Silk Screen Logos

General Discussion
1

I am looking for recomendations on someone who can do screen print laminates on rice paper.  I tried having a company that didgitally prints logos, but the logo I have has a lot of black and it did not look like I hoped it would.  I would really like to find a company that doesnt charge too much for a few sheets of logos.  I contacted three companys that came up when I googled silk screen surfboard lams, but havent heard back (In their defense it was right before christmas).

Another thing I have looked into is buying a simple silk screen kit.  Would this be a pain in the ass, or something I could bust out with good results in a few hours?

I know that rice paper lams have been talked about a lot on the forum and apologize if this is too repetitive.  Just thinking maybe some o the previously mentioned recomendations might be outdated...

 

Much thanks for any advice!  Hope everyone has been catching good waves and creating cool wave shredders!

2

Hey Chainsaw, Silkworm in Ventura has always done solid work for me–fast and professional. (805) 650-7876.

Doing your own isn’t that difficult, especially if it’s a simple one or two color design and you have a knack for craft. The added bonus is that once the screens are made, you’re not just limited to ricepaper prints. T-shirts, your neighbor’s cars, your kids…whatever.

Jamie

3

carlos anorga does great work ultrasol@attglobal.net

i’ve spent countless hours trying to do my own. to get really good lams is really, really tricky. i bought kits and miscelaneous other screen printing products and ended up getting kind of frustrated. mark my words - if you try to do it yourself you will end up spending more money and get a crappier product than if you go with a pro.

i made myself some lams that turned out pretty good, but i’m much happier w/ the stuff i got from carlos. it was pretty hard for me to let go of the idea of printing my own lams.

4

Hey guys - just wanted to say thanks for the advice.  I'm glad to hear some honest feedback on the idea of printing them myself.  I tend to take on projects that snowball.. so I know that although diy lams would be rad, but I dont have the time for it right now.

I sent an email to carlos.  Where does he work?  website?  I may try to call Silkworm, but I'm hoping to find somewhere that I can just email to to get a price before getting too involved.

Thanks!

5

[quote="$1"]

I am looking for recomendations on someone who can do screen print laminates on rice paper.  I tried having a company that didgitally prints logos, but the logo I have has a lot of black and it did not look like I hoped it would.  I would really like to find a company that doesnt charge too much for a few sheets of logos.  I contacted three companys that came up when I googled silk screen surfboard lams, but havent heard back (In their defense it was right before christmas).

Another thing I have looked into is buying a simple silk screen kit.  Would this be a pain in the ass, or something I could bust out with good results in a few hours?

I know that rice paper lams have been talked about a lot on the forum and apologize if this is too repetitive.  Just thinking maybe some o the previously mentioned recomendations might be outdated...

 

Much thanks for any advice!  Hope everyone has been catching good waves and creating cool wave shredders!

[/quote]

 

New wave in Florida is one of the best. 

6

how about screening directly onto the board, and skip the rice paper?  Anybody get good results with that?

 I am about to order a silkscreen kit from these guys : http://www.silkscreeningsupplies.com/  Mainly want to do shirts, but if I could print directly on the blank, or between hot and gloss, I would not be limited to my 8.5 x 11 printer size for logos.

7

how much does Carlos charge? prices for multilpe colors same logo?

8

http://www.sundancegraphics.net/content/stickerslaminatessigns.html

These guys do beautiful  work.

9

as a reformed screenprinter, you will get the best results (crisp edges, solid enough ink to cover art of foam, etc) w/screenprinting.

Carlos of “Expressive Designs” (may be the Carlos stated above) in LA area (i think he had a 310 area code) has done a few batches for me and they’re great.

Also broprints.com in santa cruz does this work. Cool guys, good vibe.

The pricing issue w/screenprinting has also been stated ablove: it cost a lot to take your art from computer, hand drawn, etc to making film which is necessary to create the positive/negative screen through which ink is squeegeed through. film + screen charges (one film + one screen needed per color in your art), can be $20-30 per film and similar for each screen.

THEN they set up the rice paper, mix your ink colors, etc.

SO once you’ve done all this work they WILL print 1 lam, BUT it’s gonna be like $200 (let’s just say for a 2 color job), once you have it all set up you can make multiples easily, 100 sheets might be $250, 200 sheets may be $300. You can usually gang up the art/logos so you’ll get 2, 3, 4 logos per sheet so it’s economical once you’re running up the numbers.

You can get a “2 color sheet” printed for say, $2.50 per sheet, BUT
you’ve got all the other associated charges to get the ball rolling, or
the squegee pulling in this case.

If you want 1/2 your lams, white ink background w/black log ink, then want the other 1/2 blue backround ink with balck log ink, there may be a $15 charge to clean white screen and then use another color ink, but that’s a good way to get a mix to work w/different color board art.

