How the textile screen printing process works.
The Screen Printing Process starts with you the customer. Our goal is to help you put together a quality design and color combination to represent your business, organization, church, school or family reunion. We take your ideas and refine them to produce a quality screen printed product. Below is a simple demonstration of the screen printing process. Many designs we print are more complicated.
Step 1
Artwork: Any screen print is only as good as the artwork it is created from. Your design can be created from a sketch, clip art, or one of our provided designs. Cacprintwear.com offers free artwork on orders that use our art images. Click here to view our design options (please note that not all of our designs are currently on the internet so if you do not see what you are looking for please contact us with you request 1-866-661-4348). All artwork is submitted for customer review and approval via the internet prior to printing.
Artwork Design on Computer Screen
Design on Film
Step 2
Film Production: After your artwork has been approved we print out each color in the design onto clear film. In this case there is only one film because this is a one color imprint. The black image on the film will be burnt into the screen using ultraviolet lights.
Step 3
Screen Creation: Now it is time to create the screen.
We take a screen that has been coated with emulsion
and dried. We then take that screen and put it on a special light table with the film positive applied to the under side. The screen is then exposed to intense ultraviolet light that causes the emulsion to become hard every where but where the black of the film positive is located. Note: this is a very precise part of the process when multi-color designs are being burnt, because they have to match up perfectly when you set the screens on the press. Once the screen is exposed it is taken to a washout booth where the emulsion is washed out in the image area. Then the screen is dried, taped, and taken to the press.
Exposing Screen
Exposed Screen
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