Monday, October 4, 2010

Silk Screens To Be Burned

I had a great phone call with my new best friends over at http://www.westarsolutions.com/index.html, who are going to hook me up with some screens and supplies so that I can get the fabric done right for the body suit and trunks.

The thought process on how to best do the fabric has been a back and forth thing for me. I remember almost two years ago when I was still living in california, visiting a local screen printer to inquire about bolt printing. That was sort of when it all started. At that time, I was content to use my Bronze Armory body suit. Don't get me wrong, it is VERY nice, but as I grew more and more obsessed with the details of the screen used suits, and wanted to get closer and closer to that, I realized some of the shortcomings of that suit.

I have had a lot of conversations with various folks about dye-sub printing the fabric, but the cost was a little prohibitive. I think my best price was about 70 bucks a yard. If I knew EXACTLY what I was doing with the sewing machine, I would consider going that route. But I fear that I could very well screw it up the first couple of tries, and I'm not looking to spend 300 bucks on an error.

I'm not 100% convinced I can pull it off, but my current plan is to screen print the stuff myself. The cost isn't even that bad. For all the screens I need, to have them burned and delivered to my door should be less than the cost of a few yards of the dye sub fabric. If I own the screens, I can crank out as much fabric as I need to. This is also really great, as it means I have the option of offering screen accurate fabric to fellow enthusiasts should they be interested.

ANYHOW, the punchline here is that the folks at Westar were really helpful, and talked me through all of my options, and told me about all the different products that will meet my needs. I ordered a bunch of stuff, but only the screen for the briefs. I am going to start small and make sure I can pull it off before I commit to getting the two other screens I will need to be able to do the entire body suit.

I'm actually really sort of excited about it, and look forward to seeing what I can do.

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