Homemade Process From Custom Screen Printing Services

By Ida Dorsey


Tee shirt printing has been vastly popular since pop culture references and other types of media has influenced it. There are so many inexpensive ways in achieving this, and it is to each their own techniques. But what is special to this is that any person, provided with the right materials and knowledge, can do this themselves.

There are a few things you need to get before doing this. A lot of custom screen printing services in Fort Worth TX have certain materials also that they use to generate shirt designs that their customers want from them. Although you can do the same in a small scale if you want to try it out.

The general idea for this process is through coating photo emulsion on the screens and then place a printed image from a clear sheet on it then exposing it to light. This is like cutting the emulsion with the design from the print. This is where you place the ink on the shirt through this hole design.

What is needed is a screen frame which can be about fourteen dollars, photo emulsion and sensitizer which goes about to twenty dollars, a two hundred and fifty watts bulb which might be around four dollars, and then a pair of latex gloves. You need to have a room that can be pitch black. This is for the exposure process of the screens.

Of course, you would need a plain shirt, a squeegee which can be bought for fourteen dollars, silk screen fabric ink which can be more or less five dollars, and then a small piece of cardboard or smooth thin piece of wood. This one is used for the inside of the shirt. This is during the printing process.

Prepare first the screens and the frame, make sure that it is tightly placed, too. The emulsion should be mixed with the sensitizer and then poured over the screens and evenly spread with a squeegee. Make sure that the size or area that is covered would be enough for the design and to also leave extra room as well.

Leave the screens in a pitch black room for two hours to let it dry. After that, without turning the lights on yet, lay over the design printed out from a transparency sheet over the screens then taping it with a masking tape. This process is like cutting out the image on the screen.

Do this for fifteen minutes before turning on the lights. Do not peel it completely just yet, take a look first if the cut out is faint enough before deciding to peel off the print out. Be careful not to overexpose it or the image would bleed over the screen.

Clean the screens off with running water until the dried emulsion on the design or the cut out parts are completely gone. Let it dry and lay it over the shirt with the cardboard inside it. Apply the ink over it and spread it using a squeegee over different directions, making sure it is evenly spread. Carefully take it out and let it dry.




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