Analog Printing

I spent the entire day today doing the final setup and initial tests with my screen printing exposure unit. After spending several hours rigging black curtains, a liner around my sink and stretching about $20 worth of silk, I managed to ruin a yard of nice 160 monofilament silk. Today made the usual troubles with my photo printer seem trivial.

Using my mitre box and backsaw, I sized about 40 feet worth of 2x2’s and had prepared several frames. Here’s a quick tip: the glue is what holds the frame together. Anyway, those turned out nicely. Then I started doing burn tests.

Spreading the photo emulsion went well. Everything looked good. Then I set up a simple film that would mark burn time increments from 5:00 to 45:00 in increments of five. Tried to wash out the screen, and the shortest exposure barely cleared out. Naturally, we tried another film with :30 increments from 1:00 to 4:30…still had washout problems. Now I’m thinking I need to back my UV lights off by about 5 inches and test from 2:00 to 10:00 in increments of one. Meanwhile, I need to stretch more silk because I forgot to buy emulsion washout fluid which won’t come until the end of the week.

To summarize, the setup looks good, but I don’t have it figured out after my first evening of testing. There’s tomorrow to get it right.

How does this apply to my thesis? When I make a design and print it off on my Canon, it goes well, and it looks good. But how much effort went into that? Does it convey the same thing? It certainly is easier, but I’m still going to spend about five hours tomorrow doing more test exposures so I can start screen printing.