Screens can be reused over and over again as long as there are no tears and the mesh retains it’s tension. In order for this to happen, the screen needs to be returned to it’s original, emulsion free state.

This process is called reclaiming the screen and it requires the use of chemicals (reclaimer) to break down the emulsion and a high water pressure to wash the emulsion out of the screen.

It is very important to note that reclaimer should never be left in the screen to dry. It will have exactly the opposite effect and permanently harden in the mesh! I once ruined a bunch of screens thinking I would spray them all with reclaimer first, and then reclaim them one by one. Bad idea. The first few screens were fine but the rest dried permanently. They are still in my closet waiting to be re-meshed.

It is very, very , very difficult to remove emulsion unless you have access to a pressure washer. In a pinch I have used a hose with high water pressure (using my thumb to create a tight stream). Another solution is to use a car wash’s pressure washer and do a bunch of screens at once.

Step 1 – Break out the power washer!

Step 2 - Spray the reclaimer. Note some of these chemicals are hazardous!!! Be sure to wear safety googles and a mask and do this in a well-ventilated area!

Step 3 – Spray until you get ALL of the emulsion out of the mesh. Periodically hold the screen up to a light to make sure no bits are remaining. This process takes some time and patience. Some ink stains may not wash out but these do not make a difference when printing, unless the ink is physically clogging the mesh. Good luck!

Step 8 - Once you determined that the position is perfect, bring the screen down and place some ink onto the screen.

Step 9 – Raise the screen off the shirt and prepare to do a flood stroke.

Step 10 – After the flood stroke you are ready to pull your first t-shirt print.

Step 11 – Using good pressure, pull the squeegee towards you and deposit the ink onto the t-shirt. Be sure that the press is slightly off contact for a cleaner print (the t-shirt shouldn’t “stick” to the screen).

Step 12 - Lift the screen off the t-shirt and apply a flood stroke to keep the screen from clogging. Review your first t-shirt print! For more prints continue the process.

Step 13 – For water-based inks you can let the t-shirt air dry, followed by ironing or a conveyer dryer. For platisol shirts you will need a curing unit, conveyer dryer, heat gun or your oven to heat the ink and cure it. Since I use water-based inks primarily, I will hang the shirts and let them air dry.

Step 13 – After the shirt has completely air-dried, I will turn the shirt inside out  and iron it to set the ink and make it safe for washing.

Step 14 – T-shirt is printed and ready for wear and tear. Love is a beautiful thing…

This tutorial will go through the process of screen printing a single color t-shirt. Later posts will go through multi-color registration and printing for t-shirts.

Step 1 – Get your printing area set up. In this case we are using a table top t-shirt screen printing press. If you don’t have access to one – no worries. A single-color press is fairly easy to construct and I will later be posting step-by-step instructions on how to create your own t-shirt press.

Step 2 – Place your t-shirt onto the platen.

Step 3 - Take your film positive and place it on the t-shirt where you want the design to be printed.

Step 4 – Take a ruler and measure from the inside top of the screen frame to the top of the design. You will later use this measurement to correctly position your film positive relative to the coated screen before you expose the screen.

Step 5 – Place your film positive onto the exposure unit and position the coated screen based on the measurements you took in the previous step. After exposing the screen, wash it out, dry and tape the screen.

Step 6 – Clamp the screen into the press. You may need to make minute adjustments to correctly position the screen for printing. Advanced presses have micro-registration to make this easy.

Step 7 - Once again, position the film positive onto the shirt. You will lower the screen onto the shirt and make minute adjustments with the film positive and screen to determine exact position for the perfect print.

We’ll continue this tutorial in the next post: Screen Printing Tutorial: T-Shirt – Part 2.

Step 20 - Load your squeegee with some ink and tilt the squeegee in the right angle (45-60 degrees).

Step 21 – Pull your print. You should hear a scraping sound as the squeegee moves over the mesh and deposits the ink.

Step 22 – Congratulations! You just pulled your first print!

Step 23 – Step and repeat the process. You can either hang them to dry  (like a clothesline) or get fancy and buy a printmaking rack.

Step 10 - Here’s a view of the ink, fully spread and ready to be pushed through the mesh.

Step 11 – Place your squeegee into the screen well, making sure that the entire edge of squeegee contacts the ink. 

Step 12 – Using an even motion, tilt the squeegee to a 45 -60 degree angle and “pull” the squeegee towards you with good pressure.

Step 13 – Using light pressure I do what’s called a flood stroke. Since I use water-based inks, they tend to dry in the screen and clog it up. Using a flood stroke keeps the screen “wet”. The flood stroke is done at a very light pressure and is used to simply cover the design area with a thin layer of ink.

