Intro to Silkscreen Printing
Screen printing is the process of forcing ink through a stencil with a squeegee. Although the overwhelming majority of our screen printing is done on t shirts, the process works well with many other products including bags, jackets, fleece, and other types of apparel.
Since High Peak Sportswear printed it’s first t shirt for a Junior High P.E. department in 1989, we’ve literally printed millions and millions of items. We handle orders as small as a dozen, and regularly print jobs in the many thousands of items. We have the equipment and knowledge to make your job look great. Most importantly we will ensure that you’re completely satisfied, with each and every one of us here at High Peak being your advocate.
The Screen Printing Process
Step 1 - Artwork Stage
Artwork for screen printing often begins with us being provided nothing but an idea. However if artwork does exist and is in a workable format, time and money can be saved. More info on art formatting can be found from our FAQ’s at the bottom of this page.
Most often the artwork for screen printing is done with spot colors meaning the colors in the artwork need to be separated in vector format, each color having their own separation and each color ending up eventually on it’s own screen. Garment material, garment color, garment size, print location, all will play a part in the design of the t shirt artwork. With the talented artists on staff at High Peak, the sky really is the limit.
Step 2 - Burning Screens
The separations from the art department are printed onto a film or translucent vellum. These separations are taped to a screen coated with a photosensitive emulsion and exposed to ultraviolet light. After being washed out with high pressure water the screen is ready to dry and be setup on a manual or automatic screen printing press.
Step 3 - The Printing Process
After screens are burned, washed out, and dried the job is ready to be setup. Depending on the number of colors and number of t shirts to be printed, the appropriate size press is selected and the job is setup. Orders of 200 or less garments will most likely be printed on one of our 6 or 8 color manual presses. Orders over 200 likely will be setup on our 6 color or 14 color automatic presses.
Regardless of the machine the process of printing is very similar, with ink placed in the screen and a squeegee used to force the ink through the screen. The automatic presses print with pneumatic pressure moving the squeegee, the manual presses are just as they sound, the squeegee is drug across the screen by hand.
Step 4 - Curing and Completion
Plastisol ink is used almost exclusively in t shirt printing. After the t shirt is printed, it goes through a dryer in which the ink will reach temperatures in the range of 330 degrees. At this temperature the ink cures and goes from a liquid to a solid.
When the ink cools down the t shirt is ready to wash and wear, no drying of any nature needs to take place. Finally, the garments are counted and boxed and ready for pickup or delivery.
Frequently Asked Screen Printing Questions
General
Art
Garments
Pricing