24 Apr 2012

Vinyl cut screen printing

Since for the time being the majority of our screen printing gear is out of commission (we've no where to wash screens out yet) I thought I'd drop a quick post about using a vinyl plotter to make a silkscreen stencil.


Len blogged the whole process in detail hither, but I thought I would just touch on it briefly. We really tried to push the detail to the max on this one just to try and find the limits of the vinyl plotter, but since it cut everything out no bother we're a little baffled!


Once you've done a spot of weeding (pulled all the crap out you don't want) you're pretty much ready to go. Slap a massive piece of masking tape over the top of it..


..and transfer it from the backing paper onto your screen with worrying about the image being distorted or falling to bits. Then it's just pretty much as per usual!


It's certainly a simpler way of doing things, and cuts out a canny chunk of prep time IF you already work from illustrator, but on the other hand it has it's limitations depending on the image you're printing. Since I personally work mostly by hand I doubt I'll have much use for it, but I guess it's pretty situational.

If you like the look of Len's print you should check out his Etsy store for more goodies!

Keep those fingers inky,
Christopher

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