SILK-SCREENING FAQ I am in no way an expert on silk-screening t-shirts. My band has done it, and I am just sharing what I know. This is designed to help people who want to make their own shirts go about doing it. I welcome any comments or suggestions about this document. Scott Lehman slehman@mit.edu INTRO WHAT YOU NEED PREPARATION MAKING THE SHIRTS FINISHING YOUR SHIRTS TIPS AND SUGGESTIONS WHERE TO GET SHIRTS ------------------------------------------------------------- INTRO After making a tape, my band decided it would be nice to have some t-shirts. We wanted to have our own shirts to wear, and we thought we had enough fans (and relatives) so that we could at least break even, or possible make a little bit of money to help cover the recording costs. Being the creative bunch that we are, we decided to do it all ourselves. We didn't consider having them made by someone else, primarily so that we could have total control over the designs on the shirts, and experiment a little and make many slightly different shirts. WHAT YOU NEED: The screens, prepared with your designs. Squeegees - try to get different sizes Ink, in whatever colors you want to use(I don't know if there is any silk-screening ink that isn't water soluble, but I strongly suggest you use ink that is - it makes cleanup so easy) T-shirts Masking tape Place to rinse the screens - a big sink is nice Lots of space and a little creativity helps too! PREPARATION Before you can even begin, making any shirts, you need to get some screens and get your designs on them. Our bassist was the most artistic of the bunch, and he had a screen from somewhere, and I had a screen that came from a little silk-screening kit that had been lying around the house for ages. Make sure your screens are in good shape. The frames should be rigid, and the screen should be stretched evenly, but still a little pliable. It shouldn't have any holes or tears in it, or else it won't work very well. I think the most difficult part of the entire process is deciding what you want to put on your shirts, and getting those designs onto the screens. I'm not sure if there are other ways of doing this. Our high school had a machine that would take those transparency films and transfer them to the screens. I believe that some sort of liquid is applied to the entire screen, and when it is exposed to light and/or heat, it fills all the little holes in the screen, preventing the ink that you use to make the shirts from flowing through. So the black portions on the transparency (the designs to be put on the shirts) would prevent those areas on the screen from becoming opaque. We had most of our designs sketched out on paper already, and had a couple of quotes that we wanted to put on our shirts as well. We had access to a computer with a scanner, so we scanned in the sketched designs, and typed in the quotes we wanted in a cool looking font. This allowed us to easily resize things. At this point, it is nice to have a few sample shirts around, just so you can decide how big to make stuff. You just print out the various designs on paper on lay them out on the shirts till things look right. Look at some t-shirts that you like and see how they are laid out. After settling on the designs, we printed them out onto transparency films. This was a little tricky (it doesn't work very well with inkjet printers!). This could also probably be done with one of those machines that will take a piece of paper and 'copy' the contents to the film. It might also work on a normal copier machine, but be careful if you try it. Next, you need to lay out your designs onto your screens. This is where some hard decisions are made. We had alot of things that we wanted to be able to put on our shirts, and we packed the screens full of designs. This made things a little difficult when actually making the shirts - you can only use one screen at a time, so if you want to use several of the things on one screen, you have to wait till you're done using one part, clean the screen, and let it dry before you can use it again. This isn't necessarily all that bad, since you can use that time to lay out more shirts, and you might need to let the shirts dry anyway before you can add anything else to them. It would be nice to have only one thing on a screen, but then it costs more to get the additional screens. I suggest using two screens if you can. It makes it much easier than using just one, and it makes it much easier for two people to work together without one of them have to stand around and watch. If you only have one design for the front and back of the shirts, a single screen should work fine since you can't do the back of a shirt until the front is dry (well you could with something like an ironing board, but that would make it difficult to do a large number of shirts in one shot). Think about how you lay out the designs on the screens if you have more than one. If you split up all the designs that will go on the fronts of the shirts between the screens, you can concentrate on doing just the fronts. Also, try to lay out the designs so that they are parallel to the frame around the screen. Once you have ink on the screens, it becomes much harder to keep the designs level - if the designs are lined up with the screen frame, making the shirts will be much easier. Then, once the transparencies are ready, you transfer the designs to the screens. If you can get access to one of the machines that does this (like at a school), get someone to help you and do it. I think it is the easiest way to do it. MAKING THE SHIRTS Before you touch any of the good shirts that you want to decorate, find an old shirt to experiment with. You want to get a feel for how to make the shirts and keep the mistakes off of the good shirts. First, if you have multiple designs on your screens, you need to make sure that you only transfer the desired patterns. Use masking tape to block out the designs that you don't want to be transferred. Apply the masking tape on the inside of the screen (the side away from the shirt) and make it smooth so you won't rip it off while applying the ink. Give yourself plenty of room around the design you want to