Prepare a silkscreen
culture  

Prepare a silkscreen

By Ker Lee

Screen printing and silk painting is offered as a joint course at Caltech. Classes are once a week, 7-10 pm. Screen printing is an important skill because that’s how seniors make T shirts for Ditch Day and also fake Ditch Day stacks throughout the year. Various sports teams and clubs also use these screen printing facilities to make T shirts.

Today we learned how to prepare a screen for screen printing.

First, a cloth is placed over the wooden frame and rope is pressed into the grooves.

Heavy duty tools like hammers and screwdrivers are needed to stretch the cloth tightly and securely. The cloth is then trimmed.

Then, pumice stone is used to rough up the cloth under water. A plastic sheet with adhesive is put on the screen. This sheet is squeegeed onto the cloth.

The screen is now ready to be dried for next time!

There were students there that night who were further ahead in the screen printing process, so we got a sneak preview of the steps to come! We watched as they screened on the designs and then put the shirts through a little heated conveyor belt to dry.

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