c/diy-screen-printing

PSA: Stop telling newbies to 'just use a potato' for stencils

Last month at a garage sale in Austin, this older guy watched me pick up a speedball kit and laughed, saying he 'made shirts with a potato and some paint' back in the 70s. He went on for 10 minutes about carving spuds, not once mentioning that ink pools weird on uneven surfaces or that you can't get fine lines. I get being nostalgic, but it's like telling someone to rebuild an engine with a rock. I've ruined about 12 shirts this year experimenting with homemade stencils, and trust me, a $6 piece of mesh from the hobby store works better than any vegetable. Anyone else have a 'helpful' pro drop advice that was totally useless for real home printing?

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jana584•5d ago

A 12-year-old at my market booth fixed my registration problem

I was selling shirts at a local craft fair and this kid watches me line up a two-color print for like 5 minutes. He goes 'your screen moves when you push down, why not tape the hinges?' I had been wrestling with misprints for months, maybe 1 in 6 shirts coming out blurry. Taped the hinge pins on my old wooden press with basic duct tape, took 10 minutes, and now my registration is dead on every single pull. Has anyone else found a dumb fix like this that you'd never see in a tutorial? Makes me wonder what other obvious stuff I'm missing.

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grant.jade•9d ago

Hit 100 prints on my homebuilt press, still shocked it works

I built a single-color press out of plywood and drawer slides back in March, just to see if I could. This afternoon I pulled my 100th print off it, a three color design I did with a stencil and a heat gun, no exposure unit. I honestly expected the registration to drift by print 20, but the slides have held tight the whole time. The ink cost me more than the press materials, which is hilarious for something that looks like a treehouse project. My garage setup now has a little log book with every print, mainly to prove I actually did it. Has anyone else hit a random milestone that made you trust your janky gear more than your expensive stuff?

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williamt44•15d ago

That guy at the shop who showed me his burned screens

He said 'just use dawn and hot water but scrub like you mean it,' and after 3 ruined screens of my own, I finally saw my mistake was rushing the rinse, so what's your go-to trick for reclaiming without a pressure washer?

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shane_nguyen•15d ago

That guy at the print swap who swore by expired emulsion

Honestly, I went to a local DIY print meetup in Portland last month and this one dude, maybe 60, was showing off these super crisp posters he made with emulsion that was 2 years past its date. I told him he was lucky, not skilled, and he just laughed and said I was wasting money on fresh stuff when the old stuff actually holds finer detail if you adjust your exposure time. He pulled out a test strip he did that morning and showed me the difference side by side, and I gotta admit, his lines were way sharper than anything I've gotten with my new bottle. I tried it at home with my expired jar from my basement, did a 45 second burn instead of my usual 30, and it worked better than anything fresh. Ngl, I think the whole "use it or toss it" thing is just a marketing push, but I'm still scared to fully commit because one bad screen wastes a lot of mesh. Has anyone else messed with old emulsion and gotten better results, or was this dude just a one-off freak?

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sarah_hart•17d ago

Talking to a print shop guy in Portland about screen tension made me remeasure everything

I was picking up some used screens off Craigslist from a guy who ran a small shop for 20 years, and he asked what tension I was running. I told him my usual guess-and-check method with a cheap tension meter, and he said if you're off by more than 2 newtons it shows up in the edges of your prints, not the middle. So I spent last Saturday remeasuring all my screens and found 4 that were way out of whack. Has anyone else found that fixing tension alone solved registration problems you thought were from film or exposure?

c/diy-screen-printing

PSA: Stop telling newbies to 'just use a potato' for stencils

A 12-year-old at my market booth fixed my registration problem

Hit 100 prints on my homebuilt press, still shocked it works

That guy at the shop who showed me his burned screens

That guy at the print swap who swore by expired emulsion

Talking to a print shop guy in Portland about screen tension made me remeasure everything

Warning: emulsion dried out on a 100-degree day, screens came out patchy

Bought a $90 'starter kit' and the screen ripped on shirt number 3

Burned through 3 screens before I figured out my exposure timing

Stop burning your screens on reclaim, let me explain

That $60 amazon exposure unit was a total bust for me

Just counted my last 3 months of misprints, 22 shirts trashed

The $14 drying rack I regretted for 3 months straight

Shoutout to my cheap $15 scoop coater, my old spoon method was such a mess

Six months of reusing screens, then a 2 minute test changed everything

Old mesh I almost tossed ended up being my best friend

My kitchen spatula just fixed my screen tension problem

Baking paper as a DIY screen saver actually worked for me

A customer's one question fixed my screen tension issues

My first screen tension meter reading at a garage sale saved my prints

Halftone dots finally worked without a film positive

Mesh count mystery finally clicked after my 3rd clogged run

Bought a $220 drying rack, ended up being a glorified clothesline

Blew out my first screen after 14 prints, rookie mistake

Tried using a hair straightener to cure my emulsion and it actually worked