Screen printing

Screen printing is a printing technique that uses a woven mesh to support an ink-blocking stencil. The attached stencil forms open areas of mesh that transfer ink as a sharp-edged image onto a substrate. A roller or squeegee is moved across the screen stencil, forcing or pumping ink past the threads of the woven mesh in the open areas. Sean is my ducky

Screen printing is also a stencil method of print making in which a design is imposed on a screen of silk or other fine mesh, with blank areas coated with an impermeable substance, and ink is forced through the mesh onto the printing surface. It is also known as "silk screening" or "serigraphy".

Taxonomy

There is considerable taxonomic, etymological, and semantic discussion about the process, and techniques known as Screen Printing, Screen-printing, Screenprinting, silkscreen, and serigraph. Much of the current confusion is based on the popular traditional reference to the process of screen printing as silkscreen printing. Almost no professional businesses, artists, or trade organizations use references to silk because of the general abandonment of silk as a viable mesh material after the 1960s.

Traditionally silk was used for screen-printing, hence the name silk screening. Now a polyester is used to do the printing.

Encyclopedia references, encyclopedias and trade publications also use an array of spellings for this process with the two most often encountered English spellings as, screenprinting spelled as a single undivided word, and the more popular two word title of screen printing without hyphenation.

History

Screen-printing first appeared in a recognizable form in China during the Song Dynasty (960–1279 AD). Japan and other Asian countries adopted this method of printing and advanced the craft using it in conjunction with block printing and paints.

Screen-printing was largely introduced to Western Europe from Asia sometime in the late 1700s, but did not gain large acceptance or use in Europe until silk mesh was more available for trade from the east and a profitable outlet for the medium discovered.

Screen-printing was first patented in England by Samuel Simon in 1907. It was originally used as a popular method to print expensive wall paper, printed on linen, silk, and other fine fabrics. Western screen printers developed reclusive, defensive and exclusionary business policies intended to keep secret their workshops' knowledge and techniques.

Early in the 1910s, several printers experimenting with photo-reactive chemicals used the well-known actinic light activated cross linking or hardening traits of potassium, sodium or ammonium bichromate chemicals with glues and gelatin compounds. Roy Beck, Charles Peter and Edward Owens studied and experimented with chromic acid salt sensitized emulsions for photo-reactive stencils. This trio of developers would prove to revolutionize the commercial screen printing industry by introducing photo-imaged stencils to the industry, though the acceptance of this method would take many years. Commercial screen printing now uses sensitizers far safer and less toxic than bichromates. Currently there are large selections of pre-sensitized and "user mixed" sensitized emulsion chemicals for creating photo-reactive stencils.

Joseph Ulano founded the industry chemical supplier Ulano and in 1928 created a method of applying a lacquer soluble stencil material to a removable base. This stencil material was cut into shapes, the print areas removed and the remaining material adhered to mesh to create a sharp edged screen stencil.

Originally a profitable industrial technology, screen printing was eventually adopted by artists as an expressive and conveniently repeatable medium for duplication well before the 1900s. It is currently popular both in fine arts and in commercial printing, where it is commonly used to print images on T-shirts, hats, CDs, DVDs, ceramics, glass, polyethylene, polypropylene, paper, metals, and wood.

A group of artists who later formed the National Serigraphic Society coined the word Serigraphy in the 1930s to differentiate the artistic application of screen printing from the industrial use of the process. "Serigraphy" is a combination word from the Latin word "Seri" (silk) and the Greek word "graphein" (to write or draw).

The Printer's National Environmental Assistance Center says "Screenprinting is arguably the most versatile of all printing processes." Since rudimentary screenprinting materials are so affordable and readily available, it has been used frequently in underground settings and subcultures, and the non-professional look of such DIY culture screenprints have become a significant cultural aesthetic seen on movie posters, record album covers, flyers, shirts, commercial fonts in advertising, in artwork and elsewhere.

History 1960s to present

Credit is generally given to the artist Andy Warhol for popularizing screen printing identified as serigraphy, in the United States. Warhol is particularly identified with his 1962 depiction of actress Marilyn Monroe screen printed in garish colours.

