[Closed] Talk to me about......screen printing

Hi, i focused my degree on screen printing and developing non-toxic screen print methods. These days you don't need inks etc as before acrylic paint mixed with wall paper paste can adhere to most surfaces, you can also buy acrylic screen printing medium. You will however need ink based colours if you wish to print long term on fabrics. The next thing you will need is a screen, you can get then usually second hand off eBay, a proper screen printing squeeqie is ideal but if your wanting to play at home on a budget you can use a car type squeeqie. You can cut a stencil from paper, card, acetate and use that as a basis. If you want photographic looking results you will need an exposure unit and emulsions. I'd be surprised if a local college/uni doesn't run a course. My fellow graduate now teaches at uni in print, and I have plenty of contacts in this area, feel free to pick my brain.

Well, that's a spot of luck 😀

I just want to know what sort of press to look at for starting out. I don't want anything huge and fancy, just something I can mess about with and reasonable for doing multiple colours, maybe 3 at max.

I might have another ask around to see if there are any courses in my area.

I'm not a print maker but (a long time ago) I used to run an open access print studio. I think before you start spending money of kit and materials you need to be getting your hands dirty (inky) for a bit. There are lots of printmaking studios about the uk such as [url= http://www.wypw.org/home.html ]this one in Yorkshire[/url] or [url= http://www.greendoor-printmaking.co.uk/index.php ]this one[/url] or [url= http://www.peterpainterprintmaker.com ]this one[/url]. Some will be private enterprises and some will be 'open access' non-profit groups which are very cheap to join and use and you'll get training and a technician to assist you. Getting involved with something local is good but there are studios in all sorts of nice and[url= http://soulisquoyprintmakers.blogspot.co.uk/p/about-us.html ] far-flung corners of the UK[/url], many of which will run specific courses and master classes or have visiting artists so you could make a bit of a working holiday out of it.

I made my old press for under £100 i will see if I can find you a photo or plans. You could build one for less if you had a donor table. I'm terms of colours, of your not planning a large scale production line you can use the same press and wipe down a large sheet of acetate to line your prints up. I will get you some images of this. I gave up ony home made print studio when another lad I graduated with got a print technician job a uni not too far away I could use. Wish I'd have kept some of the bits, drying space is important too.

It's something that takes a fair bit of space. You can make up a printing table using hinged blocks of wood on the edge of a table, and clamp the screens to it with G-clamps, and you can make stencils with photocopies rubbed over with baby oil to make the background translucent and expose the stencil using a UV bulb. Setting up the screens to the right height is a bit tricky, so that the screen 'pops' back up from the screened surface, but not too high that you have to apply too much pressure, otherwise you'll likely get dry patches or incomplete image at the edges. Getting register on multicolour images is tricky, too.
If you can, try to get onto a print making course, as above, it'll make a big difference.
Great fun, but not something that can easily be done on a kitchen table. My local college did evening classes, which were great fun, and I did a bunch of t-shirts, some as presents, but then they decided that the classes were more suitable to people who didn't work, and changed them to the afternoon, so I was unable to continue.
Not got any space to set up at home, sadly.
Used to screen print as part of my job, once upon a time, but the films for making the stencils were either made up by hand using plastic draughting film, Letraset, Rotring pens and black technical drawing ink, or run off from an image setter used in litho printing.
It's very rewarding, and lots of fun, but quite involved.
If you can set something up, I think you'll enjoy it a lot; I used to.

It's something that takes a fair bit of space. You can make up a printing table using hinged blocks of wood on the edge of a table, and clamp the screens to it with G-clamps, and you can make stencils with photocopies rubbed over with baby oil to make the background translucent and expose the stencil using a UV bulb. Setting up the screens to the right height is a bit tricky, so that the screen 'pops' back up from the screened surface, but not too high that you have to apply too much pressure, otherwise you'll likely get dry patches or incomplete image at the edges. Getting register on multicolour images is tricky, too.

This is exactly how my home made rig was made, if you get serious you can drill tiny holes into the print bed top (or table) and attach a vacumme cleaner to emulate a 'proper' bed, this keeps everything in place to reduce wastage.

You don't need photocopies made translucent for stencils, acetate in your home printer or a photocopier does this job. You can also use photoshop to convert your image to CMYK and print an acetate for each colour. If you go down the UV route.

The process were the screen sticks to the paper/tshirt and leaves dry areas is called 'kerbing' In German don't know of a direct translation, it's much more rare these days using acrylics as the paint doesn't stick to the page as older inks did. If it's occurring the paints too thick.

Registering for multi colours is easy, large sheet of acetate masked down one side under screen pull a print off, slide your page under the acetate and line it up. Lift acetate off and your next prints in perfect place. You can then wipe clean your acetate for your next colour.

Sorry dont want to come across as contradictory, if it appears that way. Non toxic Home printing was my niche.

Hello,

I got all my screen printing kit from [url= http://www.art2screen.co.uk ]www.art2screen.co.uk
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I had done other types of printing before but didn't fully understand the screen print process so went on a workshop down the road from you at Sheffield Millenium Galleries. The 'shop was run by Kid Acne and was a great intro to the process. Keep your eyes on Millenium Galleries website - they do a lot of decent workshop events.

Hope that helps

This is all really helpful, thanks guys!

I may well try knocking one together my self. That said, I've seen a type of press where the screen/frame is removable (opposed to being on a carousel or hinged) and it locates using a couple of screw (or similar) for registration. I have no idea what it's called though.

I guess it's the sort of thing to just have a go at and mess about?

Cheers for the heads up about the Millennium Gallery stuff, that would be ideal!