Remote, On-Site Printing

[Thornysarus]

I'm sure there are quite a few who have experience doing this and thought I'd pick your brain.

April 30th, I've got a booth at an annual Art Fair. They've asked me to do some printing on-site, just to demonstrate how it's done.

I'm planning on designing a 3-color commemorative piece, pulling the first 2 colors in the studio and pulling the last one at the fair.

Any thoughts, suggestions, advice?

Thanks in advance.

[vastagh]

bring plenty of water to keep the screen fresh. a mister is good.

[connor13]

bring plenty of water to keep the screen fresh. a mister is good.

[ImJustRickG]

Mr. Mister: Possible Ratt Chatt 2.0

[Thornysarus]

I'll actually have access to water in my booth, so that's taken care of.

Mr. Mister: I highly doubt it. lol

[strawberryluna]

bring a helper monkey, it's kooky how many little things can come up that having another set of arms and legs is totally invaluable. have fun!

[ohdanielsan]

how many prints? probably your biggest concern will be where to put the prints to dry. if you've got that figured out, and you have running water, then there's really not much else to it.

if you don't feel like cleaning off the screen on-site, you can throw it in a big garbage bag so it doesn't dry, and do it when you get home.

i'd imagine andymac is the king of this question.

[danstiles]

Talk to Andy Mac, he's got that game wired.

[Thornysarus]

Yeah. My lovely wife, Janine will be there. She's my first-string ink slinging assistant. I think I'll just be clotheslining the prints, signing and numbering and hopefully selling a few to make up for expenses.

Bagging the screen... good advice.

Hey Andy: Where you at?

[Andymac]

I didn't see this, the playoffs started.

helper monkey - check
water/SO34 or a bit of soap mister - check
packing tape - check
vac table with counterweight or similar - check
rack/clothesline/floor space - check (we use the floor behind the booths at Seattle FS)
paper towels -check
2 gallon buckets, 2 sponges - for cleaning fill them with water before printing - check
print off paper -check
films - check
staged prints (1st col, 1&2 col, films allow you to quickly explain how it works) -check
apron - check
reg tabs - check
prepped screen - check
squeegee - check
knife - check
beer - check

that should cover it. I like to use speedball in these situations as it doesn't dry in as quick, but we used TW also (black with 50% process black, coloured with some process clear and water) wet the screen to start and kept thick flooding as needed and we got good results, don't fuck around, keep printing. But be really careful the TW doesn't freeze in or you will have some major cleanup problems.

when you are done, wet the image area with your mister/soap. mist your squeegee. scrape your ink puddles. peel the tape - (if you are smart on your tapeout, bring your tape slightly inside where your squeegee runs. With a thick flood and good pull on your last print you will have virtually nothing to clean up) use the sponges and the water in the buckets to clean the bulk of the ink out of the image and the screen. clean your squeegee. finish the beer.