I believe it’s this:
but even duct tape works great.
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If you can handle the large roll, it’s less than half the price for essentially the same amount
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Been using Gorilla Tape since day one with the Pre-Release. Works on 100% of the cuts and 90% of the engrave weeding. Definitely a time saver.
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Does that mean you could make a silkscreen pattern on a glowforge? I assumed the holes would be too large…
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And Amazon is half the price of Home Depot. I switched to GT a few years back. The silver Duck or duct tape is way less consistent and I always seem to get sticky residue.
Never done silk screening before. No clue.
What a great idea! No more light sensitive emulsion or blocking goop mess. Just blast away tiny holes where you want to print. I hope the idea pans out!
I wonder what the best material would be. Mylar? Something thicker?
I was pondering silkscreening with lasers months ago, but was off on the wrong track…
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Why not silk? Easy enough to get 100% silk, and it can be burned safely so I’d assume it is laser safe… you might have a little beading, but the cuts are so small it might not be an issue…
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Wouldn’t you have to treat the silk with something so the ink doesn’t go through where there aren’t holes?
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Some people make stencils out of acetate, vinyl, or even freezer paper that they apply to silkscreens and screen print that way. I don’t know how well they hold up over time, but if cleaning off the screen is as easy as just peeling off a plastic sticker, essentially, it probably doesn’t matter all that much – you could put a fresh stencil on the screen super fast. I’ve only seen the stencil technique with blocky graphic designs, not that halftone effect, but that’s probably more to do with needing to handcut the design rather than an inherent limitation.
I wonder if we could print our own screentone sheets and cut them perfectly and easily to fit artwork. I have laser printer printable vellum and transparency film. Would either of those be laser laserable? The vellum says it’s acid free, lignin free, and chlorine free, but the film only says acid free.
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You bring up good points. Blasting tiny holes to imitate the openings in silk may prove unrealistic, and we may end up with more of a halftone effect. I had forgotten that the silk threads are so thin that they don’t show up when the ink oozes around them by the squeegee action.
But if the final effect is to be more photographic (or continuous tone), rather than the blocky shapes of hand-cut silkscreening, then the laser hole idea might be perfect.
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Note to self: check your assumptions.
You’re right - the chemical treatment is to fill holes where you don’t want them so elsewhere ink gets through the silk, as I now understand it.
So yeah, would need to use a different material. In some way…
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I wonder if something like this would work as the resist? It is polyurethane based and I believe is laser cuttable, plus it is self adhesive.
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Although they call it “vinyl” in the product title, which scared me, I see they also describe its composition as polyurethane.
So you’re thinking of adhering it to silk? Is that so you can have open areas for solid blocks of color?
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Yes, that’s what I was thinking!
That stuff might work as a semi-permanent screen if you heat-pressed it to the screen. I think I have a spare screen that I am willing to try it on. The adhesive is just for positioning before heat-pressing, it is not strong enough to handle being squeegee’d by itself.
I have used laminated printer paper, cut as a stencil, to make temporary screens in the past.stuck onto the screen with spray adhesive it works OK. Not great, and plenty of opportunity for ink to get under edges and bleed out.
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Am I having a case of deja vu or did we have this conversation about silk screening about a year ago?
It wasn’t quite this conversation, but there is totally a silkscreening thread:
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Also for the Gorilla tape - keep an eye out when going to Michaels or Hobby lobby with the 40% off coupon (I think I picked up a roll at Harbor freight with a coupon as well). It really works ! 
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