How many of you have a darkroom and how many just have a place to store screens in the dark while they dry?

Great video. I don't have a darkroom, when i coat them, i coat them in regular light. I only store them to dry in the dark. I always thought a darkroom was necessary, until I met my maestro, and saw how he coated in a lit room by a window and a open door in the day. Was blown away. I realized its no problem as long as you move quick and don't just leave it for to long.

I've literally been freaking out about not having a dark room and this just eased my worries. No point in getting stressed over extra light. Many thanks!

Thank you for this video - it was the brain recalibration I needed! I used to develop black & white film and prints. I've been coating & burning in near-darkness because I still had that fear of one stray beam of light ruining a days work.

This is great. I don’t have a dark room. My studio actually gets quite a bit of natural light, and I’ve had zero issues. I built a small drying cabinet and made sure it was completely dark. 👍🏼

thank you for this, I have been wondering if I had to be in a dark room to get everything done! Glad to see it works anyway!

I do that all the time and no issues great video Matt

Thanks... Your videos do give enlightenment for those who are need..really appreciate it!

Rad video that makes me look smart. I keep telling people this. But even I didn't know it was THIS forgiving. Thanks brother! :)

When i got into screen printing most, if not all, suppliers and many youtubers said dark room is not negotiable and you have to have one. Two and half years with 4-10 screens a day and I still cant see why they would say you have to have one. I do many halftones, process and other fine detail projects. never had an issue. I have a guest bedroom in my basement and simply stack frames to dry and then stand them upright to store them. I generally do 30-40 frames at a time and some frames of rarely used mesh size, might go two or three months between coating and exposing. I even had some large sized screens go nearly eight months and then when used worked fine. The bedroom has a regular overhead light and is turned on several times a day for probably no more than 1 hr a day with the occasional 4-6 hrs when the kids forget to turn off the light. This spare room is also our pantry and is used every day. The screens are standing on the floor stacked upright together so I am sure there is protection from the top frame. but I have never had a messed up exposure. I followed KZfaq's Farmboy Graphics advice since day one and have not had a single mess-up. I built his super cheap exposure table and followed his 2:45 seconds and there has been only one screen with very subtle half-tones that I washed out with a power washer from the wrong side that I had to do over. we are talking in excess of 2000 exposures! Dont get me wrong, I have put films on backwards, upside down and sideways, but they always exposed beautifully..... It isn't my skill, it was simply carefully following the advice of Farmboy Graphics (by the way he has a closet to store the screens to dry and hold, but he coats and sets up his frames in regular room light). I have about $100 in my exposure table, zero in my dark room and all that "extra" money was spent on high capacity/quality conveyor dryer, better/bigger press and a quartz flash dryer which I wouldn't think of not having for a manual press. I usually lay my films on the shirt, on the press and place tape on them so I can mount the screen and get placement just where I want it. I have the main shop which is 26x24 and it has 24 4ft led shop lights. My shop has white painted floors and three small windows. It is very bright but I will shut down the lights directly above the press, but by no means is it "dim" in my shop. I use ulano orange and QTX which I protect a little more from the light, but since it seems like Orange gives almost as much fine detail in half-tones, I rarely use it anymore. Two months ago I did 275 6 color Sep Studio Mahi-Mahi fish fishing shirt on a polyester hoodie for a major high end boat manufacturer and we used Ulano Orange and the sales rep and marketing director commented how they looked so much better than past years shirts. They have since ordered four more jobs with one more on the books for their huge Annual boat dealers convention this coming winter. I am not saying orange is best, just I know how to use it with my system and customers are happy. I do almost all plastisol, so water based shops probably are different in their emulsion choice. If you are on a budget then darkroom and exposure units maybe should be first to DIY and save cash for press or conveyor. I had a rude , pompous salesman actually tell me i might as well as not invest any time or money getting into the screen printing business if i wasn't going to do what it takes to make quality screens with a $3,600 exposure unit. I saw him last month now working at Best Buy when I went to buy 2 new computers and extra monitor. He came up to me and asked how things were going and I said crazy busy and I had paid off all equipment and was hiring a saleswoman to handle all the sport teams jersey's/spiritwear accounts. I was getting a laptop for my saleswoman and a new computer and two large monitors for the shop. He said "Great, let me help you with that"....I said, "seeing how your recommendation was for me NOT to even bother opening my shop unless i bought your $3,600 exposure unit was unbelievably wrong and false, why would I now trust you for my computers?" .... he shook his head and stormed away. The saleswoman I used at Best Buy whispered under her breath "You have no idea how much he deserved that". If someone stands to make money off your decision, your guard should be up!!! That includes people who have sponsors or are trying to acquire sponsors.

Thanks for the awesome video for newbies like myself!

Your videos are soo helpful!! Thank you for sharing😆✨

I have been preaching this fact for a while now. Glad you made a video about it.

Thanks for the info. Very helpful.

Nice Matt!

