Screen Printing Forum

Hello everyone,

Quick introduction - My name is Timmy, and I'm a senior in high school. I just finished my college applications (a great feeling), and I'm looking to start screen printing/silk screening; this is my first time. I have a fairly large amount of free time now, and screen printing seems like a good personal sport to start up. I'm basically doing this to make my own t-shirts, I have no plans (as of now) to start selling anything.

Anyways, to the point of the post - right now I'm looking for the materials. I plan on buying pretty much everything online, since there is no real artsy-craftsy store nearby that sells screen printing materials. Right now the list is looking like:

-Screens (size to be decided)
-Emulsion
-Emulsion Remover
-Inks (colors to be decided)
-Unfiltered Black Lights (motivated from this video, suggest other light sources! =D )
-Squeegee
-Scoop Coater
-Transparency paper (is it also called transparency film? that's all I could find)

I'm not sure whether I'm missing anything. Can anyone suggest good, reliable brands that have worked well for them? Also, I would also like to know how much emusion/ink is needed per print. That would help me with the jar size I'd be buying.

Another question - How do you know how well (or "un-well") the resolution of the print will turn out?

Last question, for now, I promise. =) Can anyone give me a brief run-down on how shirts with multiple colors are printed? The method that doesn't require any extra machinery would probably be best. I plan on building my own exposure unit, but besides that, everything will be done by hand.

Many thanks,
Timmy

List looks decent for now, I’m sure you will see a bigger list before your first shirt

You might want to look into building a transfer set-up, you will need a vacuum board, a way to clamp the screen onto the vacuum board and will be printing with registration marks. The vacuum board holds the transfer paper in place while you print on it, dry transfer paper, place transfer paper back on vacuum board, align second color with registration marks, print second color, dry second color......can have multiple colors with this process, but the inks will stack and not give you a soft print. When you’re done with the transfer print you need to press it onto the shirt....image needs to be reversed

You could also just buy some good printer transfer paper and print straight from your printer...then press to shirt (recommended for personal hobbyist "sport" prints)

There is a wide range in printing inks....I use wilflex, rutland
....i would not recommend buying any quantity over a pint for this

Good Luck

here we go again.

@ TMP_D: Thanks - that was the original plan. Never was one for hand-made art, heh. Always preferred to do things in front of me. Also, do you know how long a pint of ink would last?

@ ROADSIDE: Did I ask something wrong or mention something I'm not supposed to? If so, I'm sorry. I'm rather new to everything here and not sure why such a statement was made.

It's because that has been covered and covered until we're tired of answering it.

Read ALL the way thru the newbies section and you'll find many posts on this.

Do a search for starting and it should help you find them.

-Rob

Sorry about that.... I was just being silly.

You should really try to use the search feature. I am sure you find lots of answers that way.
Good Luck