Cody from Matsui explains how to coat your screens with emulsion for water based screen printing. He starts with a counter-intuitive tip: you actually want a thinner coat of emulsion on your screens for water based inks. You'll lose detail faster with a thicker stencil - your ink clears from the mesh much better with a thin coat of emulsion!
Cody will demonstrate how to coat your screens by hand with emulsion for water based ink. You should use more pressure than you would for plastisol ink. Cody says, "I coat them fast and consistently. Use significant pressure and go faster than you would for plastisol ink." The emulsion will look less glossy than usual since the coat is thinner. Remember: dry your screens the same way you print on them (read: the printing surface should face down).
"Talk to your distributor you're using for emulsion before you start printing with water based inks. Figure out your EOM (emulsion over mesh). The more data you have, the more data you can use to troubleshoot what's going wrong." Consistent emulsion coating will make water based printing much easier - screen breakdown is an unfortunate part of life with water based inks, so you need to document and be meticulous about controlling the variables in your coating process.
"The worst thing that can happen when you're learning to screen print with water based ink is to have something go perfect. Then you don't learn a single thing." Dialing in your EOM, exposure times, and post-exposure process the first step in figuring out what will work in your shop.
Cody advises you to ALWAYS post-expose your screens. Post-exposure hardens the stencil and makes your emulsion far more durable during printing.
Cody and Matt Marcotte also take questions from shop owners at the class and discuss how they approach problem-solving and troubleshooting issues with screens.
You'll also watch a demo of M&R's i-Image system for automatically coating your screens with emulsion.
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