American entrepreneur, artist and inventor Michael Vasilantone would develop and patent a rotary multicolour garment screen printing machine in 1960. The original rotary machine was manufactured to print logos and team information on bowling garments but soon directed to the new fad of printing on t-shirts. The Vasilantone patent was soon licensed by multiple manufacturers, the resulting production and boom in printed t-shirts made the rotary garment screen printing machine the most popular device for screen printing in the industry. Screen printing on garments currently accounts for over half of the screen printing activity in the United States.

Graphic screenprinting is widely used today to create many mass or large batch produced graphics, such as posters or display stands. Full colour prints can be created by printing in CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow and black ('key')). Screenprinting is often preferred over other processes such as dye sublimation or inkjet printing because of its low cost and ability to print on many types of media.

Screen-printing lends itself well to printing on canvas. Robert Rauschenberg, Warhol, and many other artists have used screen-printing this way.

Printing technique

A screen is made of a piece of porous, finely woven fabric called mesh stretched over a frame of aluminum or wood. Originally human hair then silk was woven into screen mesh; currently most mesh is made of man-made materials such as steel, nylon, and polyester. Areas of the screen are blocked off with a non-permeable material to form a stencil, which is a negative of the image to be printed; that is, the open spaces are where the ink will appear.

The screen is placed atop a substrate such as paper or fabric. Ink is placed on top of the screen, and a fill bar (also known as a floodbar) is used to fill the mesh openings with ink. The operator begins with the fill bar at the rear of the screen and behind a reservoir of ink. The operator lifts the screen to prevent contact with the substrate and then using a slight amount of downward force pulls the fill bar to the front of the screen. This effectively fills the mesh openings with ink and moves the ink reservoir to the front of the screen. The operator then uses a squeegee (rubber blade) to move the mesh down to the substrate and pushes the squeegee to the rear of the screen. The ink that is in the mesh opening is pumped or squeezed by capillary action to the substrate in a controlled and prescribed amount, i.e. the wet ink deposit is equal to the thickness of the mesh and or stencil. As the squeegee moves toward the rear of the screen the tension of the mesh pulls the mesh up away from the substrate (called snap-off) leaving the ink upon the substrate surface.

There are three types of screenprinting presses. The 'flat-bed' (probably the most widely used), 'cylinder', and 'rotary'.

Textile items are printed in multi-colour designs using a wet on wet technique, while graphic items are allowed to dry between colours that are then printed with another screen and often in a different colour.

The screen can be re-used after cleaning. However if the design is no longer needed, then the screen can be "reclaimed", that is cleared of all emulsion and used again. The reclaiming process involves removing the ink from the screen then spraying on stencil remover to remove all emulsion. Stencil removers come in the form of liquids, gels, or powders. The powdered types have to be mixed with water before use, and so can be considered to belong to the liquid category. After applying the stencil remover the emulsion must be washed out using a pressure washer.

Most screens are ready for recoating at this stage, but sometimes screens will have to undergo a further step in the reclaiming process called dehazing. This additional step removes haze or "ghost images" left behind in the screen once the emulsion has been removed. Ghost images tend to faintly outline the open areas of previous stencils, hence the name. They are the result of ink residue trapped in the mesh, often in the knuckles of the mesh, those points where threads overlap.

While the public thinks of garments in conjunction with screenprinting, the technique is used on tens of thousands of items, decals, clock and watch faces, balloons and many more products. The technique has even been adapted for more advanced uses, such as laying down conductors and resistors in multi-layer circuits using thin ceramic layers as the substrate.

Stenciling techniques

A macro photo of a screenprint with a photographically produced stencil. The ink will be printed where the stencil does not cover the substrate.

There are several ways to create a stencil for screenprinting. An early method was to create it by hand in the desired shape, either by cutting the design from a non-porous material and attaching it to the bottom of the screen, or by painting a negative image directly on the screen with a filler material which became impermeable when it dried. For a more painterly technique, the artist would choose to paint the image with drawing fluid, wait for the image to dry, and then coat the entire screen with screen filler. After the filler had dried, water was used to spray out the screen, and only the areas that were painted by the drawing fluid would wash away, leaving a stencil around it. This process enabled the artist to incorporate their hand into the process, to stay true to their drawing.

