Friday, May 6, 2011

Must have if screen printing shirts

When I first started printing shirts (I'm still a greenhorn, actually), I used clamps from the workshop to hold the screen down firmly to the table to prevent shifting. You see, you must squeegee the screen multiple times and having the shirt shift would crush some poor little child that is there waiting for their shirt to be printed. The clamps worked fine, but if you are the only adult doing this with a line of children waiting, I recommend these bad boys--hinge clamps on a board.


This product can't be found at Lowe's or Home Depot, but is a special dealywig that needs to be picked up someplace like Dick Blick's. Luckily I'm borrowing WPA's board but I've discovered that my cute Lego Indiana Jones screen that I'll be using to print maybe a 100 shirts tonight, doesn't fit very well. The clamps are too wide for the screen and the image would be too high even if it did fit. The fix? I'm screwing and gluing a 2x4" onto my screen.


I figure I'll only be using this guy on T-shirts anyway, so who cares if it's permanent. Frankly, anything that is going to make screening 100 T-shirts easier is worth it.

Here's how the hinges work. You know you want some. (See my son's origami in the background? He is hot for origami right now, and dozens can be found around the house and on every windowsill.)



2 comments:

Angela Hayes said...

I made that board/clamp for WPA's bags with donated clamps. They are not great, there are a lot better ones you can actually buy at Jerry's Artarama. They are totally worth the cost. If your a perfectionist (like me lol) you should inset the clamps so he screen sets down flush on the board, it helps keep things lined up if you need to make a second pass.

Cathy Savage said...

It actually worked well enough. If I ever buy my own clamps I'll think about insetting them. I ended up using a canvas board to slip the shirt on before printing, so it worked out fine. I can't tell you how much these clamps saved me. It's so much quicker, it's insane. Luckily the ink is pretty viscous and didn't run off the screen when I set it all the way up between shirts.