OR if you’re not committed to that # of lams, get rice paper and cut it to 8.5" x 11" sheet and put it in your inkjet printer and run a few sheets at a time. they will be as moderately crisp as the ink soaking into the pourous paper bleeds a bit, but you can do a sheet, change colors

 

10

     Howzit astevens, Every color needs it's own screen, so 4 colors means 4 screens. I am surprised no one has mentioned doing them with an ink jet printer. Aloha,Kokua

11

Surfmystic is right on with everything. My two brothers have a screen printing company (I used to do the artwork) but they recently sold all thier equip due to the economy. They still do it but sub stuff out now. Anyway they used to charge $25 for a screen charge. Getting the art, screens and the initial setup adds up but it’s worth it if you want a good end result. I know it’s not that practical for just a few lams though. If you do it have the printer throw on a few tees and sweatshirts while they’re set up.

Me and my brother would just go into the shop and print up a couple whenever I needed a few. It sucks they had to sell the equip. I would have liked to hook up a few guys on here with some stuff. It’s a tuff time for this industry especially now that cotton prices just went up another 10%, I believe and will get a lot worse with all this crazy weather going on.

12

Hi Kokua,

I use an inkjet right now for my logos. silk screening looks really clean and shows up well over colored boards, but I don't make enough boards to justify the cost. I was thinking about getting a little home kit screen printing set, but someone on here mentioned how difficult it is to do

13

The first board i made has lams printed on an inkjet… they came out
as good as expected but i wonder how well standard inkjet prints hold
up to fading. Time will tell on mine but (after a year) i can already
notice the difference

Does anybody have any more time tested results
with standard inkjet on rice paper prints?

I would rather have a
more simple lam that stays vibrant for longer that have the ease and
extras you can get with a print, like drop shadows, gradients and
blends, bitmap images and such. For my personal lams i plan on sticking
with a mix of base colors painted on the foam with the details and
outlines on the hot coat. i do sign work as well so i usuall have a
stock of paint mask that i can use for more intricate (computer)
designs.

Here are pics of my lam as a digital print on rice paper glassed in with a sanded finish.

 

 

14

     Howzit RISE, I have done a few thousand lams on an ink jet and the main thing is to get one that uses archival ink that is fade proof. Epson printers that use Durabrite ink are what I use and like I said thousnads of them and I went through 2 printers in like 10 years. My first one was a C80 MDL and the second was a C82 MDL that died just before I moved. I know Canon and HP both make at least 1 model that uses non fade ink and I think they are Photo printers. All black ink is pigment ink ( another name for archival ink) but the colored pigment inks are the ones on the printers I mentioned. I use to average around 300 a month and had almost 20 shapers buying them. Aloha,Kokua

15

Astevens, if you can get a little setup for a decent price go for it. Screen printing isn’t too hard in it’s basic form but when you get into detailed complicated designs things change a little. Then you need finer mesh screens for detailed designs, tighter registration and correct flooding and pressure of the squeegee. Printing on a shirt isn’t that difficult but rice paper is definately harder. It’s very delicate and you need it to stay put if you are doing more than one color. To get it to stay put you use a light tack spray adhesive. Sometimes you’ll tear the lam pulling it off if there is too much stickyness, too little and the bottom of the screen with the ink on it will pull it up sometimes. Rice paper is cheap though so you can just go for it, throw it out and try again till you get the results you are after, you don’t need much ink either.

Rise that looks great from coming out of an inkjet. My first board had an inkjet lam, the board is 10 years old and it is so badly faded, the black is like a very light translucent brown now. The blue is barely visable. I’s say it took 3 years to start to really go south but I always left the thing in the sun. That being said printers are much better now and so are the inks. If you do signs and paint you could definitely pull of something real nice. Sounds like a good idea, I used to do some sign painting and boat/truck lettering back in the day. Nothing but One Shot enamel, a pounce wheel and chalk. Now everything is computer cut vinyl. I wish I had one of those mask printers though.

16

Well… I gues that answers my question… LOL =)

**THANKS Kokua!!! **

MUCH RESPECT…

17

Kokua, now I’m going to have to try the printers I have at work. We have a bunch of Epson 2400’s, we do tons of archival prints. The quality on these things are amazing, the photos are very stable and lightfast. The trick I guess would be to find the correct paper/ink settings for the rice paper.

18

JohnnyK3… I came in at the tail end of the hand lettering era. I went from laying up fiberglass faces and fabrication to working design & graphics on the computer. Now i’m all computer… LOL I use a standard vinyl cutter for the paint mask (which is just a low tack vinyl itself). The plotter has proved useful for template paper patterns as well. i cant remember the last time i had to roll out a pounce pattern. LOL. I worke fo one guy who had a setup where we hung the paper pattern on a flat piece of steel and drew the pattern out with an electric zapper thing to perforrate it. I burned up a couple of patterns before i got used to it.

Kokua has rekindled my faith in the inkjet printing though. All of the above seem good to know for the backyard hobbyist like me.

19

Hey Guys

Only problem is that inkjet printers dont print white.

Anything white is not printed with any ink 

If you have any color on you board, any areas that should be white will be that color.

I have a template for my logos that cover any areas that should be white while i spray.

Resin color, i cant do.

I think I remember Kokua used to spray the back side of the printed logo white.

Maybe he can ellaborate.

I did try this once but my paper ended up wrinkling up so I didnt do it again

Might have used the wrong type of paint too.

Cheers

 

20

Found this

http://www2.swaylocks.com/forums/back-logos

Cheers