The Joey Factory

I’m trying to teach myself the art of silk screen printing. This is a series blog about the obstacles, the lessons, the knowledge and the skills I hope to possess by the end of my journey. Take what you will out of this and to other accomplished screen printers feel free to share your wealth of knowledge on the subject.

Previous Entry: Part Two

This week I’m definitely at a crossroads with this other technique called photographic emulsion method. The drawing fluid method so far seems to be the easiest way to make your stencil. But nonetheless I’m very stubborn and so I’m not giving up. It all seems to be fairly easy, but I disagree this far. According to Speedball and this website reuels.com I should be doing this right. When I get to the part where I wash out the stencil it seems to go fine, but then eventually everything starts to become fluid and run out like the picture below:

I would've continued blowing it out but this is not what I wanted! Help.

So readers I need your help!

The photo emulsion was left to dry in the dark for 24 hours. Did it need to be in longer? Using a safety light I checked the screen and it wasn’t sticky, it was all smooth on the surface.

Burned the image directly into the screen for 10 minutes. When I went to spray it out in warm water, not hot, it was washing out well and then it started running like ink everywhere! What have I done wrong? Is there another brand I could try other than Speedball? Any tips would be helpful!

Black felt. Screen. Film. Glass. Light. What went wrong?

I feel a bit discouraged, but I’m not giving up. Any help would be great! As I said this series blog is about obstacles too. I hope to get over this one and on to the next step.

…Minutes later after posting this… I looked at the Reuels Trouble Shooting Section. I’ve read this over and there may be a few strong possibilities of why things went wrong.

1. Washout temperature was too high. (I thought I was spraying it with lukewarm water, but maybe it was warmer)
2. More than 12 hours (at 70 degrees F.) elapsed before the sensitized screen was exposed (Speedball Bichromate System).

My garage is a little colder now that it’s fall, 60º F. Does it need to be warmer? I guess I still need some awesome advice on the matter. The search for knowledge continues…

I’m trying to teach myself the art of silk screen printing. This is a series blog about the obstacles, the lessons, the knowledge and the skills I hope to possess by the end of my journey. Take what you will out of this and to other accomplished screen printers feel free to share your wealth of knowledge on the subject.

I’m sure if you are not inside the mind of Joey Broyles (me) you may think, “Gee he has so many unfinished projects.” Well I’m all about multi-tasking and doing several things at once, the truth is my mind is so crazy with ideas that I am a slave to my mind.

Learning how to screen print has been a huge learning curve for me. As of right now I have not actually applied ink to anything but have made my first screen. Unfortunately the drawing fluid has not been ideal in this situation. Below is the photo of my screen before I washed out the fluid.

Everything seems to be fine. Drawing fluid applied first and dry. Screen filler emulsion fluid applied and dry. All things dried horizontally for at least 4 hours in between. However, this is a trial and error process and because it’s my first screen let me tell you the variables that will describe the problems that have already incurred.

First I may have drew my image too dark with a soft lead pencil. Second I may have not applied enough drawing fluid to the screen. Third I did more than one swipe of screen filler which can wash out the drawing fluid. The screen was washed out with cold water. Does it matter that every other tutorial I read said warm water and I used cold? I don’t know for sure until someone fills me in. I’ve already learned how not to do several things and so this will make me better for my next turn at it.

My screen has been washed out in some places, but not so well in other places. His eyes are completely gone. Some of his hair, even after using a tooth brush to scrub some filler off, did not come through in all places. Not all of his chin washed through and honestly I won’t know for sure how bad it is until I do a test print. Since I’ve never done the ink part, I need to do it even though I know the print will be less than impressive. Again this is all trial and error being it’s my first time.

The next entry I will show you what my first screen looked like and what the prints were like. Maybe between you and me we can figure this out and get better as we go along. Once I’ve got this down I’d like to move on to the photo emulsion, but let’s climb one mountain at a time.

Websites that I encourage others to use that have tutorials and all sorts of helpful tips:
http://nomediakings.org/doityourself/howto_silkscreen_posters_and_shirts.html
http://www.reuels.com/reuels/Silk_Screen_Printing_Instructions.html
http://community.livejournal.com/craftgrrl/5400475.html
http://www.silkscreeningsupplies.com/
http://www.ehow.com/how_10855_expose-photo-emulsion.html
http://www.instructables.com/id/Screen-Printing%3A-Cheap,-Dirty,-and-At-Home/
http://www.dickblick.com/categories/screenprinting/

Book:
http://www.amazon.com/Printing-Hand-Handmade-Stencils-Screens/dp/1584796723/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1282327533&sr=8-1 —This book was the best book I could find giving you step by step screen printing.

Videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee_8IMx0uMo