Silk screening glass?

[Ghoste]

Has anyone here done this?  Believe it or not this is an automotive related question.

[areibel]

I asked a friend who does silk screening, he said the process would work but he didn't know what kind of paint would stick long term.  He said if you could blast or etch the glass first you might have a chance, but paint directly on glass he didn't think it would survive the first wash..

[Ghoste]

It wouldn't get washed, it would be on the inside surface of an old clockface gas pump from the 30's I'm restoring.

[areibel]

Sorry, my bad!  I assumed you meant on the glass on the car.  I'll check with him again and see if he can offer any advice.

[Ghoste]

Well I was pretty vague so it's my bad too.

[stripedelete]

I have no answer, but, they seem do it on drinking glasses.  The Promotional Products industry ( tee-shirts, pens, mugs, rubber dogshit) is another one of those businesses that hide in plain sight.  You probably already know someone in the industry.   Give them a call.  There's probably an operation silk screening glass around the corner from you.

Maybe they could do it, or tell you how.   

[Brock Lee]

Screening multiple colors direct is rarely ever done. Especially back then. Registration of the various layers is tough to do with a thick item. Almost always they made what became known as "waterslide trasnfers". They would screen a clear lacquer layer on duplex paper, then screen the design on top. In water it would release and they would slide it in place using a gum adhesive added to the water.

You have a lot of options with todays technology. If you already planned on creating silkscreens, you can buy some decal paper and screen up an old style waterslide transfer.

Or you can have a waterslide decal printed on the latest decal papers made to work in printers (get someone who uses dye sublimation as inks fade).

There are places that make them for use on glass and ceramic that you bake on. However, I don't know of any that do one offs. Typically they want to sell a few hundred to justify the cost of making screens and setting up to make your design. Those places are slowly disappearing as so many people are using the printer papers and the manufacturers are buying that stuff from China.

Another option is create the art in Photoshop, each color with its own layer, save the art as a EPS file, then have a sign shop cut a negative of each layer in a paint mask. Then you can hand paint each color with a nice lettering enamel paint, which will hold up even on glass in the most extreme circumstances. Being painted from the back will make the colors look solid and stroke free from the front.

[Ghoste]

Thanks guys, Brock those are cheap solutions I hadn't thought of especially combined with stripedelete's suggestion of someone I already know and have overlooked.