Step 14 – Lift the screen up and take a look at the acetate. You should have a clean deposit of ink on the acetate.

Step 15 – Place your paper under the acetate and use the design printed on the acetate to register your next print.

Step 16 - Once you have the perfect position, it’s a good idea to “mark” the exact location of where paper should be positioned for future prints.

Step 17 – Flip the acetate out of the way.

Step 18 – Use painter’s tape (I love this stuff) to create positioning guides. There are actually multiple ways to do this and I will show alternatives in later posts. For now, this is the simplest way to quickly register your paper for prints.

Check out Screen Printing Tutorial: Paper – Part 3 for the final steps in this tutorial.

Step 2 – Tape one side of the acetate to the table using painter’s tape. I find painter’s tape is really easy to work with but you can substitute whatever you like.

Step 3 – Flip the acetate over and tape the other side. This will ensure that your acetate doesn’t move around.

Step 4 – Flip the acetate out of the way to make room for your screen frame.

Step 5 – Place the screen frame into the hinge clamps.

Step 6 - Check the positioning of the screen and make any necessary adjustments.

Step 7 – Cut a few pieces of card stock and tape them to the bottom corners of the screen frame, opposite the side of frame clamped by the hinges. This lifts the mesh off of the printing surface (“off contact”) which produces superior results when printing.

Step 8 – Here’s the screen frame “off contact” and ready for some ink!

Check out Screen Printing Tutorial: Paper – Part 2 for the next steps in this tutorial.

Step 2 – Finish taping the design and any other areas of the emulsion that you don’t want ink to go through. For smaller pinholes, etc you can either use tape (on the print side of the screen mesh) or even brush emulsion onto those areas to block them up.

Step 3 – Tape off the inside wells of the screen to prevent ink from getting in between the mesh and frame. Also, be sure to tape over the edges of the emulsion area. This will ensure that ink only passes through the design.

Step 4 – Finished taping and ready to print!

This happens to be the trickiest part of the screen printing process due to the number of variables that can affect the exposure.

 After gaining more experience, I realized I had a lot of trouble because I kept changing the variables (i.e. different emulsion types/brands, using vellum vs. transparency film, changing printers with different black ink deposits on the film, changing exposure light sources, artwork that was very detailed versus solid areas, changing the ink types, changing the substrate, etc). My advice is to get solid with a single process first, then learn as you change one variable at a time. The hop-skip-jump method will only lead to frustration and lot’s of wasted time and materials. Trust me, I learned the hard way.

Be patient, be diligent and persevere! Once you get the process down, your results will remain consistent as long as you follow the same steps and your equipment/materials stay intact.            

There are many ways to expose a screen. Any light source containing UV light between 350 and 420 nanometers can expose a screen. Some people even use sunlight (which happens to contain a fair amount of UV radiation). This post will assume you have a bottom-up light source already built (i.e. home-made exposure unit or professional unit). 

Step 1 -  In light-safe conditions, p lace your film positive(s) right side up onto the glass of  your exposure unit. The film positives should appear exactly as you intend them to be printed (not reversed). I tend to place my artwork directly in the middle and away for the very edges of the exposure unit. 

Step 2 – Place your coated screen (completely dry) print side down onto the film positives. Be sure to center the film positives, leaving at least 2-3 inches of room around the designs. Next, place a piece of foam (cut to the inside dimensions of the screen frame) inside the screen frame. If you want to be extra careful about light diffusion, you can fit a black t-shirt over the foam before placing it into the screen. The film positive should be in between the glass and the screen mesh after this step.

Step 3 - On top of this, add some weighted books or anything that will distribute a even amount of pressure and ensure that the artwork and emulsion have great contact with the glass.

Step 4 - Turn off all other lights and then turn on the exposure unit (or if it has a built in timer, set it to the correct amount). Depending on your emulsion type, mesh count, UV tube wattage and artwork, exposure times may vary. You may have to do this step a few times to determine the exact exposure time.

Using Ulano Dual Cure Direct Emulsion, a 30” x 40” exposure unit with 8 UV tubes (FL30T8/BL350), I typically expose for 2 – 3 minutes using this method for great results. 

Step 5 – After the screen has been exposed, quickly move to the washout area. Use a garden hose and cold water to spray both sides of the screen (this stops the chemical reaction). Continue spraying the screen with water with medium pressure. After some time you will notice the screen starting to “open up”. Once this happens use the hose to gently spray the design areas. Do not stop until all the areas have opened up completely. Do not use a pressure washer to do this step as it may actually remove parts of the emulsion that make up your design.

