Colonial Printing

Silk screen printing process is an laborious task that dates back as far as the Song Dynasty in Mainland china (960-1279 AD). It is called silkscreening because in the 1960’s printers used silk as the ‘mesh’ which the ink came through before being transferred onto the material. Silk screen printing has retained the name even though polyester is now primarily used instead of silk as the mesh screen. It is also known as screen printing or serigraphy.

First, a frame of wood or aluminum is constructed, to which the mesh is attached. The stencil is made of a material that the ink cannot seep through, and is the negative, or opposite, of what will show on the material the ink will be transposed to,paper, cloth, or some other material or promotional items. The mesh is either made of man-made materials such as polyester, nylon, or steel. Next, the stencil is placed on top of the mesh. The screen is now placed on the cloth or paper, also called the substrate.

Next the ink is put on the bottom of the negative part of the mesh and onto to the substrate. Then the flood bar is ran across the screen… starting from the bottom, and dragging the bar to the top. Then the printer will move the fill bar in the opposite direction, using a different technique.

The screen is lifted to prevent contact with the substrate, and with some slight downward pressure the fill bar is moved back across the template forcing the ink into areas missed upon the first pass. This method can be used on printed t-shirts and also other garments and substrates.

A hard rubber blade is dragged across the screen, forcing the ink in a uniformed fashion, into the substrate. This final part is done with a squeegie.

This makes sure that the ink being printed onto the substrate is the same thickness as the mesh and/or stencil. As the squeegee moves across the frame the mesh pulls away from the substrate. If everything has been done properly, this ’snap off’ leaves the ink on the promotional items or substrate in the design of the stencil. For multi-colored prints, the darker colors are used first, and the lighter colors, applied in the same fashion, are silkscreened on top of the darker colors.

The ‘Flat-bed’ (the most popular and the one just explained), the ‘cylinder’, and the ‘rotary’ are three types of screenprinting presses being used today. The screen used for the stencil can be cleaned and used again with the same design. If the stencil is no longer used, there is a more exhaustive process used to clean the screen.

Although silk screen printing is used mainly for clothing, there are many other materials and promotional items that can be printed, such as printed pens, balloons, and more recently, in the technical field, to lay down conductors and resistors. There are literally hundreds of items that can be silk screen printed.

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