What is screen printing?

Some people know exactly what it is, and others just know that they want t-shirts with a design or logo printed onto it. Where ever you land on that spectrum we are here to help you with your custom printed shirt order.

At Spinning Ink Print Co, the majority of our business is screen printed shirts and other apparel. Screen printing is a process, it is a passion, and it is freaking art! Old school yes, but has been very modernized with equipment and supplies that seem to be continuously evolving. The community within the industry is like nothing else I've experienced before, it is fun, creative, challenging, motivating, supportive, and encouraging! It is a trade that we have been working in since High School, and not to age ourselves, but that was many moons ago for us.

Mesh Screen Printing Screen

Screen printing uses a process that presses ink through a mesh screen in order to create a printed design. The screens are an important investment and tool for the shop. If you let your screens go to crap, then so will your prints. We keep our screens in good shape, repair and replace as necessary, in order to keep our standard of crisp clean prints. Unless you have worked with screens first hand, many people do not truly appreciate the amount of work that it takes to create screens for these projects. Each screen needs cleaned back to blank with special chemicals to remove all ink and emulsion, properly dried, recoated with emulsion, dried again and stored in a dark room (and cannot be exposed to light until the image for the next job is burned), films need printed for the next job, and then once you have your fresh film for the next job, you can then (using safety light) put your film and screen into the exposure unit. You will then use the exposure unit to soften the emulsion in the place where the image will be. Next you remove the softened emulsion in your wash out booth and let your screens dry... again. There is a lot of drying of these screens, and the process takes time and skill. If any of the steps in the process are handled half heartedly, or with cheap materials, you will get a less than desirable print.

Once all the screens for the project are prepared, one screen for each layer of the print, then you "line it up". Once you have your screens all lined up on the press and registered properly, you will need to add your different colors of ink to each screen. Some times the project will use standard ink colors, other times it will use custom mixed colors, or specialty inks. The ink type and color options are practically endless. You will need your correct colors for the print project, and those inks need mixed to the right consistency as well. Using a squeegee the ink is manually pressed through the stencil that was created in the screen. The ink is pressed through the screen and onto the tshirt or garment, and it is sometimes flash dried at each layer, and the ink is always fully cured at the end. The ink on the apparel needs cured with the appropriate amount of heat and timing combination. Now if the garment is getting a print in another location, stack 'em all up and start that process all over again!

That is a very quick summary of "What is Screen Printing?" for any of our customers, friends, family or community members that may have been interested.

Thanks for reading!

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