# Screen Printing newbie



## Arightpairofmugs (Jun 30, 2016)

Hello folks - 1st time poster here.

I have been sublimation printing mugs successfully for 6 months now, and in that time I have also printed a few T-shirts, Towels, and hats which I've managed to do with no great issues.

So I have bought a 4 colour screen print machine to be able to produce dark coloured T-shirts. I know the process and have watched 100's of youtubes, however I'm hoping tomorrow all my supplies will have turned up and I plan on giving it a go. 

I still have a few questions I'm sure someone here can help me answer. 
I can easily print designs from photoshop to acetate, its the exposure to the emulsion screen I'm unsure about. I have a light box with 400w bulb and would like any information about distance from the light and exposure times? also I have heard varying advice on dark rooms? I plan to do this in my house with a black out blind, If I do this in the evening under "Dusk" light would it matter if the room was not 100% light tight, i.e. some light may sneak through sides of blind and under the door, I could gaffer tape it up however if not needed, its one less thing my wife will get mad about me doing to her house.


----------



## wonkylogoltd (Apr 18, 2012)

Good luck, sounds like it will be lots of fun. 

I wonder if you had a cupboard of some sort you could convert it to a exposure unit might be more suitable.


----------



## mmonk (Oct 23, 2011)

I work out of a 20x24 workshop...I put black out curtains over the windows and then tacked them down all way around. My shop has some light that gets in during daylight through the roof seem. I have never had a problem with exposure or storing screens.

Honestly your 400w bulb may not be enough...500W worklight is iffy a lot of times... it can be done...but when I started my results varied


----------



## Arightpairofmugs (Jun 30, 2016)

So feed back. Last week was a bit of a disaster. We blacked out the downstairs toilet and made the screen. We made 2 errors here, firstly we couldn't see a thing and so the screen wasn't covered evenly at all. secondly we tried to burn the image too soon and the emulsion wasn't dry enough. 

Our end result was that we cut a stencil by hand and managed to get a T-shirt printed.

Last night we sorted out the shed as a dark room, used a red bulb so we could see. We waited longer to make sure emulsion was dry etc and hey presto we have a perfect screen.

I would upload an image but the help page suggests I click "Go Advance" button but there isn't one, just "Submit post" and "preview post"


----------



## janeyummy (Apr 22, 2016)

sound pretty nice, are you doing business home all by yourself?


----------



## Arightpairofmugs (Jun 30, 2016)

We used to buy and sell screen Tee's, we can now produce and sell ourselves without the suppliers add on costs


----------



## dutySqueege (Apr 3, 2015)

DIY yourself a 1000w metal halide exposure unit. You can find the hood/ballast on craigslist for the low low from a retired pot grower usually lol. Glass you can grab at whatever hardware store you want and you can youtube how to build a vac top. trust me this is from many years of struggles. 500w floods (even two of them) are inconsistent. do it right the first time just my opinion. If you're crafty you can build a exposure unit with aforementioned parts for around $300


----------

