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An age old craft
Silk screen printing is so called because originally silk was stretched over a wooden frame. It is now nylon, and is generally called screen printing as nylon screen printing just doesn't have that same ring. Sarting with the stretched, fine mesh, material, a stencil is applied by one of two methods, either photographic or hand cut. Once dry and secure, a thick ink similar to gloss paint in consistency is applied, poured along one edge, and then spread gently across the screen in an even layer with a rubber strip called a squeegee. When the screen is layed over the object to be printed, the squeegee is then pulled across it firmly, squeezing ink through those parts not covered by stencil material, and thus leaving a pattern; whether a Jimi Hendrix face on a T-shirt or a coat of arms on a cup. Allowing time for drying any number of colours can be applied over each other, and with skillful artwork this can amount to a multi coloured image of great complexity. Sometimes as many as sixteen colours are printed, as is the case often with military signage with an elaborate heraldic crest at its centre, or on 'Pub Mirrors' which mimic the olde style mirrors of Victorian England and America, with Whiskey and Bourbon ads, Coca Cola and many others. Most of these mirrors have at least six colours. T-shirts are yet another commodity where screen printing is used to decorate them, often with highly elaborate designs of multiple colours, which took off in the psychedelic sixties and continues today. It's possible to print T-shirts in a home or small workshop setting, but very slowly, they are usually done in professional print shops on a carousel - several print tables with screens and squeegees with rotating screens that position exactly with registering pins and holes. The only limit being drying time, which is considerably faster today with developments in quick drying inks. Invented thousands of years ago, screen printing remains a viable and useful method of printing a wide range of items and the preferred method of students, NGOs, pressure groups, and artists, anyone with restricted finances. Large automatic screen printers exist which print thousands of mugs and such objects very fast, but the basic technology remains the silk screen and squeegee. |
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Fool on the Hill
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