PRINT SHOP HOW-TO: RE-STRETCH YOUR SILKSCREEN FRAME
Not too long ago Chrissy and I purchased a hand silk screen stretcher online. I think we were both in agreement that shipping ripped screens to Toronto to have another company re-stretch and ship them back to us was becoming a hassle and too expensive. We purchased our stretcher from a company call ASC365. I’ve recently gone through the process of re-stretching 20 silkscreen frames and wanted to take a moment to share my experience. Even before we begin I’d like to mention that this tool is fantastic and I recommend it.
How to re-stretch mesh onto an aluminum frame:
1. First, take the broken screen and cut a ‘plus’ sign into the mesh. I found that this gave me a good starting point to ripping the mesh off. When I tried using a X cut from corner to corner, it left a lot of remaining screen debris towards the corners. Rip the mesh along one edge towards the corner, then rip the other edge towards the same corner, now rip the corner section off. Repeat this for all the edges.
2. You may see that there are bits of mesh still remaining glued down near the corner, try to remove what you can by picking at it and hopefully you can pull it off. I found that using a utility knife helped in removing the last bits. Don’t worry too much if there is some remaining, when we grind the frame it’ll come off.
3. If you can, go outside and set-up a work table. You will be grinding aluminum and thus creating dust, so doing this process inside the studio was a big ‘no go’. You will need several tools. A metal grinder with a grinding disk, palm sander with 80-120 grid sand paper, particle respirator (not a dust mask, a real respirator, protect your lungs), gloves, clamps, and safety goggles.
4. I clamped the screen down to the table, and begun lightly grinding the frame. The idea is to remove all the glue off the frame and at the same time give the frame tooth to accept a new layer of glue. When you’re grinding the frame you’ll want to be careful not to spend too much time in one spot otherwise you may grind a pit into the frame, and that’s not good.
5. Afterward I used the palm sander to quickly run around the whole frame, this cleaned up some (not all) ink stains, hardened emulsions, or weird glue deposits from tape. When finished rub the frame clean with a rag.
6. Set-up a large station inside, I had to push to a couple desks together. I recommend that you avoid using the floor as a work surface, the mesh is oddly charged with static electricity and will pick up all the dirt off the floor. The stretcher we bought came disassembled in 8 pieces and was really easy to build following the manufacturers instruction.
7. Once the system is set-up and the frame in place, coat the frame with a layer of glue. We purchased the glue from the same company that sold us the stretcher, it is clearly an extremely strong contact cement. I recommend that you open a window and wear a vapor rated respirator mask.
8. It takes 8-10 minutes for the glue to become ‘dry to the touch’. At this point lock into the stretcher your desired new mesh. Crank all the clamps down onto the mesh and begin stretching each side a little bit at a time. You can buy a tension meter which will tell you exactly what tension of the screen is or I compared the tension to another commercially stretched screen we had in the studio.
9. When you’re happy with the tension cut a piece of cardboard slightly smaller than the interior of the frame and place it on the screen. Now apply a second layer of glue to the frame. The cardboard prevents any stringy bits of glue from falling onto the middle of the screen. Like I mentioned earlier the screen has a lot of static electricity and so it tends to attract the stingy glue. Once done let the frame sit for 25 minutes.
10. When you loosen all the clamps and remove your newly stretched frame cut off the excess screen mesh. Finally, use metal foil tape (purchased from a hardware store in the duct working aisle ) to cover the glued side of the screen. That’s it, finished.
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PINHOLE CAMERAS
We are excited to announce that our recently developed and constructed pinhole cameras work and are producing photographs. Erin Topping (Kyle’s sister) who is studying photography at Georgian College, visited the studio for four days for the purpose of helping to develop and test the prototype pinhole cameras for an upcoming pinhole camera workshop offered at the studio.
The concept of a pinhole camera is quite simple. It is a camera with no lens and a very small aperture, a pinhole sized aperture to be specific. The pinhole is poked into one side of a light proof box or container and a shutter is made out of electrical tape. In the darkroom photo-paper or film is inserted into the camera. The typical exposures range from 4 seconds to an hour.
The cameras Erin and Kyle developed produce negative images because the cameras house photography paper rather than film. A negative image means that the colours are inverted, blacks are white and whites are black. The next camera to be developed will be one from a tin container that will house actual 35mm film, which will produce positive images when the film is used in the darkroom enlarger.
In April Spark Box Studio will be running a pinhole camera workshop if you’re interested in trying this exciting medium.
Pinhole Camera Workshop
In this exciting workshop participants will create their own pinhole camera. As a group we will go out and capture images of country landscapes which will be developed in black and white at the studio by participants. Everyone will bring home several mysterious black and white photographs.
April 9, 16 & 23 :
10:00 AM – 12:00 PM
$90 a person, max 6 people
materials included
You my sign up for this workshop online here: Workshop Sign up
DARK ROOM DONATION
Spark Box Studio would like to extend a thank you to Peter Gershom Allen who donated several boxes of well needed darkroom supplies. We met Peter at the second Creative Minds forum on July 14 2009, after we had spoke about our project. Standing next to the rather tall giant Peter we felt a little dwarfed. Peter told us about how he was a professional photographer in his youth and how his career led him to specialize in aerial photography. Peter offered us some of his ‘ancient‘ technology and we gratefully accepted. Upon inspecting the several dusty boxes we found two analog timers, a digital timer, a color enlarger, film canisters, photo paper bags, dark room lights, plastic trays, tongs, and an assortment of miscellaneous, unidentifiable objects; The kind you scratch your head at. With Peter’s donation Spark Box Studio moves another step closer to having a extensive dark room setup.
