I had several requests for the instructions on using silk screen (Screen Printing, it does not really use silk material) for making T-shirts, neckerchiefs, patches, or what ever you want to make. Please note that the costs of all the equipment you printing to get started sounds expensive at first.

If you are going to do this once and then never touch it again, it is expensive. If you have your paws in a lot of things like I do, then you will find that the chemicals and ink, last quite a bit and that the screens (when properly cared for) last a long time. If you are going to do this for 200+ T-shirts for a Cub Scout Day Camp (my first exposure to screen printing) it is worth the investment. The initial cost becomes quite small when spread over time and projects.

I also add in a lot of my own notes on what you can do to avoid purchasing some of the commercial stuff like the print. Art stores, where you can find most of what you printing, tend to be expensive places to shop.

T-Shirts may be purchased in bulk at good discounts. Most major cities have a local wholesale company which will sell directly to you. I buy from a company in Phoenix which I found out through the PHONE BOOK! They let me mix sizes and do not even demand I buy even dozens at a time. Here are some sample prices (these are a decade old already) Adult White T-shirts 50/50 blend 26.52/dozen, colored T- shirts shirts colors 30.60/dozen and dark colors 32.40/dozen. Children sizes are less. 100% cotton a little bit more. You can get pocket T-Shirts, sweat shirts and trousers; all of which can be screen printed. If someone wants the name of the company and phone number let me know I will send it them directly.

To make your own Silk screen you will printing:

SCREEN PRINTING PHOTO EMULSION AND SENSITIZER

In the USA I purchased a HUNT SPEEDBALL SCREEN PRINTING PHOTO EMULSION KIT some seven or eight years ago and I am still using it. (I originally purchased this for doing patches for a district Kite Fly.) I paid $12.00 and I think the price was up to $15.00 last time I looked. You can find this in any good art supply store. I use a plastic spoon for mixing the solution.

SCREEN MATERIAL

This seems like the most expensive part (maybe because I buy it by the yard when I buy) but you do not printing a lot of it, unless you are going to make a lot of screens. It too may be purchased at any good art supply store. One note, the screen material is NOT SILK, it is polyester or some other suitable synthetic fabric. The people in the art store should know what you are talking about or they are working in the wrong place. BE SURE YOU BUY A PIECE WHICH IS LARGER THAN YOUR print. It is also possible to re- use the screen. I have never bothered, but if you are on a real tight budget, this is an option.

print

This is to place the material on. I have used and prefer to use 2 by 2 boards which I cut to the size I printing. I just nail them together. You can also buy prints for silk screen work in art stores. Whatever you use, be sure it is sturdy. WHEN YOU MAKE THE print, BE SURE IT IS LARGE ENOUGH FOR YOUR SQUEEGEE. If it is not, you will have problems, to the point of starting over. When doing patches or neckerchiefs (small items) a hinge attaching the print to a piece of plywood helps, but when doing T-shirts or other big items the hinge tends to get in the way. The hinge provides a fixed positions for the screen to come down on and it looks more like the expensive rigs you can buy, but I do not think they are worth the extra funds. The hinge also provides you with a resting position when taking out the just printed material and putting in the next material. I have done without the hinge most of the time, and this works fine for me. When doing T-Shirts the hinge tends to get in the way unless you mount it a little higher up than the surface of the plywood. You have to experiment to find out how high, but not much. It is also better mounted to the side for items like the T-shirts.

STAPLE GUN

If you make your prints like I do, a staple gun works just fine for attaching the screen material to the print. There are other methods and the purchased prints work like prints for window screens. Be sure the material is smooth and tight when you put it in the print.

MASKING TAPE

Or other suitable tape. I use this AFTER I make the positive. I put it on the outside on the bottom side of the print to cover the stables if they are on the bottom of the print. (I sometimes staple to the side of the print to keep a flat bottom on the print.) I also put it on the inside of the print along the outside edge of the screen. This keeps the ink from getting in-between the silk and the print where it gets lost forever (wasted) and can get messy (leak though).

SQUEEGEE

You can buy these designed for screen printing in art stores, but I have found that the cheap 1.29 squeegees you buy in auto part stores work well too. (Unless you are working on a very large design.) I have used the one I keep in my car a number of times (I just clean it when done).

