Screenprinting My Own Skateboard Decks! 

Really interesting. Back in the 1990s, World Industries was known for re-screening unsold boards with new graphics. So a kid would buy a "new" board, start to skate it, and the paint would wear off showing last season's graphic underneath. (lmao)

you can just tell this guy works hard. what a goat

That anime girl world peace deck was sick

This is a tip from an ex-screenprinter of 10+ years! To avoid smudging and bleed through on thinner inks, before you look at additives, look at screen tension, mesh count, and squeegee speed/pressure/ and be sure your only pulling the edge of the rubber, not the flat! And you also don't have to flood with thin inks! Giv it a try and look into a 230-300 micron screen😊 I'm sure you'll see better results, but all in all I'm super impressed with your setup and results!!!

Wow as a screenprinter / Skater Im so impressed with your setup, These look Awesome!

A big reason that the ink is smearing out is the mesh count you’re using. On nonporous surfaces you want to use very high mesh count so that only a very small deposit of ink is going through the mesh so you don’t have to worry about it oozing past your stencil when you print. Especially with the curve of the board and the pressure you’re putting on the squeegee it’s forcing a ton of ink through the mesh, and it’s got no where to go but spread out.

I always love when creators like you make videos and leave in all the learning stuff. You know like the bleed over and the bending of the plastic to cover the concave. I just think it's more authentic this way and makes me want to come back and watch more. Great job

wow that's one hell of an art project thanks for sharing

I’m a screen printer and it is really cool seeing your at home set up, it’s really cool. 🤘 right on, count me in for more episodes to come. 💖

When you coat your screens coat the side that faces the skateboard first, then the ink side. Then dry them with the ink side UP. This helps the emulsion be slightly thicker on the underside of the screen creating a gasket for the ink to sit in and transfer to the substrate. Once dried tape your positive to the skateboard side to expose. Using a softer squeegee and not bringing the handle down so far as you stroke across the image will push less ink through the screen and should help with the bleeding. The cut squeegee trick sounds good and I'll be trying that soon. Nice work. Keep it up!

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Loving this glimpse behind the artistic curtain :)

Man, I keep coming back to this video. I just pressed my own skateboards and will be getting into screen printing for them. This video shows the limited amount of space you actually need to get things done.

Very good Video ☺️👍 Fun to watch 👍Very cool skateboards 😎

Its Awesome! Goodjob

These are awesome. I especially like the hair being the color of the deck.

Love it, everything is on the cheap. Get me a $5 printer, great deal. Thanks for sharing

I've experimented with having a slightly loose screen so they fit the concave of the board - it actually worked pretty well

Dude the world peace deck❤

This was so inspiring to watch.. thank you for sharing.

Cool work. Now I just want to go flow through my neighborhood. Thanks for bringing the love back.

A great video, this goes to show that with a modest investment in equipment and a small space you can achieve quality results.

I found most of the screen printing process to be so frustrating, but you make it so relaxing that i wanna do it more again.

So dope you came across my recommended page! Now I follow you here and Tik tok

One trick that can help you to avoid ink leaking is make one very light pass with the squeegee, not printing just to cover the screen with a thin layer of ink, then in the second pass you can press enough to print. Thanks for sharing, nice work out there.

Dude i love this. I really hope you restock because im looking for a new board soon, and id love to have one of these even if its just a wall piece

So nice!!

mad props!

Beautiful work !

Thanks for the greatly detailed description.

This was awesome to watch. I screenprinted professionally for close to ten years, and though your setup isn't optimal, it works, and that's all that matters. A few things to make life easier for you with future projects. Use Illustrator instead of photoshop. Illustrator is vector based. You'll have to re-draw the graphics, but you'll be able to re-size them without getting saw-toothed edges from the raster images. pick up a few different squeegee durometers too. The softer they are, the more ink is allowed to be deposited. Also see if you can rig something that will allow you to change the peel of the screens. Changing the peel means you're changing the angle of the screen to bring the screen either closer, or further away from the printbed. EDIT: Buy a longer squeegee, and print from the side so you're not fighting with the convex shape. Printing from the side of your graphic would essentially be like printing from the clamped side, which is where your peel is. This would allow you to provide even pressure, and would allow the screen to follow the curve so it's not fighting it. Thank you for the nostalgia trip. I used to LOVE printing, and it was truly the only work I did where I felt like I fit in.

came here from arne hoppenworth, very nice printing!

When he gifts them to friends, they are doing absolutely zero board slides until he skates away..........cool video!

These are some goooood looking graphics, amazing!!!!! Love it!

Those are so rad! I want to get into screen printing, I always felt like I didn't have enough space to do it, your setup showed me that I can do it!

Great work. Makes me wanna try it myself.

So cool man!

Nice!!!

proud of you. this is a goal that a lot of us aging skaters probably have but never achieve so, good for you. the graphics look really clean, you did a fantastic job.

Im a Graphic Designer and I am actually such in love with your work, this is stunning buddy! Keep up this good work ❤️

soooo hard, i’d honestly pay for these

I love your simple set up compared to my huge heavy 5 arm press! I Subscribed! And those came out nice!

Super chill and informative!! Really want to do! Next paycheck maybe haha 🤟🏽

Thank the algorithm that I saw this. Love your stuff man!!

Amazing work bro! Those look sick. Hopefully you do more its so damn interesting.

