The FNG thinks he can print, eh?

u6crash · #1 (**permalink**) 07-25-2009, 02:48 PM

Hey folks. I've previously introduced myself in the Anything Goes forum, but now I'm ready to get my hands dirty. Although I am hoping to get some real instruction before too long, I decided I didn't want to be completely green going in.

One of the guitar forums I post at often features build threads where members post from start to finish their process of building (or heavily modifying) a guitar. So I thought I'd try the same thing here. Granted, this is old hat for most of you, but this might help other newbies, present and future.

I'm embarrassed to say exactly how long this Speedball Screen Printing Kit has been in my possession. It always looked like something I wanted to try, but the time never seemed right. So today is the day I get started. When I finish will depend on drying time and how many mistakes I make along the way. So let's get started!

The very first mistake I made was counting on the good folks at Speedball to get the spacing right for the screws that attach the hinges. I remedied this by moving the frame over a little and taping down the hinges so they wouldn't move on me too much. I jammed some business cards between the frame and the base because I had a feeling they weren't supposed to be butt up to one another. I first just jabbed a Philips head screw driver in the holes, cleared away some tape from the holes with an X-Acto knife and thought that would be enough. I decided to be a little more cautious and drill slight indents with my Dremel. My Dremel bit is way bigger than the screws so I was careful to only put very shallow holes in the wood, barely hitting the surface.

Even with all that preparation, my screws didn't go in perfectly straight, but we'll call it good enough.

Here we are abrading (that's the word I want, right?) the top of the screen in the kitchen sink.

The back. I used a little more trisodium phosphate here than I did on the front.

The screen standing up to dry. Not sure if this was right. Maybe I should have left it to dry with the back facing up so that it dried more evenly. Not sure it will matter here since the water is evaporating and not a chemical that needs to level off. I don't know if Cascade dish washer detergent is actually trisodium phosphate, but the instructions I have say it will work.

Smearing some ink around on paper, just to see what kind on consistency it has, how the colors blend, etc. Informal experimentation. This is Speedball acrylic ink that came with the kit. The colors I have to choose from are blue, red, yellow, and black. Sort of wish I had some white to mix colors down, but I'm not going to need it for this print anyway.

u6crash · #2 (**permalink**) 07-25-2009, 02:57 PM

So what are we printing? A couple years ago I went through a phase where I shrugged off all fine art drawing/painting supplies and decided I would work with Sharpie marker on regular old white cardstock. Since I'll be using the drawing fluid method of making a screen (for the first color), these old images are ideal.

Illustrator informed me that the image I first placed was awfully big to do a Live Trace, so I resized it and brought it in again. I'm using Illustrator just to do a mock up. I won't be printing to a transparency or burning any screens with photo emulsion this time. I'm using Illustrator instead of Photoshop because I could use the practice.

Live trace executed...

Vector image blown up. Sorry, this isn't an Illustrator tutorial. Everything I know about Illustrator I learned from Total Training. I could probably stand to watch that DVD again before I get the next one.

After some playing around, this is the loose sketch I came up with. At one point I had the little sound waves next to the devil's head in blue with white around them, but four colors seems awfully ambitious for my first print. Three might be pushing it.

One last step before printing it out. I threw a white rectangle on the top of it and brought the opacity down. This is done in the interest of conserving ink in my printer.

steve w · #3 (**permalink**) 07-25-2009, 02:58 PM

aw jeez.
now I'm going to have to charge you double if you take the class

u6crash · #4 (**permalink**) 07-25-2009, 02:58 PM

Back to the real world again and away from screen captures. Here's the print out on the base (is there another word I should be using here?)

steve w · #5 (**permalink**) 07-25-2009, 02:59 PM

masonite?
table?
platen?

u6crash · #6 (**permalink**) 07-25-2009, 02:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by steve w

aw jeez.
now I'm going to have to charge you double if you take the class

Because of my lack of Illustrator knowledge or lack of knowledge in general?

caribou · #7 (**permalink**) 07-25-2009, 03:00 PM

good luck with that drawing fluid. i tried it a long time ago, and the screen block i put over it was impossible to clean out of the screen. do yourself a favor and just use photoemulsion.