7.11.2009

Waxed Paper Part II

I was curious about how the waxed paper would hold up if i decided I wanted to use the same screen again, like if I needed to pick up printing again later or if I decided to change colors.

Washing the screen out was fine, as long as I made sure to only wash on the side of the screen that did not have the waxed paper, since some of the waxed paper started to come off if I did that.

Once I had all the ink washed off, however, there were a couple issues (since the fabric stretches a little bit when it's wet). First of all, there were new wrinkles in the waxed paper.


[ wrinkles ]

Secondly, the waxed paper cracked and tore a couple places along the edges.


[ tears ]

Once the screen was dry again and tightened up again, the wrinkles mostly went away. Getting rid of the cracks was a quick fix, since they were away from the design — I just put some masking tape over them.


[ repairs ]

Doing a second run with the same waxed paper on the screen worked just about as well as the first time. I didn't bother finding new pieces of paper or trying to register these since it's just a test.


[ red layer ]

For the most part, the biggest issue I had was with ink coverage, like below. That issue is entirely on me, though, since I'm still trying to figure out how much ink and pressure I need to get good coverage. Although I'm getting better, it's still hard for me to judge.


[ bad coverage ]

I did also have some problems with the ink squeezing out some of the wrinkles in the waxed paper. I feel like there was a little bit more of that this time around, but it could be because the red is more visible than the yellow.


[ edge fail ]

The biggest disadvantage I discovered about spray mounting the waxed paper onto my screen is that a lot of the spray mount did not wash out of my screen with just water. I tried scrubbing it with a stiff brush, but I was not making a lot of progress. Since it is just a piece of organdy stretched over a frame and it's not all that expensive to get more, I decided it wasn't worth it to try super hard to get the spray mount out. Although it has been nice that I've used the same screen for everything I've done so far, it's not that big of a deal to change it. Something like turpentine might be able to get the adhesive residue off (since that's what you're supposed to use to clean the can's nozzle), but I don't have any around and don't really want to mess with a lot of chemicals.


[ spray mount residue ]

I think that I would use spray mount to tack down my stencil again if I was okay throwing away that screen when I was done, and if I used some thicker material that would be easier to tack down.

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