Silkscreening.. how to DIY?

[Guest redips]

hello.. anywher to do a permanent print (eg: logo, instructions etc) on a piece of flat plastic (polyproperlene) surface???

 

or theres way of fast and effective way to DIY silkscreen?

[Guest feesta]

I had a roomate two years ago who bought a kit on it. You have to get the logo, etc. to a transparency. then use the kit. pretty simple.

 

there is a gallery near me (Pittsburgh) with a large screenprinting studio that allows people to screenprint for $5 on Tuesday nights. ink, screens w/ emulsion, some paper are included. being a non-profit, i've heard they may be having financial problems but in the meantime, other galleries have been filling up with a variety of work from young artists. some friends have been making/selling tshirts: http://www.opelclothing.com/

 

get a kit. they're probably not that expensive.

[Guest littlecog]

Build a frame out of 2"X2" lumber and then steal your mothers nylon stockings to strech across and staple into place. Hinge the whole affair on a piece of perforated masonite hooked up to a shop vac (the vacuam holds your peice of paper/polypropelene/currency grade linen in place) and 'bob's your uncle' you've got yourself a budget screen printing set up. A 'squeegy' thing that you use to clean the windscreen on your automobile will do at a pinch to spread the paint through your mothers stockings. Photocopy your design onto light card and cut out areas as nescessery. Use multiple photocopies to build up layers of color. Acrylic paints work pretty well and is cheap too but not weather proof without a coat of polyurethane varnish. Of course if you want to make a photographic screen you are S.O.L. but maybe if you know a photographer they can show you how to expose fine denier mesh that has been pretreated with photographic emulsion......

 

Blah, blah, blah....

[Guest redips]

hi fessta .. can i know wher to get the kit? can i get it around singapore or malaysia?

[Guest redips]

yup littlecog tats a budget method..~

 

but theres some part i dun understand.. wat do u mean by (Hinge the whole affair on a piece of perforated masonite hooked up to a shop vac ) wats masonite?? u gt any pics of it??

 

and u said.. spread the paint on the stockin.. is it acrylic paint? throughout the whole surface of the frame?

 

will polyurethane varnish crack?? bec. wat i wanted to print on is a 0.7 thick sheet of PP plastic, its very flexible... is ther any permanent ink or dye that i can use??

 

hope u wont get irritated for tat much of questions~

[Guest feesta]

hey redips,

I just googled it and found a listing on ebay. a lot of the kits seem to be labeled for fabric but i think that's just marketing to where the demand is. I don't know if you are able to buy stuff from US companies. i noticed a new zealand toy company had some listing. just be sure it has photo emulsion. that is what will allow you to duplicate your design. you'll also need some printable transparencies. there are tutorials around. just google screen-printing-tutorial. good luck!

[Guest feesta]

masonite is a sheet material usually an 1/8" but i think i've seen it 3/16". it's similar to MDF but i think the surface is harder. it might be treated or finished with something.

[Guest redips]

littlecog: can transparency replace light card??

 

feesta: yup.. i've found some useful site of building a silkscreening set up in http://www.reuels.com/reuels/page512.html and also in how stuff works..

[Guest littlecog]

Check out my quick sketch of a budget silkscreen set up. The shop vac provides vacaum to hold your print piece in place because the ink will make it stick to the nylon when you open the screen. The cut out template is attached to the underside of the frame/screen (double sided tape or spray mount will do) and then you mask of the areas you dont want printed with scrap paper (newspaper works best). The ink needs to be the consistency of single cream. Any thicker and it will not go through the screen. Any runnier and it will bleed out of the print area. Finding the right consistency is an art in itself. Place your paper on the vacaum bed and close the screen. Pour a quantity of ink along the top side of the screen roughly the width of your template. Take the squeegy (the thing you clean the windows on your car with) an pull it across the screen in one slow pull squeezing the ink through the screen and onto your print piece. Lift up the screen and remove your print. If you are doing multiple colors you will need to make registration marks on the vacaum bed to allow correct positioning of the paper. I don't think you will be able to use transparencys becuase the the material is not absorbant and would lead to bleeding. Let me know how it goes

[Guest redips]

hmmm.. nt quite successful for the first attempt The ink spreads out of the template.. mabi i put too much ink?

 

i used acrylic paint to mask the unwanted area. is this correct?

 

i m still lookin for the kind of permanent ink which can do print on PP plastic sheet, the onli answer now i though of is the permanent marker ink.. u think its ok?

[Guest redips]

hmm.. i think i tell you the whole story.

 

why i m lookin for silkscreening printing is because i m trying to manufacture something which is a piece of die cutted PP sheet with some prints on it. The reason why i din wanna find the manufacturers outside its because the quantity i ned is jus ard 100/200pcs (too little, cost price too high). i've found the raw material, found the source of the mould but haven talk to em' yet, still struggling for the prints part.

 

i know silkscreen is cheap outside but overall is too high for the cost price bec i cant put the sellin price (i m the first hand man) is too high. its a cheap product.

 

u guys have any other methods of printing information on a product other then silkscreening? like pasting vinyl stickers, use a stamp etcetc???