Images Magazine Digital Edition February 2019

STEP-BY-STEP: HIGH BUILD PRINT www.images-magazine.com FEBRUARY 2019 images 67 TIPS & TECHNIQUES For the high build screen, use a good quality capillary film – we used 300 micron – and then dry thoroughly 1 3 Set the base – we used a water-based ink with a medium squeegee blade and a 15° angle Print the base with two floods and two print strokes to give a good coverage. Then flash until touch dry, on average this will take two to three seconds 5 Image the screen using a high quality device. We used a Spyder II, which gives ultra dense black images 4 6 The exposure takes on average four to five times longer than a normal screen In this close-up of the screen, note the deep, crisp edges that help define the 3D effect of the image 2 effect to pull out details or elements you want to highlight. Screen making We began by creating two high build screens and two base screens – as we used white HD ink on a white base, this gave us a subtle raised look that complements the design. The screens were coated following the manufacturer’s guidelines. As always in screen-printing, there are different methods to achieve the same result and finding the right one for you is a matter of trial and error. We like to use a thin layer of emulsion to adhere the capillary film to a fresh, clean, high-tension screen. We imaged the screen on a Spyder II from Exile Technologies – supplied by MHM Direct GB and set up to work with MHM presses – to give us super opaque images; we needed to increase the exposure time to cure all the way through the thick emulsion and using the Spyder II meant there was no need for vacuum, which could have let light creep round the image. We used 300 micron Chromaline Phat film on a 43t mesh and exposed it for 200 light units using an LED light source. Developing these thick stencils can be tricky, but the main thing to remember is that all of the emulsion is on the shirt side, this gives us our depth. Washing out from the ink side will just result in blowing off the image as it is only adhered to the mesh by the small layer of emulsion we