Screen Printing Enclosures

[John Matrix]

I have a lot of experience screen printing posters and t-shirts, but I've never tried printing on a 3D surface like a pedal enclosure. It seems like a few of you out there have experience with this stuff. I'm interested in the process. What kinds of inks do you use? How do you set up your printing jig? What are some of the problems you've run into doing this kind of stuff? Feel free to post pics of your set up as well.

[skullservant]

I envision that it's an oilbased ink, something that has the ability to get pretty caked on

[selfdestroyer]

This might point you in the right direction.
http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/i ... c=100208.0

I would be very interested in this myself. I used to make single color & 2 color Tshirts in high school but never did anything on metal. Pleas fill us in on your findings and what works for you.

[Dr Satan]

I too am interested in this. I've watched some videos of some Russian guy doing it, but it doesn't say what types of ink, plus it's Russian and what they use over there is probably illegal over here because it all causes some kind of cancer or something.

[DannDubbleEwe]

I don't think oil based would be good. It would take sssoooooooo long to dry.

I think standard acrylic inks would work fine with a clear coat afterwords. Ken from INFANEM recently put up a shop walk-through video and what he had was pretty interesting. He had the emulsion on the outside of the screen (where the lip is facing down) so he had more area under where the pedal could sit. He butted the enclosure up against a piece of nailed down wood. Boom.

I know epoxy inks exist (WMD uses this in their silkscreen process) but I couldn't imagine cleaning a screen of an epoxy ink would be fun at all, especially for whatever drain that may be going down. I guess you'd have to freaking GO GO GO or set up a screen with multiple, very exacting measurements to simultaneously print many at once. Or so long as you cleaned it with the appropriate solution afterwards you'd be golden.

I hope more people chime in!

[John Matrix]

Thanks for the feedback guys. This thread has a lot of good info:

This might point you in the right direction.
http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/i ... c=100208.0

I would be very interested in this myself. I used to make single color & 2 color Tshirts in high school but never did anything on metal. Pleas fill us in on your findings and what works for you.

[Officer Bukowski]

I built this jig a while ago to print on 1590b enclosures

[karmablock]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xcNWOshoOY[/youtube]

You can kind of see what DBA uses in this video.

[selfdestroyer]

Another Death By Audio one that shows them screening by hand.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/dfU-1VHwa80[/youtube]

[karmablock]

Another Death By Audio one that shows them screening by hand.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfU-1VHwa80[/youtube]

Fix'd

[John Matrix]

I built this jig a while ago to print on 1590b enclosures

Cool! This is what close to what I was imagining.

In contrast, the Death By Audio video makes their technique look pretty janky. Just holding tiny screens on top of the enclosure? Get outta heah!

Somone in that other thread recommended some Nazdar ink. Anyone else have any brands they like? My work has an account with Nazdar but from what I remember you have to order it in pretty large amounts.

[smallsnd/bigsnd]

the guy i get stuff done from uses nazdar 9700 series ink which is solvent-based, so compared to water-based inks:

it needs to cure (heat speeds that up!) for a bit
is a little trickier to work with since it's very viscous
you need to be faster since it tack dries quickly and will clog the screen
can be difficult to clean the screen well
requires a higher mesh count for the same detail
it will be more durable though!

[DannDubbleEwe]

well, i'm aroused.

[eatyourguitar]

viewtopic.php?f=151&t=17591&p=257222

[selfdestroyer]

More inspiration

Here is the process http://seaweedfactory.blogspot.com/2011/11/blackwhole-screen-printing-process.html