TEXTILE SCREEN PRINTING INK

printed to the Art Stores for this one. I paid $6.00 for eight fluid ounces about two years ago. I have made about 50 T-Shirts with this Ink and still have 1/2 can left. Different materials will demand different amounts of ink. Paper (yes you can screen print paper) uses very little, Felt (which I have used for patches) uses a lot.

PHOTO FLOOD shirts OR 150 WATT BULB WITH REFLECTOR

I could never bring myself to buy the photo flood shirts (it is faster than the 150 Watt bulb, but both work). If you do not have a reflector type lamp to put the bulb in they sell for about $5 in hardware stores like the Home Depot. Be sure the one you buy will work ok with a 150 watt bulb-some have warnings about putting more than 60 watts in the reflector. Please note, ignoring this warning is dangerous! You can also use an aluminum pie tin for a reflector, just be careful how you mount it behind the shirts bulb. Also be sure your lamp can be mounted at different heights from the screen. The size of the screen determines how close the shirts is set. I use a ruler to get the correct height.

A DARK PIECE OF PAPER

Black is best, this is used while exposing the screen.

A PIECE OF GLASS

LARGER THAN YOUR DESIGN, BUT SMALLER THAN YOUR print - This is placed over the positive while exposing the screen. This is important to be sure good contact is made between the positive and the screen. I have used glass from picture prints. The glass printings to be clean and free of scratches. The edges of the glass will often leave lines on the screen as well. If I made the print, screen and design all the correct size, these lines are covered by the masking tape. (The ink generally does not go through the masking tape.)

SPRAY BOTTLE

This is used to wash out the screen after exposure. I use a window cleaner type bottle, or you can use a squirt gun (this is harder on the finger). You can buy the spray bottles for about $1.50 and you should get a good one. This is most physical part of the process. After you have washed several screens, you will know what I am talking about.

MISCELLANEOUS

I use an old towel under the material to be printed to insure good contact between the material and the screen. You will also printing a place to work where you can get dirty. When I have done this at meeting places, I cover tables and demand the youths involved wear old cloths. No mater how hard you try to be neat, this is like painting the house, you are going to ink on all kinds of things. Have some extra rags for wiping ink off of things/people. A plastic spoon will work for getting the ink from the can to the screen.

Cleanup is done with water, that is if it is done quick enough. After you finish printing the material (assuming cloth of some form) IRON it. THIS SETS THE INK AND HELPS IT LAST THROUGH MORE MACHINE WASHINGS. If you do not iron the items and the material is washed too soon, the design may all but disappear.

A positive is any image (usually opaque) on a transparent or translucent surface that will block out the ultraviolet portion of a shirts source. You may make your own art with India Ink and an artists' brush or pens, dry transfer or pressure sensitive letters and symbols, cutout letters or figures, and natural items such as leaves. These may be applied directly onto clear or translucent sheets such as Bienfang Wet Media or tracing paper of good transparency. (This is from the instructions.)

I have never tried tracing paper. Normally I get the design on paper and then copy it on to acetate (clear plastic). Most any copy machine can do this, but MOST COPY MACHINES MAKE HORRIBLE COPIES! If you are doing something with letters, put the press on letters directly on the acetate. If you make a copy of the design on the copy machine like I do, then go over the design on the acetate with a laundry marking pen or India Ink or something else which is very dark and will block out the shirts. IF YOU DO NOT MAKE A GOOD POSITIVE, THEN YOUR SCREEN WILL NOT BE THAT GOOD AND THE INK WILL NOT FLOW THROUGH THE SCREEN AS WELL AS IT SHOULD.

Avoid small detail like items in your design. SOLID BOLD LINES IN THE DRAWING AND LETTERS WORK BEST. Small detail items tend to collect ink and clog up real fast. This means they no longer show up on the material and become a wasted effort. Some of the best work I have seen includes lines and letters which were at a minimum 1/8 inch (3 cm) thick. For best results, try to stay at least 1/16 inch thick. I have seen and used much smaller, but the results (in particular when you are first trying this) are not as good.

Speedball Photo Emulsion Method

Follow the instructions that come with the HUNT SPEEDBALL Screen Printing Photo Emulsion Kit. The steps include:

• Mixing the solution
• Applying the solution to the screen (Do this before you apply the masking tape to the print and the screen.)
• Allowing the screen to dry in a dark location, in a horizontal position

Follow the instructions that come with the HUNT SPEEDBALL Screen Printing Photo Emulsion Kit. Again, do this before you apply the masking tape to the print and the screen.

