How to Print a Single-Color Silk Screen

You've made a silk-screen frame, stretched and prepped your silk screen, prepared your art and built a simple printing unit. Congratulations! You're finally ready to print.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately challenging

Things You’ll Need:

• Clear Ink Extender
• Drying Retardant
• Silk Screen Squeegees
• Silk Screens
• 3/4-inch Masking Tape
• Cardboard
• Clean Rags
• Water Sources
• Plastic Containers
• Plastic Spatulas
• Ink
• Notebook Papers Or Fabric
• Acetate
• A Piece Of Wood
• Hammers And Nail

Printing

1. Get your paper or other material ready.
2. Clamp the silk screen to your printing unit, well side up.
3. Raise the silk screen and prop it up using a leg prop or brick.
4. Cut a clear piece of acetate to the size of the open area of the screen.
5. Tape it to one side of the printing unit so that it can be lifted and flipped off the unit as needed.
6. Mix your ink well, making sure you've included at least 10 percent clear extender (either flat or glossy) and one capful of drying retardant for each 8 oz. ink.
7. Stand at the open side of the silk screen.
8. Pour a generous amount of ink into the low side of the silk-screen well and below the image. Pour a thick bead of ink onto the screen above the image (so that the image is framed in two lines of ink, with the lower line thicker than the upper).
9. Hold the squeegee at a 45-degree angle with the handle toward you. Use light, even pressure and flood the image by pushing the thinner bead of ink to meet the thicker bead.
10. Drop the frame onto the acetate by rotating the leg prop.
11. Grasp the squeegee at both ends, holding it tilted slightly toward you. Set the squeegee edge down into the big ink bead, capturing enough ink to print the image (probably about one-quarter of the ink).
12. Pull the squeegee across the entire image, applying firm, even pressure.
13. Lift up the screen and re-prop it using the leg prop.
14. Hold the lifted edge of the frame steady with one hand. With the other, hold the squeegee at a 45-degree angle, with the handle toward you. Re-flood the image by pushing the ink back toward the low side of the well.
15. Take a piece of paper or other material and slip it underneath the acetate guide and position the image as desired.
16. Lift up the acetate and flip it over and out of the way.
17. Use your registration guides to outline the near right-hand corner of the paper or other material and the right-hand edge near the far corner. (You are essentially making a guide for each piece you want to print, so that the image will be in the same place on each one.)
18. Lower the silk-screen frame by rotating the leg prop and print (as in steps 11 to 14).

Making a Leg Prop

19. Cut a 1-by-8-inch strip of wood.
20. Nail it to one side of the silk-screen frame, about three-quarters of the way toward you as you stand at the open (non-hinged) side. Leave enough play so that the prop can rotate to allow the screen to lie flat on the printing unit.

Making a Registration Guide from Masking Tape

21. Take a roll of 3/4-inch masking tape and make deep cuts into it so that you can pull off strips of eight or so layers of tape at a time.
22. Cut them into pieces - you'll need three or four 1-inch strips.

Tips & Warnings

• Even though this is not a highly toxic process, make sure your work area is well-ventilated.