Screen Print Newbie - Shark Print

Hi everyone, I have done silk screening briefly in high school (roughly 12 years ago) and am interested to get back into it. I’ve been watching youtube videos and am working on creating a design (a Jaws-esque shark). I’m hoping to be ready to cut out stencils and start putting my design onto paper in the next month or so. If any of you are available in the future to show me the ins/outs of the equipment, I’d appreciate your time a lot. Looking forward to creating in the space with you! Cheers

@silkscreentechs

I think the main issues at the moment are that you’d need to prepare a screen and then wait for a sunny day to expose it

We’re not yet quite set up to expose screens and one of the techs has broken his arm which has slowed down testing. We have all the pieces, it’s just putting them all together with inductions that we’re not quite ready for.

We will put up a post when we’re ready to start showing people how to use everything. If you want to get prepared you can have transparencies printed for your colour separations though.

If you’re talking paper cut stencils @Brooker, we can absolutely do this right away! I’m recovering from a broken arm at the moment but if you would like to get the stencil ready in the space and keep it safe in the planning drawers with your username labelled somewhere, I’d be more than happy to run a refresher of the printing process with you using our kit in the next few weeks :slight_smile:

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Hello all,

I’ve been watching YouTube videos as refreshers on the entire process. I believe I would need multiple screens (possibly 3) prepared to create a layered multi-colour print on canvas. Is this possible / too ambitious for my first time? I am going to head in on Sunday to try and familiarize myself with the equipment and work on the design.

Let me know if any of you plan on going into the space the next few weekends as I work out of town most weeks so can only attend Saturdays Ana Sundays for now.

Thank you!

@silkscreentechs

We are still not quite set up for exposing any screens yet, much less three at the moment.
Sorry to have to keep putting people off but we haven’t even worked out exposure times for screens or how we’re going he to deal with coating and drying yet.

As mentioned if you have paper stencils and want to do one colour that is doable now but multi-colour registered prints is absolutely going to need inductions, if only to make sure people clean up afterwards.

Yeah let me know about whether you’d be happy doing it as a paper cut stencils or emulsion, paper cut can be right away with multiple layers, emulsion would be a bit longer I’m afraid. I’m also wanting to try out some textile printing but am still unsure as to when I’ll be able to come in next with functional arms :rofl:

Realise I didn’t actually explain the differences, paper cut stencils make a much more limited run with perhaps 5-10 prints out of a stencil before the paper starts to degrade and you end up with lower quality prints or are no longer able to carry on printing. Emulsion stencils last much longer if you want to print larger quantities of fabrics but requires more setting up which we aren’t quite at the point of just yet. Hope that helps, and do let me know!

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