Steps include:

• Place screen, bottom side down on dark surface (paper)
• Place positive readable side up on the screen
• Place a clear glass on shirt of the positive to insure proper contact
• Place the 150 Watt household bulb or photo flood lamp per the instructions for the time indicated.
• Using tepid water, spray the printed side of the screen
• Using tepid water, spray the inside of the screen to affect character wash-out.
• Continue spraying until all unwanted Emulsion is gone.
• Allow the screen to dry in horizontal position
• Check the screen for pin holes which printing to be covered

• When the screen is ready for use, apply the masking tape to prevent ink leaks which can ruin your material.
• Test the screen and ink on scrap material first.
• Depending on the material you may printing to make several passes with the squeegee.
• If you are making T-Shirts or some other item which is doubled over, place something in-between to keep the ink from bleeding all the way through both layers of material. I have used plain old file folders for this purpose.
• I usually wash the screen out immediately after I finish in the nearest sink. Then I wash the sink out!

Once you get the hang of doing this, it is not all that difficult. If you are doing something like T-Shirts for Cub Day Camp, it gives the staff an opportunity to work together and socialize while making the shirts. Allow one morning to do about 200 shirts (they have to dry before you iron).

Suggestions, advice & warnings #1

• Make your silk screen before your cub meeting starts. The delicate phase in silk screen printing is when you transfer the motive to the silk (with any of the methods described in the FAQ). You simply won't have the time or the patience to do this when the gang is around.

• Cover the table (and possibly the floor) with newspapers. Your wife might refuse to talk with you for a week otherwise.

• To have all cubs participating, have one cub do the printing while the other press down the print. Have each kid print his own shirt/towel/whatever.

• Use a cool drawing for the motive. Use something the kids can relate to, either something that represents your pack/den/group or if you do the silk screen printing during an overnight outing (as I do), something that has to do with the theme of your outing.

• After letting the motive dry, turn the shirt inside out and iron over the motive for 1-2 minutes. This will prevent the dye from washing out when the shirt gets washed for the first time.

From: Danny Scheduler

Suggestions, advice & warnings #2

My troop recently finished printing up some new troop t-shirts. We did 25 shirts both front and printed and it took about two hours total. We ran an "assembly line" operation. I did the actual screening of the shirts because I've had the experience and we had limited time and no spare shirts for practice. Here's how our line worked:

• One boy stuffs cardboard into a new shirt and hands it to printer.
• Printer prints design onto shirt and hands it to "cardboard remover". If you've got two cardboard bases, the "stuffer" can hand the printer a new one while the "remover" finishes his job.
• The remover hands the printed shirt to one of the "driers". The driers (you'll printing at least two of them) use hair driers to dry the ink.
• The driers hand the dried shirt to one of the "ironers", who irons the printed shirt. This sets the ink so that it will not wash off.
• The ironer puts it in the "done" box.

Then we repeated for the printed of the shirt.

I think the assembly line has to be the way to go because moving people around takes time, which might dry up the ink on the screen, clogging the sections up.

Next time I would prefer training a few printers first a few days in advance and let them do the whole operation.

From: M. God bout

Variation: Silk Screening using a nitrocellulose film

Textile printing is a traditional part of our campouts. During every weekend or camp our cubs attend, they get a 3 x 3" silk screen print on the printed of their shirt created just for that single event. With the time, the shirts are covered with a colorful patchwork which the kids are really proud to wear.

Textile printing isn't difficult. For simple designs however, I would replace the photosensitive film with a nitrocellulose film. It's a very thin, colored film which you can buy in art shops. You also printing some screen fabric (as described in Chris Haggler's notes above) and a bottle of nitro thinner, both also available in art shops, and finally a couple of cosmetic cotton pads or some cotton wool.

With a cutter, cut out the spaces where the print ink should be allowed to pass. Be careful to cut out only the green film, not the transparent layer it is mounted on; You printing very little pressure to do this.

This being done, place the film on a table with the colored side up, and tape the screen fabric over it. Then put a good amount of nitro thinner on a cotton pad and gently rub it over the whole screen surface. The film will dissolve a bit and melt into the screen fabric. Let it dry for at least half an hour to make sure that all the thinner is evaporated, then remove the tape and mount the finished screen on the print.