Post #593668 by cy on Tue, Jun 14, 2011 5:24 PM

Thanks MDM I have owned a t shirt printing business since 1979 so you got it right on. I will be printing a piece of fabric with 4 colors, so 4 screens are needed-one for each color. The screens are frames stretched tight with a polyester fabric (they used to use silk back in the day which is why it was called silk screen printing) and then they are coated with a light sensitive emulsion. The artwork is added to the coated frame and exposed to a high intensity light source which hardens the emulsion everywhere but your artwork area, which is washed out with water. What you then have is your polyester completely blocked out except your image area. The screen is then taped off so ink does not go anywhere but through the image area. Ink is then applied to the screen and pulled through with a squeegee. I do this every day, yet is hard to explain. It is an interesting process which is why I chose it for this project and will try to take pictures as I progress to give everyone a better understanding.