put on the shirt - the ink will spread out when you work with it, especially if you're using a squeegee larger than the actual design, and you don't want to let the ink leak onto he shirt through another design Make sure to keep the ink away from the edges of the frame too, or else you may get some unexpected results on your shirts. It's hard to get the ink out of that part of the screen. Also, inspect the your screens for little 'holes' where the screen should be opaque. You can find these easily by holding the screen up to a light and looking through it. Make sure to cover up those spots to keep spots from appearing on your shirts. I found that putting a piece of posterboard inside the shirt helps to give better results. For thinner shirts, it will also keep ink from flowing through into the other side of the shirt. It can also help to keep the shirt surface a little smoother. Pick a color of ink that you like, and try transferring a design onto your experimental shirt. Once you have the screen taped up, put some ink on it after laying the screen on the shirt and move the squeegee back and forth across the design. Use a fair amount of pressure - you want to get plenty of ink onto the shirt. Patience can give you very good results. I think we usually made at least 20 passes back and forth across the designs. Make your final stroke across the design, wiping all the excess ink to one side. Lift up the screen - it usually works best to lift it from one side like a hinged door, rather than all at once - and inspect your work. You should be able to get your designs to come out pretty solid. You can also use the experimentation stage to make sure you're laying the shirt out correctly. If you're trying to put something where the front pocket would go, put the shirt on and make sure your logo ends up where you wanted it. For the backs, make sure the designs are high enough to be readable. With large shirts, it can look like you're putting the stuff way to high on the shirt, but when it's being worn, it might look right. When you feel ready, get out the good shirts. When you make the shirts, you want to be pretty efficient once you get the ink on the screen - if it sits too long, it will clog up some of the holes in the screen and make it harder to use (some discoloration of the screen is normal though). Before getting the ink out, lay out as many shirts as you can, or just as many as you want to do. To make things easier, we would take the clean screen, and lay it over the shirts and leveled things out. We then marked the top two corners of the screen so that we could take the screen with the ink on it, go from shirt to shirt, and keep the placement of the designs pretty accurate. Once you get ink on the screen, it gets alot harder to eyeball where things should go. When you've silk-screened the shirts, save the leftover ink. It's not very cheap. Take the screen to a sink, preferably empty - you don't want to puncture the screen on anything. Run some warm water over the screen to remove the remaining ink, and gently pull off any masking tape you used. Get it as clean as possible. The first few times you use a screen, it will usually retain some coloration from the ink - just make sure the little holes in the screen aren't clogged. You don't have to wait for the screens to dry before using them again, but it is a good idea. A little dirty water on the screen can ruin a shirt. If it's a sunny day, put the screen in the sun, and it will dry very quickly. A fan could also do the trick. If you want to do more silk-screening right away, move the shirts you just did out of the way or hang them up - just be sure the wet ink doesn't get onto other parts of the shirt or another shirt. They should be dry enough to work on again an a few hours - a sunny day helps here again. You can wait overnight just to be sure it's dry. FINISHING YOUR SHIRTS Once your shirts are completed and dry, you may need to set the ink in with heat - read the label on the ink jar. It does make a difference whether you do it or not. We tested it, and when you don't iron the designs in, the fuzz from the shirt begins showing through much sooner. It's very tedious to iron all the shirts, but it does make them look much better longer. TIPS AND SUGGESTIONS 1. - Avoid working with shirts that are not white, unless you really, REALLY want to do something different. It is very hard to get designs to come out well on colored shirts. You have to use alot of ink to get it to look decent, and it still doesn't look as good as it does on white shirts. There's got to be a way to get some decent results on dark shirts, but we didn't have much success. 2. - Try using different colors together. Since you're doing these by hand, you can do some special effects without much more work. Take two colors that mix well together. You can get sort of a swirl effect by having alternating stripes of color as you move the squeegee back and forth. When you near the end (don't do it for too long, or else the colors will mix too much), try putting small lines of ink in different directions across the design, and move the squeegee across it again. Try moving the squeegee slightly to one side and overlap the regions of color a little more, or use the squeegee in a totally different direction! This works better for larger designs. Text can become hard to read if you use this method. My favorite color combinations: blue and yellow, and red and yellow which can look like fire. You can save the leftover ink so you don't have to buy colors like green and orange. 3. - We also put some designs on the sleeves of some long sleeve shirts. It is very tedious, especially when your screen isn't big enough to hold the entire sleeve design. (We put our band name on the sleeves). Smooth out the sleeves as best you can, and put a strip of posterboard in the sleeve. 4. - Why stop at just shirts? Get some boxers or bandannas and experiment. WHERE TO GET SHIRTS There are two different places I have dealt with and haven't had any problem. Imprints Wholesale 1390 W. Evans #2AB Denver, CO 80223 (303)-936-3616 Friedman's Innovative Activewear 326 Grand Street New York, NY 10002 800-872-8671