Screen Printing Frame Corner

Here's a screen printing or silk screening frame corner. It's probably already been designed, made and posted, but if so, here's another option.

This part will not make screen printing any easier but it will make screen printing cheaper. Probably the most painful part of screen printing is washing off your emulsion to reuse the frame. I know, that's my least favorite part of screen printing.

This THING is a frame corner, modeled after window screen frame corners. Yes, you will need to go to your local hardware store to get window screen frame bars. Cut the bars to size. I cut mine to 9" and 11.5" to make a frame capable of supporting 8-1.2" x 11" transparencies, plus my squeegee is 10" wide. Assembly should be straight forward - knock the corners into the frame bars to make a square frame. Then cut your silk screen fabric across and push in the cord, making sure the fabric is taught.

Printing instructions:
This part doesn't need to be pretty. However, since it will be under stress as you insert it into the frame bars, you'll want to make sure you have good layer adhesion. You might also want to increase your extrusion factor. A little extra plastic will provide a little extra friction so your frame doesn't fall apart.

Other than that, it doesn't matter what print resolution you use. These parts will get dirty and stay dirty, so nothing really matters. The point is printing these corners for $0.25 per corner (x4 corners) is better than buying these corners as a "frame kit (less the bars), for $5. You should be able to make about 3 "8-1/2x11" frames out of 2 full bars from the store. They should end up small enough as well as cheap enough to either save the artwork or just throw them away.