Introduction: Are you wanting to start a screen printing business or want to learn how to screen print so you can print your own shirts but don't know how or don't know where to start? The first thing you will want to do is gain the knowledge of knowing how to screen print before doing anything. screen printing is an art, so don't get discouraged if you don't fully understand the terminology. Once you begin your adventures in screen printing a lot of the techniques and practices involved for printing shirts will get easier to do over time. Trial and error seems to be the best teacher and if you get stuck on a technique or printing method just go to places like YouTube and chat forums for help.

Difficulty: Moderately easy

Items needed: waterbased inks or plastisol inks, screen printing equipment, a flash dryer or heat gun, a light source specifically UV exposure unit, apparel to print on, tape, a printer and computer or black magic marker and transparency sheets, a squeege and clean workspace.

Steps: 1. Create a image with a black marker on transparency sheets or print your image from a graphics program like Corel Draw to a transparency sheet.

2. Look for the screen printing equipment that fits your needs.

3. Purchase you screen printing equipment.

4. emulsion your screens and let them dry.

5. burn your images into the screens with your images on transparency sheets and taped to the front side of the screen.

6. Expose the image to UV light for 6 minutes using the UV light exposure unit.

7. clean away exposed emulsion from the exposure of UV light with water.

8. tape up the screen and lock into the fasteners provided with the print set up.

9. apply the color of ink.

10. print image onto the fabric.

11. dry until steam rises off the ink or it's cured.

Overall Tips:

When applying pressure with your squeege to the screen make sure that your tilting the squeege at a 45% angle.



— Make sure that you make a good fast clean swipe of the ink with your squeege.



— Make sure that all sides of the screen are taped up so that ink doesn't run through the screen and onto the fabric.

Overall Warnings: Do not let your ink set on the screens for to long. Clean all screens of ink after use of printing.



Source by Casey Kepley