if you get a piece of glass or something (like from a picture frame or something) to put over the image.

you don't need any kind of special light really. i always used a 120 watt bulb, and i put it in one of those clamp-on-the-desk type lamps. it also helps if you put an aluminum pie pan around the bulb, it helps to focus the light on to the screen (just cut a whole in the pan big enough to put the light bulb through and then screw the bulb into the lamp).

keep it about a foot away from the screen, and expose it for about 15 minutes. make sure to do it in like a closet or something, because the emulsion is really sensitive to light, and you don't want it to get all fucked up and overexposed.

you may need to mess around with the exposure time a little bit, but whatever. if you need any more help with it, let me know.

I printed my image on clear plastic overhead sheets using an inkjet printer. I printed it in red because from what I understand the emulsion is blind to red, so the image wont expose in those areas.

No, print black.

Now, I don't have a special light for this. Can I use florescent lighting? And if so, how long do I expose it?

You can use a florescent light or sunlight but exposure time will vary and expect it to be hit and

miss for a while until you figure out what works best

for you. I would recommend finding a local print

shop and pay them to burn a nice clean screen for

you. It might cost a couple of bucks but it'll save

you a lot of headaches.

oh yeah, make sure to wash the screen off with warm water and a semi-abrasive brush (nothing too rough) after so you can get your image cleared out. you probably already knew that, but when a topic comes up i actually know something about, i get on a roll.

and you can wash the screen out with bleach as long as you do it before you use it more than like 30 times. that way you can keep using the same screen.

Awesome, thank you so much. I honestly didn't expect this much of a response.

I'll be fucking around with this all day, so I don't mind the headaches, I have nothing to do.

I'll post pictures of the whole thing when I'm done.

Thanks again.

thehavenots pretty much has everything on point. I work in a screen printing shop so I am going to drop my helpful tips and leave out what he already covered. On your screen be sure to tape off any area's that aren't going to need ink to go through them. Just use clear packing tape and make a big square around your design with it. This will save you alot of time when you go to clean your screen. At my shop what we use to expose our screen's is a stolen street lamp suspended about 4 feet above the the screen with the sheet of glass and all that stuff as mentioned before. This is a very high intensity light so it takes a minute or two to expose the screen.

Also if you really need to make your screens last use a low powered pressure washer to clean the design out of your screen so it can be re-exposed but be sure to have all of your ink cleaned out of the screen before doing this or else you will be stuck with a HUGE pain in the arse.

Thats my 2 cents.

p.s. one stroke ink is your friend.

What is the name of that plastic based ink for textile? I have textile ink but it comes out slightly transparent, from what I understand there is a plastic ink that is professionally used, anyone got a brand name or anything?

Zack>> You still in that metal band?

I'm not still in the metal band. The drummer has moved away the singer got married and has a kid and our two guitarists joined another band. Strangely enough though one of our demo's floated its way over to statue records and they wanted us to put out a full length cd until they found out that sardaukar is dead.

Your saying that your screens come out slightly transparent. Are you screening your shirts only once and then putting them in the oven? The way I have always done shirs is I screen them once on the screen press and go through a full rotation on it (usually about a minutes worth of time) and then all the shirts on the press get screened again then sent through a 450 degree oven for 1 minute.

and as I said before I swear by one stroke ink. I will use nothing else.

Also dont forget to allow the emulsion to set for 8-12 hours, other wise, at least with the diazo stuff that i tend to use doesnt settle and it just wont work.