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Gocco Fabric Screen Issues
On 18, Oct 2008 | No Comments | In Design Life | By Lorraine
So I was hoping that my first post about this would be a success story, but alas! I ran into problems with my first screen. A couple of months ago, I bought a used Gocco B6 off of eBay since they have discontinued them. This weekend was my first chance to finally use it, and while it may have been a bit too ambitious, I decided that a t-shirt for my sister and I to wear to a concert later this week would be a good first project. Once I have them printed, I’ll post about it, but first want to ask if anyone has any advice.
Using the PG-702 fabric screens, I flashed my image in sections like you’re supposed to. The first flash turned out great:
The second flash is just slightly visible, and obviously hasn’t burned all the way through:
I’m thinking this may have been because I had to tape my image together in sections:
So what do I do now? Can I just realign the screen with my master art and re-flash that section? Or do I have to trash the screen and start all over? Any thoughts?
UPDATE: After Violet’s comment, I just went and took a closer look at the screen. It appears that the first flash Does have some carbon on it. So I’ll have to research how to get that off the screen…I know I was just reading about that somewhere… However, I’m still not sure everything burned through on the second flash, so I’ll try to do a small test section to see how it prints before trying to re-flash anything. Don’t want to waste those bulbs!
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Screens are reflashable.
I’ve had screens that flashed just fine but when you held them up to the light, it didn’t look like it flashed. Did the bulbs flash?
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Well, the bulbs flashed, so it looked like it worked, but since this is my first attempt at gocco, I have no reference. The paper wasn’t stuck to the screen though in those spots like it was on the top…
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The black that you see on the screen on the top half is most likely just carbon that stuck to your burned screen. It is possible that the second half is burned, the carbon just didn’t stick to it.
However, it is possible that it didn’t burn as well. You can reflash it – you just might end up with a shadowed image if it isn’t lined up perfectly.
If you are going to junk this screen, you could try it first to see if it is burned. Just ink a small portion of the very light part and see if it pushes through.
Good luck!
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Thanks, Violet! I’m not sure that it’s black on top so much as me holding it up to the ceiling to photograph it: I’ll check for excess carbon before I print. If I test the screen with ink, can I reflash it if needed once cleaned?
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I have had it happen where one bulb went off and the other didn’t. So one half of the screen was exposed and the other – a bit ambiguous looking – looked like it didn’t work. I replaced the dud bulb – kept the artwork aligned as before and on reflashing the screen all went fine.
If you are not sure what you are looking for to see if the screen will work or not, hold the mesh up to a window and see if you can see light through the holes where the burnt image is. If that doesn’t convince you, ink it up and see what it prints like. I would say you can flash it again – as long as there is no residue of ink or stuff on it.
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Gotta ask, what is the concert you are going to – the top half of your image looks like a guy in glasses. e
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Thanks, Elaine: I’ll be posting the story behind the design once I get it to print (or talk about my failure..ack), but just to give a little hint the concert is Ben Folds.
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