Can you use vinyl instead of an acetate to make an exposed screen?!?

[FairyD]

Not looking to use vinyl as a stencil on a screen but instead of printing out the black graphic is it possible when doing spot coloured lettering or very basic shapes to use vinyl cut out with a plotter/cutter and then use that just as you would acetate to expose the screen....i.e. leave the vinyl on it's carrier sheet?!!?!? Does that make sense!?!? Looking to do a large spot coloured graphic that is all text.....don't want to waste a LOT of ink as it will be a large piece so hoping that this can be done!?!

[Paul]

is this what you mean?

[FairyD]

Hi Paul...no, but I had watched this video this morning which made me think about using a cut vinyl (weeded and still on it's carrier sheet) rather than printing out the image on acetate....the plan would still be to use the emulsion and put it under the lamp etc. but use the vinyl INSTEAD of the printed acetate as the 'negative' for the screen to expose with....everything's the same as normal acetate exposure just without the acetate?!?!?!

[Paul]

..but why??

[Ian M]

Gayle, You should be able to do it the way you want without out any problems. The main thing to remember is that anything that is black will not expose & anything clear will expose. In fact when I worked in screen printing we used to hand cut the bigger more simple positives using a two part film called Rubylith. There is a video showing someone cutting some Rubylith here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYaF-WWSz6w

[FairyD]

Yes Ian...that's exactly what I was hoping..!! Brilliant. Paul, I have tried printing acetates before with my old epson when I used to make my own polymer stamps and a lot of the time the black just wasn't black enough...so I was hoping that I could 'cheat' a little......this is only for the text stuff but it means I can make it as big as I want it (depending on size of screen obviously!!) I do need to invest in a laser printer too at some point I think!!

[Paul]

i print on my brother and black is not 100% solid black. but black enough to expose screen. you can use standard copier paper to expose your screens.

[FairyD]

Okay....I'll give both a go and see what happens!

[socialgiraffe]

We always used tracing paper for films. Not sure on the times or anything as I just used to send the film to my printers downstairs to expose. It worked very well and they never had a problem and it was nice and cheap.

[FairyD]

Interesting...thanks Simon.