Laser cutting and screen printing, oh my
2021-Jun-09, Wednesday 06:40 pmTime to turn my 3D printer into a laser cutter! But what to cut? A while back I got an image from Laura Kampf's shop as a download. It's not available anymore, but can be seen here on a garment. The image has two layers. One says 'Makers love Equality', the other is a heart. I turned the two image layers into SVGs, and then put them through Luban as separate cuts. There is a guide to cutting different materials on the Snapmaker site. Following that I ordered 120gsm A4 paper (that I cut down to squares), and after experimentation settled on these settings;
material thickness: 0.2mm
2 passes
depth 0.1mm
fixed power 50%
jog speed 1500mm/m
work speed 600mm/m
Next step is using my new stencil with an old screen printing rig I acquired many years ago but never got around to using. The heart is in the background behind the text, so it gets printed first. I layered everything; fabric on the bottom, laser cut stencil, screen mesh, and on top of the mesh I used painters tape to mark off the edges of the area (to prevent paint over-spilling).
( Screen printing )
Once dry I heat set the whole lot, by pressing from the back of the fabric with an iron. The colours bled a little, the red coming through the white a bit more. I haven't washed it yet, so I've yet to see how well the print holds up. What am I going to do with this? I was thinking of cutting it out as a square and using it as a patch, but we'll see. Okay, what next?
material thickness: 0.2mm
2 passes
depth 0.1mm
fixed power 50%
jog speed 1500mm/m
work speed 600mm/m
Snapmaker laser cutting paper
Photo by ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chebe
Next step is using my new stencil with an old screen printing rig I acquired many years ago but never got around to using. The heart is in the background behind the text, so it gets printed first. I layered everything; fabric on the bottom, laser cut stencil, screen mesh, and on top of the mesh I used painters tape to mark off the edges of the area (to prevent paint over-spilling).
( Screen printing )
Screen open with fresh two-colour print
Photo by chebe
Once dry I heat set the whole lot, by pressing from the back of the fabric with an iron. The colours bled a little, the red coming through the white a bit more. I haven't washed it yet, so I've yet to see how well the print holds up. What am I going to do with this? I was thinking of cutting it out as a square and using it as a patch, but we'll see. Okay, what next?
