Single Color Screenprinting

Coating a screen

  1. Make sure your emulsion has the diazo sensitizer added. If you are mixing a new jar of emulsion, please date the cap to indicate emulsion has been added.
  2. Fill your scoop coater with emulsion. It's better to use more than run out while coating a screen.
  3. Do two passes on each side: one with the scoop coater nearly perpendicular to the screen to fully coat the screen, and one with the scoop coater nearly parallel to scrape off all the excess emulsion.
  4. Leave the screen in the darkroom overnight to let the emulsion dry.

Exposing and washing

  1. Position your positive centered and reversed on the top of your screen. Tape the corners.
  2. Place the screen face down in the light box. Place the foam inside of the frame to prevent reflections from the lid exposing the emulsion behind your positive.
  3. Close the lid and turn on the lightbox.
  4. After exposure, remove the positive and rinse both sides of your screen. Let it sit for a few minutes.
  5. With the nozzle close to the screen, wash out the emulsion. You can hold the screen up to the light to make sure you’ve washed everything out. Any remaining emulsion will cure under the shop lights once you take the screen out of the darkroom, so be thorough.

Inking and curing

  1. Before using the screen, cover the inside edges of the screen with tape. This is to prevent ink from getting stuck in the crack between the screen and the frame, which makes the screens much harder to clean.
  2. Clamp the screen into the press.
  3. Scoop a generous amount of ink onto the top of the screen.
  4. There are two steps to inking your design: the flood and print strokes. To “flood,” use your squeegee to cover your design in a thick layer of ink. Make sure every part of your design is covered in ink.
  5. The “print” stroke is done by taking your squeegee at a sharp angle and pushing most of the ink back to the top of the screen. Apply pressure to make sure all of the ink on the screen is removed from the design. Leaving too thick of a layer will leave artifacts and bumps on your design.
  6. Remove your article from the press and place it in the conveyor oven. Different types of ink have different temperatures that they cure at.

Cleaning ink

  1. Once you’re finished printing, scoop the remaining ink back into its container.
  2. Take the screen to the wash station. If you used plastisol ink, spray down the screen with ink degraded and let it sit for a minute. Use a sponge to scrub the screen and rinse down the screen.
  3. Spray down the screen with dehazer, scrub and rinse.
  4. Shake off excess water and rack the screen to dry.

Reclaiming screens

  1. Spray down both sides of the screen with emulsion remover and let it sit for a minute.
  2. Gently scrub the screen with a sponge to loosen the emulsion and rinse it off.
  3. Repeat until the screen is clean, then rack it to dry.