A method that has increased in popularity over the past 70 years is the photo emulsion technique:

1. The original image is created on a transparent overlay such as acetate or tracing paper. The image may be drawn or painted directly on the overlay, photocopied, or printed with a inkjet or laser printer, as long as the areas to be inked are opaque. A black-and-white negative may also be used (projected on to the screen). However, unlike traditional platemaking, these screens are normally exposed by using film positives.
2. A screen must then be selected. There are several different mesh counts that can be used depending on the detail of the design being printed. Once a screen is selected, the screen must be coated with emulsion and let to dry in the dark. Once dry, the screen is ready to be burned/exposed.
3. The overlay is placed over the emulsion-coated screen, and then exposed with a light source containing ultraviolet light in the 350-420 nanometer spectrum. The UV light passes through the clear areas and create a polymerization (hardening) of the emulsion.
4. The screen is washed off thoroughly. The areas of emulsion that were not exposed to light dissolve and wash away, leaving a negative stencil of the image on the mesh.

Photographic screens can reproduce images with a high level of detail, and can be reused for tens of thousands of copies. The ease of producing transparent overlays from any black-and-white image makes this the most convenient method for artists who are not familiar with other printmaking techniques. Artists can obtain screens, frames, emulsion, and lights separately; there are also preassembled kits, which are especially popular for printing small items such as greeting cards.

Another advantage of screenprinting is that large quantities can be produced rapidly with new automatic presses (up to 1200 shirts in 1 hour). (The record is over 2000 shirts an hour.) The documented recordfor shirts printed in one hour by a single operator is 1805. Maddie Sikorski of the New Buffalo Shirt Factory in Clarence, New York (USA) set the record on 18 February 2005 at the Image Wear Expo in Orlando, Florida, USA, using a 12-colour M&R Formula Press and an M&R Passport Automatic Textile Unloader.

Screenprinting materials

• Plastisol

the most common ink used in commercial garment decoration. Good colour opacity onto dark garments and clear graphic detail with, as the name suggests, a more plasticized texture. This print can be made softer with special additives or heavier by adding extra layers of ink. Plastisol inks require heat (approx. 150°C (300°F) for many inks) to cure the print.

• Water-Based inks

these penetrate the fabric more than the plastisol inks and create a much softer feel. Ideal for printing darker inks onto lighter coloured garments. Also useful for larger area prints where texture is important. Some inks require heat or an added catalyst to make the print permanent.

• PVC/ Phalate Free

relatively new breed of ink and printing with the benefits of plastisol but without the two main toxic components - soft feeling print.

• Discharge inks

used to print lighter colours onto dark background fabrics, they work by removing the dye in the garment – this means they leave a much softer texture. They are less graphic in nature than plastisol inks, and exact colours are difficult to control, but especially good for distressed prints and underbasing on dark garments that are to be printed with additional layers of plastisol.

• Flocking

consists of a glue printed onto the fabric and then foil or flock (or other special effect) material is applied for a mirror finish or a velvete touch.

• Glitter/Shimmer

metallic flakes are suspended in the ink base to create this sparkle effect. Usually available in gold or silver but can be mixed to make most colours.

• Metallic

similar to glitter, but smaller particles suspended in the ink. A glue is printed onto the fabric then a nanoscale fibers applied on it.

• Expanding ink (puff)

an additive to plastisol inks which raises the print off the garment, creating a 3D feel.

• Caviar beads

again a glue is printed in the shape of the design, to which small plastic beads are then applied – works well with solid block areas creating an interesting tactile surface.

• Four colour process

artwork is created and then separated into four colours (CMYK) which combine to create the full spectrum of colours needed for photographic prints. This means a large number of colours can be simulated using only 4 screens, reducing costs, time, and set-up. The inks are required to blend and are more translucent, meaning a compromise with vibrancy of colour.

