Icarus Ink Begins!

Well, the T-shirt venture is turning out to be a success, Icarus Ink Screenprinting is up and running. I successfully made my first screen and used it to print some shirts. It turns out that there is some skill and technique involved in making the screen. You have to apply this paste to the screen and expose it to a special kind of light. Of course, being my first screen, I made a damn mess of it! I hadn't figured out how exactly to apply it. I had watched some videos and it most definitely didn't go down like it did in the video. I tried to clean it up and expose the screen, I thought I had the design good to go, but when I went to rinse off the excess paste, the whole design just started to melt and peel away. AHHHHHHH!!!
The second time it went a lot smoother, I had learned from my mistakes and everything went nice and smooth, Below is a picture of the second screen, I am not even going to show you the first one, I am going to just pretend it didn't happen! ha ha

I printed a few shirts so that I could experiment with the next step, and that is screening and curing the paint. This went a lot smoother than the previous process, but I still had a hard time getting the placement just right. It turns out that you need a press to line everything up just right, and I thought that I could make do without it. My brother Jake is joining this venture with me and becoming part of Icarus Ink, and so he chipped in and sprung for a single station printing press. I mounted it in the garage this weekend and we are ready for some serious production.

I even got a text from a friend of mine that read "Word on the street is that you now have the capability of making T-shirts, give me a quote on some"

So now it begins, Icarus Ink! Soon I will need to add screenprinter to the list at the top of my blog!