If you are looking to get into screen printing for fun or as a business then this article is probably not for you. I have written this article to inform people who are simply interested in understanding what is involved in printing to possibly better understand why printers charge what they do for their service. If your looking for specifics on this you will find plenty of information on the internet or you can also visit www.screenprinters.net . There you will find plenty of information on the subject and more.

First I will cover the basic steps and then give you a little more detail about each step to follow.

Step1. Artwork, either custom designed or already created.

Step2. Print to film.

Step3. Expose film on screen.

Step4. Align screen to press and begin printing.

Step5. Run printed item through conveyor dryer.

Step6. Deliver item(s) to customer.

Step 1. Artwork: This is pretty much the most inportant part of the entire process. If your artwork isn't properly prepared your prints won't look right. Generally speaking I rarely receive art that is truly ready for film, Art provided in eps (encapsulated postscript) form is the easiest to work with most of the time all I have to do is resize, layer the colors, register the layers and print the film. I do enjoy making custom art or rendering art provided for me, but for best results I recommend any art provided be at least 300dpi (dots per inch) or better, web copied jpegs, faxes, or just poor resolution art is difficult and expensive to the customer to reproduce.

Step 2. This one is pretty straight forward. The art that is ready for print is sent to either a laser printer or an inkjet printer designed to print on transparency film .

Step 3. Expose the film on screen. Once the film has been printed it needs to be exposed to light to transfer the image to the print screen. The print screen is a very fine mesh polyster fiber screen coated with a special light sensitive chemical called emulsion. Once exposed to the proper light for the right amount of time the areas of emulsion that are exposed around the image on the film positive will harden. Then the screen is washed in a large sink and the areas of the emulsion that were not exposed to light wash out leaving the film image behind.

Step 4. Align the screen on press. After the screen has been dried now it can be set into the press arm and aligned with the platen. if you have muliple colors than you will have multiple screens, one for each color, and each one you will have to line up to the press in order for the print to come out properly. Once aligned the screen needs to be taped, then add the desired ink color, load the item to be printed on the print platen and begin printing.

Step 5. Send the printed item through the conveyor dryer. Now that the item has been printed the ink needs to be properly cured in order for the ink to stay on the shirt. The conveyor dryer is just that, a long conveyor belt that draws the shirt under a row of heat elements to bring the ink up to approx. 320 degrees.

Step 6. Now that the printing is done the order needs to be reboxed if needed and delivered to the customer.

Illegal Clothing™