Hey I just met this dude!!!! Didn’t even know he did videos... pretty cool

Blown TF away!!! I didn’t know this. Ty

Great video. I started using a water bottle to pre wet our screens prior to the wash booth. Worked great!

thanks for helping me understand this!

great information thank you.

Thanks that was v useful

Very good video thx...I can stop freaking out

Very nice !

I asked Ryonet support about this because I dont really have a dark room/area in our house and read in the forums that while the emulsion is still wet, it's not really that light sensitive. Ryonet support said that was true for photopolymer emulsions, but the emulsion that I use, which is a dual cure emulsion that needs diazo, is light sensitive at all times. =( Great video as always!

Im getting back into thjs its been 5 yrs erso i just coared a couple I never used a darkroom just a closet or box n fan im no pro but i do okay im looming to up my skills now all in due time great video cheers n good luck to begin ers

Thanks for this video

You can also just put sleeves on your lights to prevent any light penetrating the screen. We leave screens out for 2 or 3 min out in the light and no harm.

good video providing evidence that if I work quick, i don't need to lock myself up in my closet any more ! :P

How long do you expose it for. I have the same emulsion.

Did you do the video about the drying cabinet? Couldn’t find it on your channel..

How many minutes do you keep the coating in the codboard?

if i have a screen smaller than the emulsion coater, how would you do that?

I just make sure no source of UV light is my studio not necessary total darkness. Thank you for your video

Keep up these great videos! I noticed it looks like you have a dehumidifier in you screen drying rack, I was wondering if you would share the make and model of it? Thanks, Mike

Does this apply to all emulsion types?

Lol . como rompes las leyes de la fisica . buen video . ya no tengo q esperar hasta la noche para hacer mi grabado . gracias man

Before I have exsoping box, im using 50 watt LED light and took 18 minit with 22 inch distance to exposed. I dont see a 18-20 watt light bulb up high 8-9 feet on your ceiling can do any harm when coating my screen. So I dont think dark room is needed.

Not totally related to the video, but how can I go about printing large transparencies? I need about 13x13 inch ones but my laser printer can’t go that big.

Hello Mr. would you please tell me the mixing ratio of powder sesitizer with hot water and the amount of liquid senitizer with emulsion?

Badass

What kind of emulsion are you using? Does this apply to all emulsion? I’m a newbie trying to decide what emulsion to get? I want to eventually do work that has fine detail eventually.

Great info Mikey, I do have a question and see if you can give me your feedback, what do you think about the Roll of Postive film Rite Film premium from screenprinting.com ?

Can you change the pallete and screen on any machine...and do they have to be the same size?

With out even watching the video, I will tell you this: I have been coating with a single 60 watt bulb, since 1993. As long as the light source contains no UV you are good to go. You do not want any stray daylight, but room lights are fine for short periods. I coat 6-8 screens in about 10 minutes. Long enough exposure to room lights will 'fog' the screens so they need to be dried and stored in darkness. You easily know if your coating, drying and storing is OK, by how easily the details of your art wash out when burning and rinsing.

I coat my screens in the light and expose to light prior to exposing on my vacum unit with no problems. old timers dont want to here that tho lol.

Is a ready to use or do I have to mix something with the emulsion before coating ?

bro thanks man i just had major difficulties coating my first screens with major failure but imma try it like you tomorrow

Nice! So a couple of questions for you my ninja! Do you have fans in the cabinet? (Hurry up with the specs of that, I need that info...LOL) I noticed that was yellow mesh on a 110 screen, where did you get that? I can only find yellow mesh on 230 and higher at GSG.

Great video. How long does it take for your emulsion to dry before you can burn the screen?

So I have to coat both sides? And does the film go on the squeegee side or the print side?

How long does the screen take to dry after coating it with emulsion

Sir I want some screen photo print design tutorial.

can anybody guesstimate a good exposure time for ulano orange? using 4 florescent 30w grow lights? im kinda new to this

Bro I have a 80 w uv led flood light ,what distance from light to screen do you recommend? And time to burn the image ?

About how much time did you let your screen dry?

How long does it take for this emulsion to dry?

How much time the scree spent inside the cabinet ??

I am about to give up on screen printing since I can't expose my designs even after a month of trying .

How many minutes did u let it dry

How long can they sit in a dark cabinet before use? If you want to have some ready to go.

Can I ask about the title card? “I thought you needed a darkroom?” I really do not understand this type. Unless it’s a simple typo. Then if so, take care

Hello bro I am sanjit From India Exposing vackense for me

Using the orange emulsion, how long do you typically expose for?

how long did you burn your film for?

you only add one coat of emulsion to each side ?

how long can it set in the dark before use?

Have you used the Ulano orange with water based?

What brand of photo emulsion did you use???

I'm a graphics printer and have had a running argument with my tshirt printing friend re this topic. I've been coating in regular light for years, no problems, he swears on the darkroom necessity, lol. Oh well, thanks for this video, you are like the supreme court ruling on the presidential election.

I know how to print cartons

I love your work, but unfortunately haiti is different.