question for screenprinters

[Pedini]

Hey all you printers, I have a question. Y'know when you have a large open space in the stencil with some little text floating in there, and more often than not (in my case) the text fills with ink and the layer just looks like shit. So, how do you stop the little text from filling in? I try and try to adjust the angle and pressure on the squeegee but it seems to have a mind of its own. Filling in, not filling in, and back and forth despite my efforts to print consistant with a good pull. Any insight would be appreciated. Check out http://www.bipedalini.com/insleep.html to see the a poster I'm working on. The text in the bottom right corner is what I'm talking about. It is knocked-out of the blue layer.

[Anonymous]

I had a look at your text, for starters you have condensed your text to the point of almost no return. You will have to watch that, no matter what you do. If your going to buggerise around with text its always best just to create your own font. Also you have used what it looks like a slab serif font, when printed offset it works fine but silk screen at small size in a huge area of flat colour, not good, you either have to have a huge amount of patience or be VERY good at what you do to make this work. Also what thread screen are you using? make sure its 90t or higher. I can only suggest try to redo the text on the design as a sans serif font and little bigger.Just change the small text though, this will also help with your visual heirachy as well. Try thickening your ink a little. Try to raise the screen up a little off from your table when you have it down. This may help a bit. But I dont know what your setup is or what inks your using. Also as a note blue is a bugger to have as large fields of colour depending on the ink amd it is the one colour which takes the longest to dry.

[Pedini]

On 2001-11-22 19:10, DC wrote:
I had a look at your text, for starters you have condensed your text to the point of almost no return.

(I have not messed with the text dimensions at all, it is strait up Schmale Jonisch)

Also you have used what it looks like a slab serif font, when printed offset it works fine but silk screen at small size in a huge area of flat colour, not good, you either have to have a huge amount of patience or be VERY good at what you do to make this work.

(Well, I printed it and I didn't really have a problem with the little text as I expected to. The problem area proved to be the guy's halftone head. Halfway through the run, however, I had to bust into some emergency ink that contained a considerable amount of extender/transparent base and the halftone printed without a hitch.)

Also what thread screen are you using? make sure its 90t or higher. I can only suggest try to redo the text on the design as a sans serif font and little bigger.Just change the small text though, this will also help with your visual heirachy as well. Try thickening your ink a little. Try to raise the screen up a little off from your table when you have it down. This may help a bit. But I dont know what your setup is or what inks your using. Also as a note blue is a bugger to have as large fields of colour depending on the ink amd it is the one colour which takes the longest to dry.

(Thanks for responding DC. I realize that trouble shooting over the web is not a great way to go about getting concrete answers. I use Hunt/Speedball inks and all my screens currently have 195tpi mesh on them. I've learned most of what I know about screenprinting from trial and error. I currently don't have a studio and I'm printing in my tiny house. It's a bitch. I think it would be cool if screenprinters can talk shop on this site, 'cause all of the other chat rooms I've found on the web are textile printers talking about how to maintain their 12-station automatic carousel presses.)

Clay, how about a "Printing tips" forum for poster printers?

-Mark

[KJ]

How do I build a little homemade wood-framed screen? I seem to remember helping friends screen punk-rock t-shirts when we were 15 and 16 using little crappy screens that were stolen from our high-school art room. I'd like to do that again...

[buddylee]

hey kendra - i build all of my frames from 2x2" 8 foot lengths of lumber - $1.50 canadian per - saw the lengths down to various sizes myself, hammer em together myself, stretch the screen on with a staplegun myself, quick and dirty, been doing screenprinting in this manner for 6 years, on a 4-colour tshirt press, besides doing posters as well.

in 1997 i published a DIY Screenprinting article in a zine i used to put out called Rivet - it describes in detail how to start screenprinting for $50 (canadian!). one of these days i'll get around to putting it online - the article was published in Jen Angel's 1997 Zine Yearbook, as one of the best zine articles of that year. i've used the article as the basis of a series of classes i've taught to people - it really works, the classes are kinda like a cooking show (?) in that i literally saw a piece of 2x2 into the lengths i want, hammer em together, stretch the screen, coat it in photo emulsion, then pull out a previously dried screen, and burn it in front of everyone using whoever's house i'm at's bathroom shower head! i put it under a fan for 15 minutes to dry it, and then i tape it up and we start printing - usually cloth patches, 6 to a piece of cloth, that everyone gets to take home or whatever. the class takes about 3 hours to teach, and everyone usually leaves blown away, if i may be so bold...

...now that i think about it, i could always just scan the article (it's 6 pages long) and maybe you could put it up here on gigposters? just a thought...

Buddy Lee Roth
http://www.tijuanabibles.com
tjbibles@hotmail.com

[buddylee]

ooops...when i said

then pull out a previously dried screen, and burn it in front of everyone using whoever's house i'm at's bathroom shower head!

i MEANT

then pull out a previously dried screen, burn the image onto it using a standard 150 watt bulb, and then wash out the emulsion in front of everyone using whoever's house i'm at's bathroom shower head!

sorry 'bout dat!

[Anonymous]

First off you need to make sure that your screen is stretched very tight and that your ink is not to thinned out with reducer or retarder. make sure that you have plenty of off contact( the area betweemn the horizontal screen and the print surface, should be about 1/8 of an inch, center of screen should not touch the poster when laying flat. pull squeegee fast, or change to a pushing stroke. Have sharp sgueegee.
easiest solution is to change type face to slightly larger. I print for methanestudios.com and have been printing for more years than you can imagine. Old freaks love old hobbies.

[Anonymous]

also you could solve the problem with two blue screens, one for the head that is a higher mesh count, and one that is for the solid area with the reversed out type.
255 mesh for the head with 40 line halftones
230 mesh for the solid

[KJ]

So, basically I make a wooden stretcher like for painting but instead of canvas, what kind of material should I use? I suppose it would be easy enough just to ask any one of the many printmakers on the 3rd floor here at school... but you gigposters guys are so much more fun. Buddy if you have that article, email it to me... thanks

[Pedini]

Thanks for the response, printmonkey.

Screenprinting on paper can be such an awesome experience...and it can also be a frustrating disaster. I guess I'm slow to learn some things because I still have way too many of the latter.