Random Thoughts

I’ve been having serious problems getting the emulsion to expose properly the last couple of days.  I’ve had four screens ruined — peeling and stuff.  I tried varying the drying period, the exposure length, and the heat of the water I use to wash the emulsion off with.

Then I remembered the emulsion can saying something about not lasting forever.

Sure enough, after mixing, it’s supposed to work for four weeks at room temperature.  And this blow shows that I started making shirts on June 6th, which is more like six weeks ago.

Oops.

Time to mix up a new batch.  And stick it into the fridge.

I did manage to make a last couple of screens from that can, though, but washing the unexposed bits off was a chore.  But it turned out pretty nice:

And I got a hot air gun to do the curing with.  I’m not quite sure how long to cure, but I gave it a couple of minutes on 300C, and it certainly feels dry.  I hope I’ve not over-cured it — that can apparently make the print brittle.

I must be doing something wrong when curing (i.e. heat fixing).  Most of the shirts survive washing just fine, but two of them have dissolved.

Hm…  it was the metallic and the “glow yellow”.  Perhaps they need more curing?

Googling a bit more seems to suggest that curing water based inks with an iron is challenging, since you need to get all the moisture out to get the ink to bond with the fabric properly.  Some people recommend using a heat gun.  Hm…  More stuff to buy, I guess.

I remembered that I had a drying cabinet, so I plugged the holes in it (to avoid light leaking in), and suddenly my screen printing process is down to five hours.

Man, that’s some good screen printing.

The image is Errata Stigmata by Beto Hernandez, from that calendar previously discussed in previous editions of this blog previously published previously.