quick and dirty silkscreen?

[cb]

Regarding labeling stompboxes, I'm wondering if this could work:

-Have a silkscreen of my artwork made at a local shop
-Mask off the 'background' part of the box (e.g. tape & paper)
-Hold the screen over the area in question
-Hit it with spray paint

Shouldn't the paint penetrate the screen? What's all this talk about having to 'squeegee' a silkscreen. Maybe a coarser screen would allow spray paint to work?

Thoughts?

[toneman]

U don't even need a screen 4 this.
U need a *stencil*.
cut out pattern, either regular or reversed, out of lightly
sticky paper.(can someone suggest a brand?)
stick edges down good&tight..
spray with several/many light coats.
avoid spraying very wet coats; will leak under masking.
brute force, use cardboard stencil.
with one circle U can make a bunch of "bubbles".
BubbleFace??
stayfuzzed
tone

[Adam Shame]

U don't even need a screen 4 this.
U need a *stencil*.
cut out pattern, either regular or reversed, out of lightly
sticky paper.(can someone suggest a brand?)
stick edges down good&tight..
spray with several/many light coats.
avoid spraying very wet coats; will leak under masking.
brute force, use cardboard stencil.
with one circle U can make a bunch of "bubbles".
BubbleFace??
stayfuzzed
tone

I think you're talking about a frisket... it is this sticky-backed paper stuff that you cut out with an exacto-knife.  You then adhere it to the surface and spray..

[Gringo]

You can do this just ironing, like when you transfer to the copper side. I use transparencies (plastic sheets) printed in a photocopier, and the toner sticks to the uncoppered side as well. Yo can print just the silkscreen part using expressPcb, and iron it (i'd go with not so high temps).

As a matter of fact, i was considering doing this myself, but a silkscreen is one less transfer that fits in the sheet

Good luck.

[1wahfreak]

Any one of those methods will work however it depends on the quality your going for. If you are going to stencil, you will may not end up with perfect edges for your letters, and when your letters are small enough to fit onto a effects box, the mistakes or uneven edges will show up dramatically.
If you try to press the letters on, then spray the background you may run into problems trying to peel the letters off. If you peel them off when the ink is wet, you risk smudging the wet ink while removing them. If you wait until it's dry, you run the risk of peeling/chipping off the ink because you've coated the letters and the box. One way around that is to cut around the letters very carefully with an exact-o after it is dry to seperate the letters from the box. At that point you may be better off just buying some colored decal material and cutting them from the beginning.
Spraying through a silk screen will only yeild a bad negative image of the screen mesh. You may see the mesh lines in the ink, your image will have small squares in it, and by the time you get enough spray to cover what ever it is you are spraying, the screen will have clogged with the spray paint. Silk screening is art in itself but it's a tried and true way (not to mention a pretty good balance between quality and durability). If you have the screen made (a 250-300 mesh should work well), do yourself a favor and get a nice 60-70 durometer squeegee and make a few attemps with it. It is possible to print 0.010" lines with screening if you know what your doing.