I have even more respect for Jeremy Klein at Jk industries for hand screening all his reissue world industries and Hook-ups boards. Great video thanks for sharing

As a skater and a graphic designer I loved this. I want to break into the world of graphic design in skating and you just went for it, respect my man. I love the bubblegum anime graphic you made, I know you're probably keeping them for yourself and your friends but if you decide to sell some I'd def be interested in one. And who knows, maybe this will help me take the first true step in doing my own skateboard design. If you have any tips/advice, even about just going for the thing, I'd love to hear more. And hey, what you're doing is fascinating and pretty dope, don't be afraid to show some enthusiasm in your voice :)

ive had the same problem with the bleeding. I've figured out buying a squeegee with no handle just the rubber part is soo much more easy to get it to contour with the shape of the board

Question about that emulsion, is it safe for drains without filtration? You may want to consider filtering your reclaim water as that emulsion can and will re-harden in your drain. After time it will build up and cause you some plumbing issues. Not to mention its just better for the environment to filter that stuff out. Anyway, this video was great and its pretty impressive how well your prints come out. I would suggest using less of a squeegee angle. That will help lay down less ink, in turn less bleeding. Other things that may help reduce the bleeding are a harder squeegee blade. The harder the rubber the less ink will push through the stencil. A higher mesh screen would also help. Finally a curved squeegee is ideal for the convex bottom of a skate deck. Search online, but you will find that most direct to deck printers cut their wooden squeegees so they bend with the blade. Or you can find squeegee handles that are curved specifically for the purpose of deck printing. Nice video though! Good stuff.

thank you so much man!

if you're printing with no off-contact that's why it's getting splotchy and bleeding, because wood isn't very porous like fabric or paper is so you'll need to add some kind of stop piece either to the board under the right side of the frame, or you could also try taping a quarter or two to the top and bottom of the frame where they make contact with the board and that will help raise it up enough that you shouldn't have an issue anymore. i used to print for a company that makes wooden kid's toys, and also ran the textile printing department at a bigger place so i've come across most issues with printing on a lot of different substrates with a lot of different kinds of inks. your boards look great!

Wow. Dedication

That’s dope af

Amazing video

glad to watch this, soon i'm gonna try to screen print my own 🙌

You actually realise my own dream

this was an amazing and very descriptive video! i definitely wanna attempt this project as well in the future🤝

Nice video, man. Loved the process.

Dude this is sick! Great work and thanks for all the info.

Really fun to watch your process and great job with the finished boards! I wish this had shown up in my feed closer to when it was posted so I could get one of these. Do you think you'll make more for sale at any point?

great video. this video is my introduction to your channel. i love it. it's very inspiring to see you do this. I've been screen printing for a tiny bit but put it down since I turned my attention to work on other art projects, but this makes me really want to bring those things out again and start printing and I believe I will. i'm at a time in my life where I need to focus on myself due to some personal reasons and I believe this will help me clear my mind while also learning new skills. thanks for the inspiration. +1 sub too

110, and 155/160 mesh are good for printing thick plastisol inks on dark tees/fabrics, for water base inks stick to 200 and above mesh.

Really nice job I've been thinking of printing on some boards for a while now, but I wasn't sure if the process was somewhat the same. Your vid really cleared it up for me

Dude! that was amazing! I want one :)

I came from your tik tok this is cool!

Love how your boards came out man. You ever plan on doing any 9inch decks in the future?

love the world peace ones, here from tik tok

It's super easy to use HTV on the screen so you don't need emulsion.

10:34 You can thicken inks and dyes with sodium alginate powder. A little goes a long way. 🙂

So as someone who's been screen printing for a decade plus, I always cringe a bit when I see people make their own screens because the tension will never be the same to factory-made aluminum ones, but it never occurred to me that handmade screens may be the way to go when printing something like skateboard as the mesh can bend to the concave of the board. Good stuff! (also, I know or have seen people who slice their squeegee down the middle of the wood part so it's still holding the rubber squeegee but it bends as it should.. if that makes sense).

What lamps did you use to burn the screen and how far away were they and also how long did you leave them to burn ????

Great work man

Love this!

What site did you get the blank skateboards

Thank you bro…. Really inspired me💯🙏🏽✝️

Bubblegum Crisis was the first anime I ever saw.

very nice

hi, any tips for aligning the pic over pic?

I like your video! I had a problem with bleeding underneath as well. I solved it with an ink called Permaset.

whoah imma do this by myself

having a skateboard with your own design, damn thats so cool!

these all came out so sick! big respect! always wanted to try this on decks

Sick

Im glad I can across this video cause the fact that you do all of this in your apartment makes me feel like I can too.

the green world peace is so sick bro

That's is fucken good 👍 👏

Dude, This is Bad Ass! New Sub Here!

Hey man I’ve been wanting to make my own graphics on some decks but idk where i can find some quality decks for a good price.. do you think you can help me out or anyone on here ??

I don't even skateboard, but I want one

This was great. I enjoyed the process. I took a class in highschool in the 90s so I have a bit of old experience. I am interested in screen printing some boards.i am not a fan of heat pressed skate graphics and hope to see more screen printed graphics come back. I would willingly pay more for them.

Love it what ink you use plastisol ink for print Tshirt ✌️🔥🔥🔥

What size is your transparency film plz let me know

I dig the content! I'm also another skate channel that makes custom boards so this was pretty rad to see! Where did you end up getting your decks from I like the quality from whoever the manufacturer is

damn i want one of those world peace decks in 7.75 please

That was awesome, how did the ink dry? Just air dry?

great vid man thank you so much where can i get those hinges?

ohh hell yea

I liked too much this video, i will try out some day. if you read this, please make more videos like this

This is so intricate. I'm so in love with this whole process.

That was geeat. Very much enjoyed you sharing your experience and knowledge. The finished products were awesome.