A unique screen printing frame

[MicFarlow77]

Hi all,

In my "It's been 2 years" post, I mentioned I was working on an idea for screen printing on my enclosures.

Well, here is the frame that should make it a reality... I hope so anyway.....

The story behind developing this frame.... From the beginning, I have wanted to be able to screen print on my own enclosures but due to the recess, it has not been possible due to the width of existing screen printing frames. So, I was talking with a friend from high school who does professional industrial (no t-shirts) screen printing, and he made an off the cuff remark that started me on the current path that I am on.

In any event, this frame is designed to be pushed back against the recess on my box and screened from there.... since the stainless steel rod is only 1/4 in diameter, I only loose 1/2 - 5/8ths of an inch of printability against the front edge of the recess... something I can certainly live with.

Because of the design, I can also print all the rest of the graphics on the face, sides and back... at least I hope so :-)



With the rod being 1/4, that helps to enable a 1/8 bounce on the screen, which might be a little much for such a small screen, but it should still be plenty enough to print on.... as I said, we shall see. :-)





One other possible "feature" of this frame is that it may be possible to take the current screen off, replace it with another and then come back to the original if need be. I say possible because I am not sure how flexible the screen emulsion will be... will it breakup and pop out upon re-tightening? I'll know for sure before too long...  if this part works out, I can have a single frame and as many screens as need be for any designs that I may come up with.

As usual, during building, I came up with a few tweaks to it to make it better, truer and easier to build if I decide to build another one. 

Looking forward to your comments!

Thanks,

Mick

[hday]

Wow, this is a really neat idea. From what I understand, by turning the rods, you can change the dimensions of the screen? How exactly does your screen attach? I can't tell, but it looks like there might be another rod threaded through a slot in the fabric itself?

From the looks of it, switching out screens seems simple enough, and because you're not trying to reset the fabric, there wont be much stress on the emulsion. I think different emulsions have different qualities and toughness. The only legit emulsion I've ever used was a UV sensitive paste, and that was really rigid.

Does the enclosure sit in the metal frame to keep a consistent alignments?

[MicFarlow77]

Hey hday,

It's hard to tell in the photo's, but along each side, there are rod pockets sewn in, much the way curtians hang on curtian rods. The threaded rod above the stainless rods that the screen is on is there to tighten the screen once it is on the rods. I wanted to be able to tighten up the screens pretty good... on this one I can easily drop a quarter on it and the quarter dances around quite a bit.

As for sitting it on the enclosure... after church this morning I'll see if I can snap a pic of it resting on an enclosure.

I also am planning to do some jigs for both the enclosures and the screen frame. My goal is to actually be able to eventually get registration tolerances tight enough to do 4 color process work if I so desire. As I have said, it all depends... have yet to sling any ink on anything yet 

We shall see!

Thanks,

Mick

I hope this whole idea of mine works like I envision.

[runmikeyrun]

Looks like a really cool idea.  I ran into a problem like yours trying to screen print skate boards a few years back.  People online had built some really wacky shaped screens to deal with all the contours but i wasn't that dedicated.

I would be careful about flexing the emulsion too much.  It's meant to flex some because in standard screen printing it flexes as you pass the squeegee over it.  But if it had no support structure at all and was bending at 45, 90, or more degrees at sharp corners it might crack. 

[John Lyons]

Very nice Mick!
Since the screen mesh is sewn into a loop that goes around the bottom rod,
how does the mesh stay on the very bottom
since it would want to pull to the middle of the rod and 1/8" or more off the
bottom edge...am I explaining that clear enough?
Is this what you mean by bounce? Since the pot labeling area is so tight will
there be too much offset?

Any decent emultion should hold up well to flexing since the only 90 degree angle
is right at the very edge and you will want to tape that area off anyway.
Switching screens should be ok although separate frames would be best in the
long run as far as set up time.

Good work.

john

[MicFarlow77]

Hey John,

You are correct about the 1/8. When I was working in the sign industry, the screen printers there called it bounce when the screen was above the substrate. I'm not sure if that is a legit technical term or not, but I use it anyway... makes it sound like I know what I am talking about... :-)

I hope to be able to test it out sometime this week.

Also, I haven't forgot about your box... I need to make sure I got some thin stock long enough to knock it out... I'll check tomorrow and email ya!

Thanks,

Mick

[John Lyons]

Yes, we're thinking the same thing here...

One think you may be able to do it grind a flat spot on the bottom of the rod that will but up against
the recess area so you have less offset/bounce. You do want some but right at that small area you
have to work with you may run into problems since it takes more squeegee pressure to push the mesh
down to the box in order to get them flush. With all that pressure and such a tight area I'd worry about
smearing the ink since the angle will be so great with the squeegee pushing down the mesh to get it flat
in that 1" of work space. Plus the fact that the squeegee is about 1/2" wide in the first place.
Those speedball squeegees are about half the thickness though...kind of soft though...
I'm sure you'll come up with something, you have already overcome a big obstacle.

[MicFarlow77]

Hey John,

Yeah.. I have been trying to think of all the possible hiccups...

One thing I have been wondering... instead of printing into the recess from the back of the pedal I was going to print across the back, from left to right.... my screen is more than wide enough and the pressure that way might not be as much... hard to say....

Again, these are just big IF's... it might not work at all or it may exceed all my expectations :-)

Thanks,

Mick

[alanlan]

I've always wondered how you clean up after printing and stop the screen from getting clogged up - I can imagine it would be really messy and how would you know you not left just a tad of paint/emulsion in the screen?

[MicFarlow77]

Hey Alanlan,

I'm not sure about cleaning the screens... but I can assure you I'll be finding out.

What I am curious about is what mesh counts are in use on stomp boxes... I think the mesh I have currently is either 305 or 380.. I'm pretty sure it's a high enough count.. might be too high actually... but it was a piece of scrap large enough to experiment with so i figured I'd run with it :-)

Thanks,

Mick

[MicFarlow77]

Hi All,

I have a question for all the screen printers here: What kind of ink is good to use for printing on my powder coated boxes?

I know it will take a special ink that is pretty expensive due to the fact that the powder coat is so hard and is a thermoset type coating.

EDIT: Looks like Nazdar 8900 Super Set is going to be a good one... according to the Nazdar website it will adhere out of the can to about any coated metal... it's a thermo-set, so I'll have to heat them up a bit... we shall see how this works out....

Any suggestions?

Thanks all,

Mick

[trixdropd]

Any updates on this??

[aziltz]

this looks really quite cool!

i can't wait to hear how it turns out.

[John Lyons]

Check the date...
I can't get a hold of Mick....

John

[trixdropd]

Check the date...
I can't get a hold of Mick....

John

I know it's old, but i figure maybe I can get him to chime in and tell us if this fail or win...

[Lurco]

Check the date...
I can't get a hold of Mick....

John

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