"I am a Golden God!"

In this last year I've been collecting and assembling the various supplies and equipment necessary to start my own little screen printing shop. In the beginning I had a screen made at work and bought the inks and squeegee and that was that. I printed a shirt. And it wasn't pretty. Or easy. Or economical.

Tonight though, I've taken a big step forward. I just got done washing out a screen that I coated and exposed myself, with equipment that I researched and built myself. Even better, I've seen workable results on this first time through, which is awesome, and I'm excited now to sharpen my skills. Watching that emulsion wash out for the first time was a really really nice feeling. Like all of the time and money that I've invested in this junk is maybe going to work out!
(If you don't know anything about screen printing, there's a lot of PROCESS between IDEA>>>and>>>IDEA PRINTED ON A SHIRT... and I was going to try to explain it, but maybe another time... for now, maybe you'll get an idea of what it's all about with these pictures.)


"Safelight"

"Exposure Unit" Usually cost $1000s, I built mine for under $200...

...including this darkroom timer to control my exposures.

Screen after un-exposed region (blocked by the film pos.) is washed-out. (Sorry it's sideways. I'm being lazy now.)

Some edges are burning in, so I'm actually over-exposed after a 5-min. exposure window. It'll be faster next time! (Many home-built units can take from 30-60 mins. to expose a screen, so I'm pumped!)

Otherwise we're relatively sharp.



Pre-exposure-unit: Another, less efficient, way to work. Painting Screen Drawing Fluid onto a screen. Still fun though!


A shirt I printed for some of the luckier Hagstroms this Christmas - the screen I had made at Northwest Graphic Supply. (Hagstrom is a real guitar company, and the Super Swede is a real guitar...) A nice fit for the fam. But now, I can make the screen myself!