Screen Printing: Cheap, Dirty, and At Home

Step 5: Rinse off Your Screen

Once you feel pretty confident that the photosensitive emulsion is hardened in the sun, take your screen to the garden hose and start getting the emulsion off where your image was.

This is easiest to do with a lot of water pressure, but it's still possible to do without a hose attachment. Rub the screen with your hand to help the emulsion wash out. I've even gently rubbed with the scratchy side of a kitchen sponge. This can damage the screen a little bit, but it works pretty well. Don't scrub hard or you'll screw up your screen.

I find this part to be the hardest part. I always get a little frustrated that the emulsion doesn't wash off fast enough and worry that it'll harden while I'm in the process, especially on a sunny day. If your image was opaque enough you shouldn't have any troubles, though.

Comments

[nuberocks]

men, i find difficulties in burning an image on my screen. can u post a picture of steps in arranging the emulsion up to placing the glass pls.. tnx!!! and more power!!!

[stib]

Just from having done a bit of silk screening a useful tip is that after you've washed your screen, take it back out into the sun / UV light and let it sit for a while and harden up. This will make the emulsion tougher for those long print runs.

[janetg]

After I washed my screen I took the hair dryer to it for a few minutes. Apparently the heat also helps the emulsion set. It also dries the screen faster, which is nice if you are impatient like me and want to get a-printin'. Also, with regards to photocopying your image onto a transparency, I had no luck finding a place that could get it really dark. But I ended up using three photocopied transparencies, which I aligned really well and taped, and it worked out fine.

[SLeis]

janetg, if you have an A4 printer, you can make great positives yourself. It is when you go to print, go into the printers properties dialogue box and then the advance tab. What you are doing is telling the printer to put down as much ink as possible. Set paper to high quality (even if it is not), best photo or image, contrast to high and brightness to low. You can do this even with plain paper and get great results. You will have to muck around with the printer settings to find what combo works best, if you are going to use a photocopy you should also set it to dark. If you hold your positive up to the light and you can see through it, then the light can pass through it.

[stib]

The equipment that they used to use to make those high contrast transparencies was a bromide camera. There probably aren't that many around these days, so using multiple photocopies works just as well. You might lose fine detail, but you were going to lose it anyway - it is a silkscreen after all.

[It_s_Cold]

Oh, almost forgot..after the screen is dry, is there anything i can do/put into the screen that would open up some of the emulsion that doesn't come off in the washing process? thank you

[tracy_the_astonishing]

If the emulsion didn't come off, it's because it got exposed to the sun. It's hard to spot clean a screen. Instead, try doubling the transparency to make it darker and more opaque or otherwise making sure that the image you use is really opaque.

[It_s_Cold]

hei tracy, this whole process been fun. I learn the whole process using your way. I just have a quick question, how come after i washed my screen for 1 hour, there are part of the picture that doesn't rinse off?is it because i put too much emulsion in that part?or maybe because my image doesn't have the "balanced" darkness. Help comments are greatly appreciated.

[tracy_the_astonishing]

Hye! Really glad that you are having fun. If someof the emulsion isn't coming off, it is because it is getting some light on it somehow. You could try making two photocopies onto transparencies and putting them one on top of each other to make it more opaque. Also, maybe you are exposing the screens for too long. You could try screen cleaner to remove some of the emulsion, but I'm not sure how well that would work for a little spot clean. I suspect not that great...

[sarsbabe]

Hi - Im so over the moon to find your help on screen printing. Ihad done it at college years ago but couldn't remember how to do it. I have been wanting to print my own Tshirts for ages now - thanks u have helped me. I just wondered though- I want to do a tshirt with just text on it in black with no background colour on a white t shirt. Is there any way in which I can do this without having to colour any other part of my tshirt other than the black text? Cos i understand that my image will print in negative. I fu could help that would be great. Thanks again Berniece, UK

[qwerty90210]

it should print positive but i would suggest using those sticker letters to write it out

[tracy_the_astonishing]

I'm sorry, I never saw this post. oops. Your image does not print negative. It prints positive. So you don't have to write backward or anything. You will have no problem with black text on white fabric.

[alliemommy5]

I never saw a response to this post, but I am wondering the same thing. I want to do white ink on a dark shirt (text only) Could someone let me know if this is the same process. thanks allie

[tracy_the_astonishing]

It's the same process. No backward writing! BUT, if you do white on black you will need special opaque ink.

[Bisco]

this is exactly the process you would wanna follow for lettering sars and a great instructable. definatly better then how i used to do it when i first started with latex paints and weiving looms. although the weaving looms are good subs for the frames they come in all sizes and are about 50 cents a piece. and you can buy a yard of silk mesh(more then enough for multiple screens) at a sewing store for about 3 or 4 bucks

[sarsbabe]

Its ok - I think I got it! lol