4 Color Process with a 500 Watt Lamp

1589 Views 10 Replies 6 Participants Last post by Mikey Designs, May 21, 2014

Mikey Designs

Discussion Starter · May 19, 2014 (Edited)

Hello Everyone,

I have a 500 watt working lamp that I use to expose my screens. It's slow, but works beautifully. My next purchase will be a vacuum table, but until I save enough from screen printing jobs, it'll do for now.

I like to use Ulano's QTX. I've tried many emulsions and variations, but I've found, for me, it works quickest, builds up a stencil nicely, holds up great to long runs, and reclaims quite easily. My lamp is about a yard away and I expose 295-305 screens for 5 minutes and 85-156 mesh for 6 minutes. I coat my screens 1 and 1. Sometimes, 1 and 2, using the sharp edge of the scoop coater.

To get fairly good positive contact, I use a piece of glass larger than the screen and print my film positive on the emulsion side. I set the film up emulsion down, or against the screen. I like to use Ulano's 13x19 film for my positives and I use AccupRip and a all black system with my Epson 1400 printer. Dot density set to 3. More than that and the printer is just wasting ink, IMO. To get this setup to work, your screen frames have to be flat. So if you have a wood frame with excessive mesh adhesive, I'd save those for simple block lettering jobs.

Here is a custom in house piece of art I printed. 4 color process using the 500 watt working lamp. Such a killer setup. :lol: Although it gets the job done.

Some shots of the detail.

Here is the design going down onto a white Gildan 5000. I printed these in C, M, Y, K order. Normally I would print lightest to darkest, but I found in order to get a nice bright red for the car, yellow needed to be printed last so the screens weren't picking up all the color by the time I got to black. Squeegie angle about 80º. 1 flood stroke, 1 print stroke. Union Ink's Process Inks.

Cyan

Magenta

Yellow

And the finished piece with black.

So... you can get great detail with a 500 watt working lamp. Using a 500 watt lamp is just timely.

Have a great day,

Matt

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PatWibble

· #2 · May 19, 2014

Same set -up as mine, with similar results.

Just goes to prove that you don't need to spend thousands on a light bulb in a box!

Time is only really a factor when printing short runs. On longer jobs an hour spent exposing screens is less critical. I find that the twelve or so minutes that it takes to expose the screen is just long enough to wash out and remove the excess water from the previous one.

Have you tried moving the light closer to the screen to speed things up? (you would probably have to move the lamp 6-8" from the wall to keep an even light spread).

Put some 2" thick foam under the screen. It will push the mesh and film tight to the glass.

Excellent results.

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selanac

· #3 · May 19, 2014

Very nice job. I'll have to follow your example for practice.

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Mikey Designs

Discussion Starter · #4 · May 19, 2014

PatWibble said:
Same set -up as mine, with similar results.

Just goes to prove that you don't need to spend thousands on a light bulb in a box!

Time is only really a factor when printing short runs. On longer jobs an hour spent exposing screens is less critical. I find that the twelve or so minutes that it takes to expose the screen is just long enough to wash out and remove the excess water from the previous one.

Have you tried moving the light closer to the screen to speed things up? (you would probably have to move the lamp 6-8" from the wall to keep an even light spread).

Put some 2" thick foam under the screen. It will push the mesh and film tight to the glass.

Excellent results.

All great points! Generally, I'll take my exposed screen, hose it with water. While the screen "develops", I'm setting up the next screen for exposure. By the time I'm done washing it out and drying it with paper, the next screen is ready to go.

I've thought about using foam to make good off contact, but this seems to work well. It could probably be better. What I really would like to do is, build a light box with one of these lamps, or a couple, where the light is coming from the bottom. Then I could use a padded foam weight. I had an old school 1000 watt lamp I was using, but the bulb burnt out and I couldn't find a replacement.

Thanks for sharing some tips.

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Mikey Designs

Discussion Starter · #5 · May 19, 2014

selanac said:
Very nice job. I'll have to follow your example for practice.

Thank you!!!

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Celtic

· #6 · May 19, 2014

Really nice job on your practice piece.
Just be sure to never sell these.
Ratfink is a protected, trademarked character.
That would hurt you big time $$$.

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Smalzstein

· #7 · May 20, 2014

How many lpi?

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Mikey Designs

Discussion Starter · #8 · May 20, 2014

Celtic said:
Really nice job on your practice piece.
Just be sure to never sell these.
Ratfink is a protected, trademarked character.
That would hurt you big time $$$.

Thank for your comment on my practice piece. None were sold for profit. Just practice Thanks again.

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Mikey Designs

Discussion Starter · #9 · May 20, 2014

Smalzstein said:
How many lpi?

55 lpi on a 305 mesh. Thanks!

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TYGERON

· #10 · May 21, 2014

Don't know how I overlooked this post.
This is why I hang out here!
Just goes to illustrate that there isn't any one, absolute way or process to produce a good print. It's more about knowing what you're doing and utilizing what you have to it's fullest. And when/if you ever upgrade equipment you'll have more of an appreciation for it.

And if you're at a point where you're doing process printing for 'practice', you either really have the fever or you should get out more

NICE PRINT!

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Mikey Designs

Discussion Starter · #11 · May 21, 2014

TYGERON said:
Don't know how I overlooked this post.
This is why I hang out here!
Just goes to illustrate that there isn't any one, absolute way or process to produce a good print. It's more about knowing what you're doing and utilizing what you have to it's fullest. And when/if you ever upgrade equipment you'll have more of an appreciation for it.

And if you're at a point where you're doing process printing for 'practice', you either really have the fever or you should get out more

NICE PRINT!

Thank you!!!

Well, we all have to start somewhere before getting out and selling. I had to make sure it was something I could pull off. I was skeptical whether I could achieve it with my setup, but the results have made me confident.

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