silk screening Tshirts?

[Mark Stewart]

Would any one have a set of plans for a simple screening machine I had a set out of some Mag froma few years back. Now that I want them They are gone:BangHead::embarrassed::gar-Cr.

Thanks Mark

 

[gator]

Don't know if this will help or not.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Screen-Printing:-Cheap,-Dirty,-and-At-Home/

George

 

[fergy]

How many heads are you looking for on the press? Are you trying to do process color, or just a single color simple design? How many are you looking to print? All of that will determine the design you're looking for.

I've done a lot of hand-screening, as well as working in a shop for a summer.

 

[Mike Davis]

I was a professional silk screen artist for ten years, both textiles and hard surface. I have done everything from a simple wood frame on hinges up to a 12 color automatic press.

I'd be happy to talk about anything in that field, but there is far too much information to discuss online.

PM your phone number and the best time to chat for a couple hours and i'll give you a call.

 

[Mike Davis]

Don't know if this will help or not.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Screen-Printing:-Cheap,-Dirty,-and-At-Home/

George

There's a whole lot of what NOT to do, but it is not presented as such.

No reflection on you George, but the Net is full of bad information.

 

[russellellis]

I was a screenprinter for about ten years as well. From simple one color one hits to 14 color auto, process flat work, soy, plastisols, uv, water and plenty other inks and a mututude of substrates. For multicolor jobs, registration is the most important aspect in the printing. 1000ths of an inch precision is needed on some work.
It all depends on what you're wanting to print as to what beast of a machine you need to build. I have worked on an all wood 4 color 4station machine and it was near impossible to have perfect registration on all four stations. Even with micros on all hheads.:evil:

 

[Mike Davis]

Most of the commercial 4 color stations won't register at all four stations. You're lucky to get two stations to register all four screens.

I was in the industry from 1979 to 1989. Probably a lot more primitive than your work. The last company I worked for had 2 4-color hand machines, an 8-color auto and 6 12-color autos. I did all the art work, dark room, film positives and made screens for the first couple years, then we got a full time screen maker. When I left it took 4 artists and a cameraman to keep up with the volume of work I was doing.

I worked part time for a fine print maker while I was there. I took sports photographs and posterized them in my 30 x 40 process camera, then he would touch up and modify the film to get the images he wanted. Some of the prints would have up to 30 layers of ink. Print, dry, print, dry, etc... sometimes the paper would shrink or expand so much we would have to redo the screens to make them fit.

I think I still have a roll of mesh out in the barn, will have to see if its still good.

 

[russellellis]

Mike. You gotta try some of the newer machines out there. I worked on an mci 8 color manual that locked better than the 10 color auto gauntlet. This has been 5 years ago now, and as ya know, that field is always moving forward.

 

[Mark Stewart]

Mike
thanks for the offer. What My friend is looking for is a simple machine to do 1 color work he runs a small old fashioned drive in right now he is ordering a set of 50 shirts at a time. I am just trying to help him save a bit of cash in these troubled times. so I am not looking for anythinf fancy just the basics.one color ans see how it goes from there.

Thanks Mark

 

[gator]

For just doing some tee-shirts, have you thought of using your ink-jet printer to make iron-on transfers. Depending on the size of the transfer, you might get more than one out of each transfer sheet. Also may be a lot easier and less messy.

George

 

[Glennbear]

I am not nearly as knowledgable as Mike or some of the others but I would suggest this site:

http://www.dickblick.com/ :wsmile:

 

[fergy]

Talk with the other gurus here, because they've got a lot of combined experience, but for what you're trying to do, I'd just make a simple screen frame and attach it to a board with hinges. WIth single color you're not that concerned with registration. Just need to jig this up so that the shirts slide onto the board to the same location each time. You're just trying to create the "summercamp" silkscreen setup here. There are plenty of inks that can be heat set instead of relying on UV.

And get these guys to show you the proper squeegee technique...