My silkscreening rig

[ErikMiller]

A couple of the guys asked me in Chat to post some photos of my silkscreening rig.

I had the screen made and burned at a shop, then made the rest using my table saw. Set the fence to just the height of the pedal, and that will result in ripping stock to just the right dimension to support the screen.

Those are hardware store hinges, with some old C clamps I had around. Quite lo-tech.

http://www.euthymia.org/pedals/factorytour/

To see the results I'm getting with this setup, check out: http://www.euthymia.org/pedals/

[sfr]

Nice!!

I've been diy screenprinting band flyers, art prints and shirts  for a while (years) now, and yr rig looks much nicer than mine.

did you see the process of making the screen?  How to they attach the silk to the metal frame?  I usually use make a wooden frame with a groove routed in it and hold the silk in with a cord . . .

what sorts of inks did you use for the metal?  How well is the adhesion?


edit:

I've never had my screens made for me - I suppose cost depends on the shop, but how much did it cost you to have the screen made?  I've always done it myself.

also, you can screen print copper clad to mask if for etching as well.  My first etched PCB was made like this, before I know about PnP - I had some room at hte bottom of a screen I was burning.  I think I forgot to mask it afterwards, and printed a t-shirt with an Orange Squeezer PCB below the design or something.

[ErikMiller]

I'm using a Nazdar ink. It's an alkyd, air cure, not a Plastisol. I put the printed pedals in the same 150F toaster oven that I use to bake my finishes.

The ink adheres very well, more rugged than the baked spray enamel I'm printing it on. I suspect that my baking sets up a very good bond between the screened ink and the enamel.

The shop charged me $50 for the burned screen and the squeegee. Of course, if I want a different image, they can strip the screen, recoat, and burn another one for much less.

The quart of ink was $18; it's a lifetime supply at the rate I'll use it.

That's great that you screened an orange squeezer on a shirt. One guy on here was using his family's clothes iron for Press n Peel and wound up with one of his daughter's shirts having the image of a circuit on it after they used the iron for clothing again.

[Doug H]

That looks really cool and you did a good job!

I've been curious about silkscreening but am pretty ignorant of the process. I typed in "how to do silkscreening" in google and came up with this link:

http://members.aol.com/StanDCmr/silkscrn.html

This walks you through the materials and the steps, and describes how to use computer-generated graphics (what I assume most people on here would use) with transparencies. Does this look pretty reasonable? I may give this a try.

Thanks,

Doug

[BillyJ]

AWESOME!!! :!:


My freind has been telling me forever that he can help me with this and that with the right screen and some forward thought I can make it a worth while thing to do even for one offs....I just need to get some cash up.
Thanks for the visual aid. I can see that soon I too will be screening my boxes.
I have tried many things and no matter what I do I always get boxes that want to chip.....this will be reduce that bigtime  :lol:

Thanks for sharing...cool stuff!!!!

[ian87]

hey erik -- awesome rig.

i sent you a PM about some screenprinting stuff -- since i'm right up the road from you, is there any way i could cajole/bribe/pay or otherwise convince you to do a short printing run for me? starting from scratch is a bit daunting for me at this point.

if yr game, shoot me an email at ian@blawg.com.

thanks!!

[ErikMiller]

Thanks for the comments, fellers.

Doug: I went looking on the www for DIY silkscreening information, and was surprised at how little there is available. Other technology must be taking over things that silkscreening used to do.

The scout guy seems oriented toward printing on textiles, which is a bit of a different thing. He also stretches, coats and burns his own screens, which is more hassle than I wanted to deal with to save half of the $50 I paid to have someone else do it perfectly. His techniques should work, though.

He mentions the importance of NOT standing around letting your air cure ink dry into the pattern. Either keep printing or wash the pattern out with solvent between prints. I ran bitterly afoul of this with my first attempt. Disheartening after popping for the tooling. Of course, what I was doing was making a print, then examining it closely for quality for minutes at a time. Can't do that. Bang, bang, bang, or bang....wipe....bang....wipe....bang.

The hammerite texture I use for my pedals makes it a tad more difficult to print on them, so I raise the screen a few thousandths of an inch for a thicker print.

[The Tone God]

Great stuff. Thanks!!! I've been interested in silkscreening for awhile so now I'll have a better idea of what I need. Thanks again.

Andrew

[Peter Snowberg]

Very nice Erik!

Best of luck with your pedal sales! Are you selling from any local shops yet?

Take care,
-Peter

[Ansil]

sweet man.. i was wodnering what that looked like..  cool..

[JRobinson]

Matt Burnside and myself posted some stuff about my experiences with screenprinting a while back. I believe its still posted in the FAQ forum.