ADDING FOIL TO YOUR DESIGNS

Foil is a great addition to your designs.  I have been working on a foil design the last few days.  Actually, I have done this design  once with foil and it turned out great.  I made the mistake of not keeping notes on how long I exposed the screen.  Not good!!  :)  When you are setting up for a job it is a great idea to keep notes on exposure time, how many layers of emulsion you use, where you expose the design on the screen, etc. 

I found the actual foil process to be very easy.  Getting the screen prepped is the tricky part.  Here is what you need to do foil....60 mesh screen, emulsion, foil adhesive, foil and a heat press.  Foil adhesive has granules in it so you need a screen with bigger holes.  That is where the 60 mesh screen comes into play.  Now, a 60 mesh screen means you have 60 holes per inch, compared to a 110 mesh screen which has 110 holes per inch..  Because the holes are bigger, you need to use more emulsion.  You also need to do more then a 1 x 1 coating so you can lay down a thick enough layer of foil adhesive.

My exposure unit is the Ryonet RXP Exposure unit.  The recommended exposure time for a 60 mesh screen with a 1 x 1 coating is 5 minutes.  I decided to do a 1 x 3 coating  using the thick side of the scoop coater.  I called Ryonet and they said to add 30 seconds to the exposure time for each extra layer of emulsion.  That brought my exposure time up to 6 minutes.  I decided to expose the screen for 6 minutes 20 seconds just to be on the safe side. 

Even the extra 20 seconds was not enough to properly expose the screen.  When I went to wash out the screen, the emulsion on the ink side of the screen washed out.  My image washed out fine but then I blew out the image.  Time to start over.  This time I decided to do a 2 x 2 coating using the thin side of the scoop coater first and the thick side of the scoop coater for the second coat.  I have not decided on the exposure time yet but it will probably be in the 6 minute range.  I am out of emulsion until my order arrives on Tuesday so I hope my screen exposes properly.  It is a piece of cake once I get the screen exposed and washed out.

Once I get the screen ready I will post on the rest of the foil process.

Jeanette