I am new to the forum, and new to screen printing. I am working on a very small budget and have started screen printing as a hobby, and to see if it's something I would really be interested in.
I have put a table into my walk-in closet, and put a 35 red light bulb from kmart in the closet. This is where I am putting the emulsion on my screen and exposing it. I have built a small screen printing table to do my actual prints on. And the equipment I am using is the Speedball Starter kit; 1 frame, 3 fabric inks, emulsion and sensitizer, and I have bought a yard of screen from our local store, and a 150 Watt Flood Light with a reflector for exposure.
I have successfully (for the most part, not real fine detail yet) made two screens and have printed with them. In doing so I have a couple of questions if you all wouldn't mind answering for me, because the shirt hasn't come out perfectly yet:
Questions -
1) Will a Red 35 Watt Halogen Light Bulb be dark enough to work in the closet without exposing the screen and emulsion?
2) I have read something about the screen needing 1/8 inch off-contact to print onto a shirt. Does this mean that the screen needs to be 1/8 inch off of the shirt when you print? Wasn't real sure about this.
3a) If you are printing on a dark shirt, it's my understanding you might need to print a base color (white) and then the color you want. Do you need registration marks for this?
3b) How do registration marks work? I understand the concept, but say I take a shirt and place 4 pieces of tape on it to print the registration points. I print the white. Then I realign the screen to print the next color.
It seems to me that you would only be able to realign it on the first shirt, because once the ink passes through you can't see through the registration mark to get your alignment for the next shirt. Can someone please elaborate on how this works?
4) The shirt that I have printed out isn't smooth. It's sort of faded and the texture isn't nice and smooth, but sort of rough. Do I need to print twice to make the ink thicker, and will Transparency Extender Base make the texture smoother?
Thanks for all the input and help a head of time. I have been trying to do as much research as possible but am having trouble finding some information online. Looking forward to speaking with you all! ~spankthafunk
Re: New To The Forum - Simple Questions (Hopefully)
Yes, off-contact is the space between the printing substrate and the screen. Hand registration (without a carousel) is very hit and miss, so yes visibility could be an issue. Normally registration is basically a once-off thing for a print run: you align the screens in the carousel, clamp them down, and print. If your carousel is decent the screens won't move, so you don't need to line them up by sight again for the print run.
Re: New To The Forum - Simple Questions (Hopefully)
gotcha. yea i'm not really using a carousel yet, just doing this out of the home. so everything is done by hand, so i spose it'll be hard to do multiple colors without a carousel.
thanks for the advice though, it seems like i am moving in the right direction so far.
New To The Forum - Simple Questions (Hopefully) 
