enamel silk screening

  • June 15, 2011 8:09 AM EDT

    Is there anyone out there doing silkscreening?  i have been working in it a little and just love it.  Someone somewhere mentioned the use of enamel mixed wih water to silk screen with.  I've been using olive oil.  I use Ferro's Sunshine Colors for silkscreening and they suggested the use of "organic" oil as it burns out clean.  I told them I'd been using lavender oil and they said to try olive oil.  It's much cheaper to use and doesn't have an odor (like lavender).  It has been working well,  but clean up is difficult.

     

    Any additional ideas?

     

  • Member
    June 15, 2011 10:07 AM EDT

    I don't make silk-screening. But in enamel painting I  very successful a solution from wall-paper-glue using. I could imagine it works also for silk-screening. You can the sieve cleaning only with water even if the colors/glue in the screen is already dried up .
     An other possibility could be Acryl-medium to use. Acryl-medium you can buy by Thompson enamel or in an art-supply-store.

    Edmund

  • Member
    June 16, 2011 11:51 AM EDT
    I use ceramic medium and it dries in about in 3 hours.To clean screen I use Xylene, available with laboratory chemical suppliers and it cleans screen quite fast and no damages. I use a little thicker mesh, say 100 mesh screen so that a little thicker layer of color passes through it.
  • Member
    June 17, 2011 3:25 AM EDT

    But Xylene is highly flammable, highly toxic and so very dangerous!

    Edmund

  • June 17, 2011 12:29 PM EDT

    Does acrylic medium burn out clean in the kiln?

    I remember Pat Johnson telling me about wallpaper paste, she told me it has great holding power especially on verticle surfaces.

  • Member
    June 18, 2011 5:25 AM EDT

    Both, the wall-paper-glue and the Acrylic-medium burn away without any residue. If the Acrylic-medium very thick is, you can thin it with water. Important is cleaning the sieve before the medium getting dried. If you  wall-paper-glue use, you can clean the sieve also, if it is completly dried. Acrylic medium you can buy by Thompson enamel. www.thompsonenamel.com

    Edmund