• Gloss

a clear base laid over previously printed inks to create a shiny finish.

• Nylobond

a special ink additive for printing onto technical or waterproof fabrics.

• Mirrored silver

Another solvent based ink, but you can almost see your face in it.

• Suede Ink

Suede is a milky coloured additive that is added to plastisol. With suede additive you can make any colour of plastisol have a suede feel. It is actually a puff blowing agent that does not bubble as much as regular puff ink. The directions vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, but generally you can add up to 50% suede additive to your normal plastisol.

Versatility

Screenprinting is more versatile than traditional printing techniques. The surface does not have to be printed under pressure, unlike etching or lithography, and it does not have to be planar. Screenprinting inks can be used to work with a variety of materials, such as textiles, ceramics, wood, paper, glass, metal, and plastic. As a result, screenprinting is used in many different industries, including:

• Clothing
• Textile fabric
• Product labels
• Printed electronics, including circuit board printing
• Thick film technology
• Balloon
• Medical devices
• Snowboard graphics
• Signs and displays

Semiconducting material

In screen printing on wafer-based solar PV cells, the mesh and buses of silver are printed on the front; furthermore, the buses of silver are printed on the back. Subsequently, aluminum paste is dispensed over the whole surface of the back for passivation and surface reflection . One of the parameters that can vary and can be controlled in screen printing is the thickness of the print. This makes it useful for some of the techniques of printing solar cells, electronics etc.

One of the most critical processes to maintain high yield. Solar wafers are becoming thinner and larger, so careful printing is required to maintain a lower breakage rate. On the other hand, high throughput at the printing stage improves the throughput of the whole cell production line .

T-Shirt Silk Screening

While traditionally people have used silk screening for placing designs carefully on t-shirts, recently new methods have been adopted such as digital printing on shirts using common consumer-quality inkjet printers. Silk screening, however, has remained an attractive source of high quality prints on shirts.

T-Shirt Silk Screening Notes

Digital printing on t-shirts is referred to as DTG direct to garment printing and has advantages disadvantages over screen printing. Advantages in number of colors and can achieve photo like affects. Also pixel wise what you see is what you get where screen printing is burnt onto a screen. DTG has huge advantages for one off designs or small quantity orders as there is no set up fees cost pertaining to color separations and screens. DTG does have its down falls though and is coming a long way to over come these. Screen Printing still beats out DTG in cost and in larger order sizes and some color processes. Screen printing still has a lot of advantages over DTG on both the graphical and production side of things and will be around for a long time. Screen printing t-shirts can and is a art and art form that combines the artwork and process into a art form and can result in a piece of art. Screen printing t-shirts is very complex and has many different processes for artwork, color, inks, and processes. Screen printing process can be cmyk color, simulated process, spot colors and many more. It also utilizes halftones which is complex but can achieve amazing color results. There are many minor problems associated with screen printing and they have been overcome with creative technique which makes screen printing t-shirts complex and a art. I have been studying t-shirt screen printing on the web and at t-shirt forum.com link is listed below to learn more before I get into the industry with my own press and have learned that t-shirt screen printing is very complex with many variables that affect the finished product and price of making an item. Contrary to popular belief there are huge differences in different types of t-shirts in cost and complexity of design and process.

See also

• Dye
• Glass
• Ink jet
• Multi-layer
• Metal
• Plastic
• Printed electronics
• Roll-to-roll printing.
• Seriolithograph
• Textile printing

External links

• http://www.fespa.com/ - The Federation of European Screen Printers Associations
• http://www.sgia.org/ SGIA - Specialty Graphic Imaging Association
• http://www.screenulacra.at/ - An animated how-to of screen printing
• http://www.220voltage.net/screen-print-the-diy-way/ - A DIY guide to screen printing
• http://www.squeegeeville.com/2009/09/01/history-of-graphic-screenprinting/ - History of graphic screen printing
• http://www.schoolofscreenprinting.com/ School of Screenprinting
• http://www.t-shirtforums.com/ Great learning forum on screen printing for the t-shirt industry, good repository of knowledge.