Classes

[Rob Schramm]

Does anyone teach? I am going to keep asking until someone say where to take a class. I want to learn how to screen print on glass. Sarah King is a friend of mine and she agreed to show me how to glue chip next week but I really want to learn as much as I can to take my business to new heights. If you teach or know of classes taught somewhere let me know, please!

[DAVE SMITH]

Rob I teach but you need to come to England for my workshops. I am having a class here in April and then some more to follow in the year. You also have Noel Weber's and John Studdens glass classes in Boise.which would be a little closer for you.
but your more than welcome.........
Dave

[Rob Schramm]

Wow Dave, I would love to take a class from you. I was just talking to Sarah King today and you were part of the topic. Sarah told me today about Noel and I think that I am going to have to call him. Thanks and wish I could afford to come to the UK for classes.

[Mike Jackson]

Rob,
I think you told me you already know how to make screens? Already know the basics of screen printing? You can probably just ask a few specific questions here on this forum and get all the rest of the information you need. Even if you were to take one of John and Noel's classes, the screen printing steps are just a quick step in the process of them completing a finished gold leaf piece. I don't think they dwell on the subject unless someone is specifically asking. They usually have the artwork already done, screen made and jigs set up to print the pieces for the students.

I checked Etchmasters' site just now. Bill Hueg used to teach a summer class on glass/gold work. I don't see him scheduled yet for this year.

Good luck,
Mike Jackson

[Rob Schramm]

Mike,

I know the basics of silkscreening in general but do not know how to silkscreen on glass. There are companies out there that will make me the screens as long as I supply the art. My thing is production, I have some designs that I use a lot, right now I cut them out of vinyl and then I take the vinyl and apply it to the glass and paint through the vinyl and then have to wait 24 hour after the final coat before I can pull the vinyl and then silver the glass for a mirror. With silkscreening I would be able to clean the glass, lay it out on a table and then run the screen ink over the glass and then flash dry it silver it and back it if I am not mistaken, taking almost 2 days out of the picture. WOW that would be great.

[Mike Jackson]

Rob,
The issue here, doing it with the steps you describe, is to find an ink that can stand serious scrubbing and emmersing in water. I can't remember the exact thread, but a couple of people were talking about it only a week or so ago. I believe someone was wanting to do both gold and silver solution gilds on the same image. Screen printing on glass is not much different than screen printing on metal or other hard, flat surfaces. So, really you just need the technical specs on the inks and screen mesh.

You are only a few miles from Sarah King. I am sure that by now, they have some of the technical issues worked out on the inks. Personally speaking, we never had much luck trying to do two separate solution gilds. The second gild loosened the paint and we had a mess. Half the battle with solution gilds is getting an absolutely spotless, clean surface prior to the chemicals going down. Any previously printed layers have to be stubborn and tough, allowing for quite rough cleaning. And, the under layers of ink can't repel water or new layers of chemicals. For example, one of the last treatments on a silvered glass is to remove the excess silver with the silver strip solution. That's nasty stuff, and it has to be 100% removed before you'd have a "chance" to do an angel gild layer.

I think Larry and Dave will tell you that preplanning the complicated projects are terribly important. You simply have to know how to do each step, including all the limitations and liabilities, before going to the next one. Ultimately, you have to experiment with all the steps quite a bit, maybe on simple projects, before getting a handle on them and how they relate to the potential next steps. Taking a class might help on some of this, but I'd be slightly skeptical that you'd get concentrated training on that very topic.

I haven't done any of this in quite a while, so maybe there have been advances in some of the products that will help solve the problems.

[Roderick Treece]

Rob,
If you are just interested in screen printing you might want to come to My studio.You can have a private one on one work shop.I also posted on the Faux Forum a workshop I am having Aug 28 29 30 . There will be screen printing in that work shop.
If your cutting your designs alot you might want to think about investing in a computer plotter/cutter.

What you are trying to achive is doable BUT you will still have to wait a day to let the ink dry a day and then depending on your art work it may or may not stand up to the cleaning process. Normaly I try to keep art work within a border and lots of round corners on everything.

Sounds like your going about it backwards.
"I have some designs that I use a lot, right now I cut them out of vinyl and then I take the vinyl and apply it to the glass and paint through the vinyl and then have to wait 24 hour after the final coat before I can pull the vinyl and then silver the glass for a mirror."

Normally I mask,silver,pull some part of the mask,backpaint,pull the rest of the mask and finish painting.

If you planning on doing antique mirroring which I know you are you not ave to clean the glass as much.

You are always welcome to call and discuss anything your working on.

