Alright, today we’re going to cover how I coat screens with emulsion and dry them safely. First off, you’ll need your screen, some emulsion (I use Ulano QTX), and a method to get the emulsion on the screen evenly. If there’s one piece of screenprinting equipment that I cannot recommend enough, it’s a scoopcoater (That’s the metal trough thing in the photo, in case you don’t know).
I started out putting a bead of emulsion on my screen and spreading it with a squeegee. That method does work if it’s your only option. I did that for about 6 months, until I got a scoopcoater and everything became so much easier and far, far less messy.
Fill your scoopcoater about half full of emulsion. If you overfill it, spills happen, like this. I didn’t get any pictures while actually coating screens because I needed both of my hands, sorry. Using the sharper edge of the scoopcoater, I pull one coat of emulsion on both sides of the screen. Coat the back side of the screen first, and then the squeegee side. This will give you the smoothest surface when you actually get to printing. I dry my screens (squeegee side up) in a large cardboard box that I normally store under my printing table. Conveniently, the boxes that my new screens get shipped to me in happen to be perfectly screen-sized.
When you’re done coating, don’t forget to take a plastic card or small squeegee and scrape the leftover emulsion from you scoopcoater back into your tub of emulsion, it’s still good.
To make the drying process much faster, I have a flap cut in one side of the box, just large enough in which to stick a small desk fan. I can stack five or six screens in one box, each one separated by pieces of scrap wood, as you can see in the photo. This gives you enough room for the fan’s breeze to fully circulate around your screens.
Once the emulsion starts to dry, it becomes light sensitive, so I have a large piece of heavy fabric that I can hang over the window to block out all light. Any room lights should be off at this point too, unless you have a red or yellow darkroom safety light.
If, like me, you’re drying your screens in a room you use for other purposes, and you can’t get away with having your room in total darkness for a few hours, you can also drape that same fabric over the fan side of your box.
With the fan on constantly, I’ve gotten away with exposing screens that have been drying for about 3 hours. If I’m not in such a rush, after an hour or so, I take the fan out, close the flap in the box, and just let the screens chill in their dark box until I need them the next day or whenever.
That’s it, if you have any questions or comments, shoot. This week’s print is going to be a bit weird, but probably won’t post until Thursday or Friday, so make sure you check back.