Step 6 – Throughout the process, hold up the screen to a light in order to see if the screen still has bits of emulsion that still need to be removed. Once you are satisfied you can leave the screen to dry. Also, for thinner lines and detailed work, you may need to be very gentle with the washout process and may actually require less exposure time. In these instances, I would consider drying the screen and then re-exposing to “harden” the emulsion.

Step 7 – Ready to be taped!

Capillary film is emulsion that is adhered to a clear plastic film in the form of a roll or a sheet. The film is applied directly to wet mesh. The capillary action (hence the name) causes the emulsion to stick to the mesh. When the frame is ready for use, the plastic film is peeled off, leaving the emulsion intact and ready to expose. The benefit of using capillary film is no nasty emulsion mess to clean up! It does tend to be more expensive though and must be ordered in bulk rolls or sheets.

Capillary film needs lots of water to stick to the screen. Insufficient water leaves air bubbles trapped between the mesh and capillary film that look like white spots. Using a spray bottle filled with water you can dampen the print side of the screen mesh.

This tutorial will go through the step by step process of applying capillary film to your screens. One thing to note – capillary film tends to break down faster when using water-based inks. It should be good for up to a run of 50 prints using a water-based ink system. I use a brand of capillary film called Magna/Cure manufactured by Chromaline.

Step 1 – Open the tube of capillary film in a light safe room.

Step 2 – Measure out the length of film you need for your screen and cut it with a pair of scissors.

Step 3 – After you have degreased your screen, wet it thoroughly. You can also use a spray bottle filled with water. They also selling wetting agents (chemicals) that keep your screen wet and enhance adhesion.

Step 4 - Roll the dull-side of the sheet onto the wet screen’s print side (opposite the squeegee side). You’ll notice the emulsion sticks instantly.

Step 5 – Once the sheet has been spread onto the screen, you may notice some white spots or bubbles. You can use a window washer type squeegee to gently smooth out the sheet. Also, use a spray bottle filled with water on the ink/squeegee side of the screen if there are any dry spots that still need to stick to the mesh. Once the capillary film has been applied to the screen, lay it horizontally in a completely dark room and let it dry for an hour. Use a fan to speed up this process.

Step 6 – Once the screen has dried completely, simply peel the plastic backing when you are ready to expose.

Direct emulsion consists of diazo-cure, dual-cure or pure photopolymer emulsions. Direct emulsion comes in the form of a liquid substance (it typically smells like glue when you open the container). Most emulsions will require mixing of a sensitizer with the contents of the container to activate the emulsion. Once the emulsion is properly mixed, let it stand for an hour or two to let any bubbles settle (these can cause uneven coating results). A scoop coater is used to spread the emulsion onto the framed screen. The mesh must be dry for emulsion to properly adhere.

Step 1 – Place a piece of wood or 2 x 4 against a wall (I use my closet door). Make sure  you are coating the screens in a light safe area (using yellow bulbs) or at least in a dark room away from direct sunlight. I always use newspaper to cover the general area as emulsion can get really messy.

Step 2 – Prop the screen frame up against the the piece of wood so it is stable. You will be applying pressure with the scoop coater and you do not want it to slip during the process. Also, make sure you have properly degreased and dried the screen.

Step 3 – This is another angle of the set up. Get your scoop coater ready once you open the emulsion.

Step 4 – Pour the emulsion into the scoop coater. Don’t worry about pouring too much in there because you can always pour unused emulsion back into the container when finished.

Step 5 – Most scoop coaters have a thin and thick edge. Make sure the sharper (thinner) edge of the scoop coater is facing the screen. Tilt the scoop coater flat against the screen across the mesh until the emulsion contacts the screen. 

Step 6 – With an even motion, slide the scoop coater up the screen to deposit a thin layer of emulsion. Remember to keep it flat against the screen until you reach the top. As you start to reach the top, tilt the scoop coater away from the screen.

Step 7 – Depending on the type of emulsion you use, you may need to coat the inside of the screen frame as well. I always do one coat on both sides.

Step 8 - Typically, the sides will have thicker drips of emulsion. I will use a small piece of card stock to even out the edges. After this step place the coated screen in a well-ventilated, dust free area that is completely dark (no light at all!). Make sure to lay the screen horizontally to promote even thickness as the emulsion dries. To speed up the drying process you can use a fan.

Step 9 - Pour any remaining emulsion back into the bucket and close the container. Clean it all up and wait for the screen(s) to dry!