Oil

• August 20th, 2006 • • experiments, jobs, screen printing •

*whew!*

Freelancing wasn’t paying enough of the bills, so I took on a regular 9-5 job. My time is now being squeezed like a lemon, resulting in super-concentrated evenings and weekends of doing. As one of my new coworkers put it, “What do you…NOT do?” I honestly didn’t have an answer for her.

Last night, however DID bring on a pleasant surprise. You may recall (or view for the first time) my experiments in removing old photo emulsion from a screen. Again, I had trouble getting a few spots and haze out. Anger mounting, I gave up on the acetone. While it immediately eats out the emulsion, the unpredictability of the liquid makes it hard to control. If one could have a wash-out hose filled with acetone, it would be perfect. (Well, except for the horrible smell and ghastly amounts of acetone.)

Out of sheer frustration, I thought, Aw hell. You can use acetone for toner transfers, why not wintergreen oil? They seem to weaken the same things… Thus, a speedy application of wintergreen oil made its way onto the screen. Amounts of green photo emulsion came off of areas I thought were clean! To break up the oil, I poured some Dawn liquid soap and scrub scrubbed with a toothbrush. After a quick wash-out and dry, it was perfect. Perfectly clean! Nothing! Absolutely AMAZING.

Now my only problem is actually FINDING some more wintergreen oil. I have a small bottle (with precious few drops left) purchased from a now defunct drugstore chain. Going to national chains yielded NO results; I even asked the pharmacists if they had any on hand, only to be given a blank look and a “Winter-what oil?” Looking online is even more difficult as results are crowded with aromatherapy and foodstuff results. Point of fact, the aromatherapy and “natural” joints will try to sell you PURE wintergreen oil, not the synthetic stuff. Obviously, 100% natural/homegrown oil is going to be more expensive than the man-made junk. The bottle I have was 2oz of synthetic purchased for $2.75 back in 2001 (as opposed to the fifty-five dollar half-ounce bottle of pure!!). An acquaintance of mine who does all kinds of sciencey stuff at Berkley gave me a link to a site that will sell me five gallons at once for the low low price of $165!! Yeesh! I should buy the damn stuff and sell it on my own online shop; I’ll be rich, rich I tells ya!

Ah well. This may bring on the need for finding a “wintergreen” substitute.

3 Responses to ' Oil '

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1. Anonymous said,
   
   

   on September 13th, 2007 at 11:03 am

   Well that’s all well and good but how do i get this dried, caked-up ink off of my screen without damaging it? does bleach work?

2. Olivia said,
   
   

   on September 13th, 2007 at 11:15 am

   Depends on what kind of ink you used. (Bleach isn’t a solvent for oil-based or acrylic inks.)

   If it’s oil-based, you MIGHT have a chance with something like Pink Soap (Available at any art store, has a picture of the Mona Lisa on the bottle.)

   If it’s acrylic, you’re outta luck.

   Depending on how much ink (no matter what kind) it may be less trouble to put a new screen onto the frame than clean it.

3. Chris said,
   
   

   on October 2nd, 2007 at 1:26 am

   I just found your site after relentlessly applying emulsion remover and screen cleaner in efforts to clean my screens of hardened photo emulsion. I’ve just started screen printing and I absolutely love it, but I’ve killed a few screens now with emulsion, and I can’t figure out what I’m doing wrong.

   Now, is the Oil of Wintergreen that you used here the same as Wintergreen Essential Oil? Because that seems to be cheap and readily available in lots of places. I’m assuming it’s not though. Hrmmm.

   I like your site, by the way, and if you can help me save these screens, I’ll REALLY like YOU!

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