760 943 9299

Good luck

Roderick

[Rob Schramm]

Rodrick,

I own 2 plotter/cutters and I cut daily, I also do a lot of mirrors using a A-B-C technique being:

A- Clean glass and lay vinyl
B- Paint in background let dry and pull vinyl
C-Silver, antique and back

My issue isnt how to do it as I have done 100's of mirrors my issue is the day and 1/2 of wait time and then the pulling of the vinyl. If I silk screen I use no vinyl and I can flash dry it with a unit that costs $1200 and according to the company they said that the ink once flash dried can handle the abuse and it can handle being under fluids for the amount of time it takes to do the silvering or angel gilding. What I do not know is how to silk screen on glass, do I need a machine that holds the screen? I know the ink for glass but have never run a silkscreen unit so I am confused. I am definatly not afraid to spend money if I can see the profit potential even if it takes 2 years to see a return. I would rather have screens made for me and run 5-10 of the same mirror and then still have the screen then to do it any other way. Here is the process that I do right now. Sorry about the fingerprints on the glass but that happens as I am always moving stuff.
This is Mike Jacksons art and both of these are ready for silvering.

Rob

[Rob Schramm]

By the way thanks to everyone that responded and Roderick I will definatly take you up on it. Be forwarned my brain is like a sponge and needs to stay wet all the time as soon as it starts drying out I have to find something new to wet it.

Mike,
I give more info on backing to Sarah then she does to me. She is a great source of info when things go wrong with the product though and she is going to show me how to glue chip this week though. Very excited about that. I have viewed a number of cabinets for drying and think I have come up with a great idea but I need to know what temp the inside of the cabinet needs to get to and at what level of humidity. I want to build it with pull out shelving and was wondering if I should build the pull out shelves out of teak or what wood is best.

[Mike Jackson]

Rob,
Just a few more comments from me and I'll shut up!

Waiting a day for something to cure might not be such a bad thing. If using that paint, and if advised by the manufacturer to wait, then I'd just figure it takes a couple of days.

Second, if all you are doing on these projects is silvering in the open areas of black, and if you can make a silk screen, you are working too hard! Just silver the glass pieces (first), set up the screen jigs, and screen all of them at the same time. Mirror back up dries overnight. Then clean off the excess silver and paint any color you want behind the silver mirror.

Looking at the photos of the two pieces, my initial concerns would be worrying about any left over glue residue on the glass, and worrying about getting it ready and clean for the silvering process. If you have done this already and it works, then disregard my concerns.

Most of the people I know (in the sign trade) use VERY simple equipment to do the screen printing. Most of the initial expense is the steps needed to make the actual screen. (film positives, exposure unit, and screen washout booth). A pair of screen hinges are only $40 or less, and a squeegee to fit your screen sizes are $50 or so. Past that, you only really need ink, thinners, and lots of paper towels, and newspapers to clean up the mess. For vertical screen printing, you don't even need a set of hinges.

I am sure you can do a Google search for basic screen printing techniques and equipment. I have a feeling you are visualizing some of the high end presses, but it doesn't take that for most projects.

[Roderick Treece]

Rob,
If your going to use a mask go ahead and silver over the mask first, then pull out what you want and paint. That way there is know waiting time. I pull my mask within an hour of backing up.

As for screening, Mikes right you don't need anything fancey for one color.If your doing some type of production I don't think there is anything wrong with waiting a day for things to cure.

I am looking into multicolor runs right now. For me though the key is I want to stay within the small custom collector market. I have no intention of doing large runs. There are companies I work with that can do 200 to 1000s of pieces for 25.00 each. Let them have it.

By the way I think the Rawson and Evans art work came from Gary Godby if I remember correctly.

Roderick

[Danny Baronian]

Mike digitized United Cigar as sample files that were included in Composer software which included a vectored file and colorized version for edge printing when the edge was introduced.

That and a few others are located on the Letterhead Site:

http://www.theletterheads.com/lhparts/r ... loads.html

[Rob Schramm]

Danny,

Thanks a million, I love this kinda stuff. I bought 2 of Mikes designs the Main St Collection and the Americana and I plan on buy the other 2 this week as long as these people pay me as I just finished a sizable sign job. Mike's collections are great I have come up with all sorts of ideas based on his designs. I see that there were others involved and you all need to be commended for fantastic work!

[Mike Jackson]

Hi Roderick,
Gary has several of the free images on TheLetterheads.com, but the United Cigar is one I digitized a long time ago. I gave the image to quite a few people, including Rick who used it off and on.

That design has a bit of a story. At one of the early conclaves, Rick had some glass cut to size and some photocopies printed up. People would spray glue the photocopies onto the masking, then people had to hand cut the mask. Darla and I did one for ourself. When I took my piece back to the sandblast booth to frost it, Butch Anton was still sandblasting at the booth. He said he'd be a while, but he'd frost mine for me when finished. Well, I let him. Well, he broke it! I couldn't stand the thought of hand cutting another one, so I took a copy of the photocopy home with me and I hand digitized it at home. The bulk of the design is symmetrical left and right and top and bottom, so I only had to digitize one quarter of it, plus the extra ornaments and text. Since then, lots of people have access to the image and have created all kinds of United Cigars signs in all kinds of sizes. I also did a sample image for Gerber Scientific with my Edge and they included the design on one of their software releases.

Mike