# Screen Printing at Home **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 21, 2004, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screen-printing-at-home/265270 "2004-09-21T04:48:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![stolichnaya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bcef8e/32.png) [@stolichnaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stolichnaya)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2004, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screen-printing-at-home/265270/1 "2004-09-21T04:48:30Z")
I’ve fancied making tshirts, etc. as a hobby for a while now. I hate the inkjet transfer thing, especially for a shirt I’d like to wear more than once. I’m considering making the leap to screen printing. Has anyone done this, and if so, do you have advice on a setup? How much does this cost to do reasonably? I am most concerned about getting permanent, pseudoprofessional results, and I do this enough that I’d be willing to pay a few hundred dollars to have a relatively easy setup that produces quality work. ---
**Author:** ![stolichnaya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bcef8e/32.png) [@stolichnaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stolichnaya)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screen-printing-at-home/265270/2 "2004-09-24T02:37:35Z")
My allowable bump- anyone? ---
**Author:** ![da\_pope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ba0ec/32.png) [@da\_pope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/da_pope)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screen-printing-at-home/265270/3 "2004-09-24T03:23:11Z")
I believe the professionals do it with some sort of light sensitive material, a photolithic-type process. We used to get this material; I _think_ it was called ‘vellum’, but it was screening material coated with a soft plastic substrate on one side. It was semi-transparent. We would lay the material over an image, usually some rock and roll logo, (reo speedwagon!) and using an exacto knife, cut the top plasticy layer away where we wanted the ink to seep through. We’d use a staple gun to stretch the vellum across a 1x2 frame, place it over a shirt, and squeegee ink across the surface. You could do 2 or 3 color as well, but you had to be careful lining them up. Here’s where it gets tricky: I’ve looked for the material at craft and hobby stores for years since, and never found it. ‘Vellum’ is either also, or specifically a name for some kind of semi-transparent drafting paper, so asking around never got me what I was looking for either. So 20 odd years later, I’ve never done this since. I still have some of the t-shirts though, and after so many washings, the ink is still thick and bright. It’d be interesting to find out more about what exactly I was working with back then. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screen-printing-at-home/265270/4 "2004-09-24T03:43:47Z")
I bought a silkscreening kit 12 years ago for about $60 at an art supply store in the 'burbs. The enclosed instructions were pretty simple I probably spent another $60 on replacement screens, supplies, etc. Today, for the same money, I could buy a bubble-jet printer and an iron transfer kit. The results would be less-permanent on the clothes, but I’d make fewer expensive errors. Also, if you do silkscreening, you’ll need a sizable sink (laundry room-type) dedicated to the task; tiny little bathroom and kitchen sinks won’t suffice. You can do bigger designs with a silkscreen kit than with a bubble jet/iron transfer, but multiple colors will be harder to register. Guess it depends on what you want to make. ---
**Author:** ![stolichnaya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bcef8e/32.png) [@stolichnaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stolichnaya)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2004, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screen-printing-at-home/265270/5 "2004-09-26T23:41:58Z")
Shirts, mostly. One or maybe two colors, not big super-registered CMYK images. I hate the inconsistency and lack of durability of inkjet transfers. I’ve seen a bunch of “home screenprinting kits” all over the web, I was hoping for some real-word advice on whether to try this or not. I think the tech now is that you print an image on a transparency and expose the vellum using light, and then make the transfer from that. Any other takers? Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2004, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/screen-printing-at-home/265270/6 "2004-09-27T01:03:37Z")
I did some very amateurish stencilling (well, _almost_ screenprinting) on t-shirts a good few years ago; I used emulsion paint (think about it - you splash that stuff on your clothes while decorating and let it dry and it never comes off). I was only doing small-run stuff, so I just cut my stencils from thin card.