Is a dark room required for screen printing? Let's find out. Coating and exposing with the lights on
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 ก.ย. 2024
- I don't have a dark room in my basement print shop but I do have UV blocking window tint and safe lights. In the past, I've always turned the lights off and turned on the safe lights whenever I coated screens or burned screens. But I decided to finally put it to the test. In this video I talk about my setup and we go through the whole process of coating a screen with the lights on, letting it dry, then burning it with the lights on.
Here are the overhead lights I have. I got them from Sam's Club: www.samsclub.c...
Emulsion used was Baselayr Complete from @baselayr: ssp.ink/emulsion
Power washer used: amzn.to/3yMOhM0
Quiet air compressor used: amzn.to/3n4RyUA
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super fun test! i dont have a darkscreen, i just don't shine light directly onto my screens and just do it quickly
Thanks Matthew! Glad you’ve figured a method that works!
I thought the same thing but light safe is not always the truth
Yup always gotta test to make sure
Been printing for 13 years
Don’t have a dark room
Pretty much have the same set up as you. We work in a well lit shop.
I coat and set up to expose in the light. No issues. We do keep coated screens in a dark closet that’s a bout it.
Learned a long time to not follow other shops, do what works for you. 👌🏽👌🏽👌🏽
Love this! Couldn’t agree more.
You're coating a fresh low mesh screen in LED light? that might not matter but the longer they are in that light the more they will gradually expose and you start to loose fine detail and it will get harder to expose. Try that with a 200- 305 mesh and show the results. There are led lights that are white and don't emit UV light at all
Great points. My screens stay in the light sometimes all day for weeks at a time and I haven't had any issues with detail loss or more difficult exposure times but I'll certainly keep an eye out in case that does start happening. The mesh sizes I have are 156, 200, 230, and 305 and all seem to be doing just fine in the light so far. It's just nice to not have to be stressing so much about having a "legit" dark room haha.
how long does it take from coating to exposing g the screen?
That varies based on the humidity in your room and how long it takes for the emulsion to dry. It should be completely dry before you expose. For me, I let them dry for at least 8 hours. You can speed this up with a dehumidifier or a drying box.
great lesson - experimentation is big
Totally agree!
Hey! As a fellow southerner, how do you deal with the humidity when it comes to drying the emulsion? My workspace is unairconditioned, unfortunately. The tiny walmart dehumidifier doesn't seem to do much.
Well I’m actually in Colorado now so I don’t live in the south anymore and I’m so glad I don’t have to deal with humidity haha. But when I was there and worked at a print shop we had one of the larger dehumidifiers from Costco and we had a drain hose running outside so we didn’t have to empty the reservoir. We had one of them in our basement too haha. Our screen room/dark room was about an 8x6 room and we would have dry screens in about an hour after coating. If you can swing the cost, I’ve heard good things about those drying cabinets. Or you could build your own with an exhaust fan and dehumidifier built in.
@@startupscreenprinting well shucks. I was hoping maybe there was some kind of trick I didn't know about. A big ol' humidifier and ductwork for my existing cab it is
@@startupscreenprinting also: traitor (jk)
Haha sorry! And yeah my wife’s family is out here so she took me out of the south. 🤣
I wish I found your vids a year ago when I just started out. Have you tried the complete with diazo added in?
Hi Andrew! I wish I was posting them a year ago! haha. And yes, I have done that but honestly I haven't felt like there was any need to. Typically a shop will add diazo for greater stencil detail or if they're doing really, really large print runs and need the emulsion to hold up on press a lot longer. Typically I'm not doing any orders larger than around 150 or so (although I have a 450 one in the works) so the emulsion lasts just fine for those order sizes. In fact, I post harden in the sun after exposing and I've been able to print 100+, clean the ink out, then come back a week later and print even more in the same screen with no emulsion issues. And as far as detail, I feel like I've gotten great detail without it, so I don't feel like I need it at this point. That might change in the future, though. Another problem with diazo is once it's mixed, that emulsion is only good for a max of about 12 weeks depending on the storage temp.
@startupscreenprinting Awesome! I'm only asking since I use the same emulsion but have been having trouble properly exposing halftones. I'm still doing 1/1 coats though so I'll try 2/2 and see if that helps
What size screen are you using? And what are you using to print films? Mesh size can affect halftone quality, as well as how dark your film is and how much contact/pressure you're getting on your exposure unit (assuming you aren't using a vacuum unit).
@@startupscreenprinting canon pixma ip8720 on transparency film by goldup usa. I adjusted the black levels in photoshop to the darkest it can go. I also use a led vacuum exposure unit. The lpi is 45 and I've been trying to put it on 230 mesh but want to go lower to 180. I think one of my screen making technicals is wrong because this should be good enough to properly expose halftones.
Yeah you should be fine (sorry totally didn't see this last comment) but I would recommend maybe ordering a film already printed using all black UV blocking ink and see if it makes a difference. Might be that your films still aren't dark enough. 230 mesh should be fine so it could be your emulsion (maybe how much emulsion you have on the screen, too), could be exposure time, and could be film darkness.
Another very inspiring video--you're my best hype man :) Small time graphic designer with a friend of mine, but would love to have this be a full time business. Thanks for the pump up!
Thanks Heather! I believe it can not only be a full time gig for you and your friend but a very successful one! There’s a lot of money to be made in screen printing, that’s for sure. So glad you’re enjoying the content!
Thank you for your videos! Going through a rough time figuring everything out and this was encouraging!!
Oh I’m so glad it was encouraging, Audry! If you ever have questions let me know if love to help! You can message me, submit a question to the podcast at ssp.ink/questions or even join the print crew and ask your questions there and get support from other printers, ssp.ink/jointheprintcrew
Love your videos Jesse! Always great info really appreciate the effort and knowledge!
Thank you for the support Carmelo!
Spot on! Question everything 🙌🏼
👊🏼👍🏽
Nice I have to try that I have been doing the same thing in my shop
For sure, give it a shot!
I love your videos. It gives encouragement to starting out. My work room is my garage with woodshop . Thank you!
Glad you're enjoying them, Munawar!
@@startupscreenprinting The fact that yours are latest videos I have found. And you're not into loud flashy videos, it's great. Hoping to get this to supplement my day job. My side hustle is HVAC right now and it's good money, but I am getting too old for that. Thank you!
It’s a great side gig option! Lots of money to be had in this industry if you work hard. Keep working!
Thanks!!!
You bet!