Silkscreen T-Shirt Printing Services

Silkscreen T-Shirt Printing Process

Remember how we used stencils to draw various shapes like stars, heart shapes and even letters? The silkscreen technique uses the same concept, just using ink as your “pencil” to draw the shape.

But of course, the stencil used in silkscreen, it is not the same as the one shown above. The stencil used consists of a nylon mesh held over an aluminium or wooden frame. Nylon mesh on stencil will have your desired design on it (example shown below), covering (with photographic emulsion) parts of the mesh screen where you do not want ink to seep through and leaving design area parts uncovered to allow ink to seep through the tiny holes in the mesh, which forms your ink printed t-shirts.

To create the design area for printing on the nylon mesh stencil, we will first need to cover the mesh screen with photographic emulsion (purple parts shown in example). Photographic emulsion is a light-sensitive colloid used in film-based photography.

A positive film or a transparency film with your design printed in black will have to be placed on to the stencil. Design printed on the film will be exactly how your stencil will turn out and in this case, exactly how your shirt prints will look.

Once film is nicely placed on the stencil, The stencil will be placed into an exposure unit where the stencil will be exposed to UV light. This process usually takes up to afew minutes, depending on the amount of UV your light bulb is able to produce. After expsoure, stencil will be washed out preferably by a jet-spray and your design area will be revealed on the screen, not covered by photo emulsion.

Once preparation for stencil done, it is where the work starts. Ready stencil will be placed above your T-shirt print area. Now you need to flood some ink onto the screen, and then use a squeegee (picture below) to press down and ensure that the ink spreads all over your screen. Excess ink will be wiped away. And the screen is finally taken off with the design you’re printing- it’s cured, dried and that’s it!

Why Silkscreen T-Shirt Printing?

Silkscreen printing is a traditional and most widely used method to print on different materials, anything from t-shirts, fabrics and even wood. This is a process in which images are created through a type of stencil process.

The artwork is separated into its different colours, and then screens are burned with all the different colour separations. Since the different colours have to be lined up perfectly, the artwork is limited to the number of screens a specific printing machine can hold. Most of the printing machines can hold up to six screens and this limits the printing of artwork up to six colours.

• Vibrant colours

• Sharp detailing

• Durable life span

• Light and thin prints

• Cost-efficient in high quantities

• Suitable for most usage, retail, event, corporate etc