Discuss the different types of equipment needed for screen printing. Topics include manual screen printing presses, automatic presses, dryers, folding machines, starter kits and high end machines.
I haven't been screen printing for too long, but I am on my second batch of emulsion. This time around I managed to buy much more than last time, at a much cheaper price.
My concern is that what is happening never happened to the first batch I used.
Ok, so I have been coating my screens with my scoop coaters, leaving them to dry lying flat in a dark cupboard. Sometimes I will do a bunch at one time and leave them all to dry in the same place. I don't have a drying rack (yet), so I just pile them on top of each other. The frames of each screen are thick enough so that the coated screens don't touch each other. Is this alright? Should I be allowing more air to circulate between each screen?
Anyways, nearly all of them have dried with what looks like emulsion drip marks. Is it possible when I mixed my emulsion I used too much water and the entire solution is too watery? It looks fine, exactly like the first batch in fact, so I am doubtful that's the problem.
I would strongly recommend not stacking them on top of each other. Since you are already getting drips you are opening yourself up to the possibility of one dripping onto another. When I first started we tried stacking them and ended up having to wash and re-emulsion a couple of screens because they dripped onto one another.
As far as the drips I usually only have them in places where it would not interfere with my image so I don't worry to much about them.
You should have a little space in between the screens so that they will dry faster and drip less. Another way to keep them from dripping is to take a piece of cardboard 1" by 2" and smooth out the thick edges of the emulsion. The overflow lines of excess emulsion that spill out of the sides while coating needs to be smoothed out or it will drip.
sounds like your coating the emultion but not scraping off the excess then the emultion is pooling when your stacking the screens.
When you stack your screens ontop of each other there needs to be a space so that air can ciculate. Drying times will increase when done like this.
Thanks for the tips guys! Yeah, EVERY screen I have done has taken a LONG time to dry, so I've just grown used to leaving them dry overnight.
I should get myself a drying rack ASAP. :P
Luckily, none of them has dripped on to each other (that I know of anyways) and the pooled drip marks are usually around the sides of the screen frames.
So far, these pool dip marks have only interferred with the exposed design once, but it actually suited the design (the design is of a pool of blood and some splat marks)!
I'll try scrapping off the excess emulsion, though I am afraid I'll be scrapping off too much... Does anyone have any videos or images of this process? I have seen loads of tutorial videos, but none that mentioned this before.
I sometimes get sort of drips that form but don't actually drip off the screen in the area that I lift the scoop coater of the screen. Lately I've been giving my screens an extra scrape on the well side with just the blade of the coater, scraping of any excess and giving the emulsion a extra push through the screen - seems to be helping.
Just make some spacers to put in between the screens across the corners like blocks of wood or something to get the air circulating between them.
ryonet has a video on coating your screens.
Check their site (silkscreensupplies.com) or check their vids on youtube.
When you coat your screens, you want to hear that screech sound when you pull your scoop coater, then stop around an inch before the top and tip the coater towards you more and scrap up and out.
It definitely sounds like you're getting too much emulsion on your screen. If you're wanting to do something, like high density, and you want to build your emulsion depth, you've got to do that in stages, not all at once. So, coat and allow to dry thoroughly, then recoat and completely dry.
Until you get a drying rack, you could try getting some one by ones and using those as spacers between your screens when you stack. Definitely don't stack screens without allowing an air flow.
Sorry, i can't recall the name, and I am overseas now and wont be able to tell you for sure until June! But the process involved putting water in with the yellow desensitizer powder stuff, shaking it up, then mixing it with the bulk of the purple emulsion which made it go light greenish in colour.
Sorry, i can't recall the name, and I am overseas now and wont be able to tell you for sure until June! But the process involved putting water in with the yellow desensitizer powder stuff, shaking it up, then mixing it with the bulk of the purple emulsion which made it go light greenish in colour.
Ok, thats standard. It's unlikely you put too much water in.
I just started in this about a week ago, the first 2 screens that I coated, mine did the same thing. I put my screens in my homemade rack, and as I was cleaning up, I looked over and seen drips of emulsion had landed on the bottom of the rack, I looked at the screen and the end that I started on had excessive emulsion. I was not getting the screaching sound as mentioned in a post before the first time, so i thought about it and here is what I thought my problem was. I did not have a holder to hold the screens during application, i was leaning them against the wall, and had some movement while I was applying the emulsion. So I built a holder to hold the screens while applying the emulsion, the next time I made sure to apply pressure at the bottom when starting, I didn't have any movement of the screens when applying and didn't have any excess at the bottom when finished, and overall the emulsion application looked a lot better on the screen. Hope this helps.
Something I have done before I built my screen rack. . . I cut some 1 x 2's pieces of wood about 3 inches in length and coated a screen and then laid piece of wood at the top of the screen and the bottom (on the wood or aluminum part) and stacked on eachother that way, then had a ocilating fan blowing on them . . in 1 to 2 hours I was ready to burn my screens.
We use small blocks of wood between the screens and stack them. We have a dehumidifier running in the small room. Screens dry in 1-2 hrs as well. The dehumidifier really works well.
Emulsion drying drip marks 
