Yudu… and now I Du Tu.

by Sister-Diane on May 22, 2009

I’ve been crafting up a storm over here in preparation for Maker Faire! (I’ll have more details next week on that, too.)

One of my projects was to learn the wonders of the Yudu, that personal screen printing machine you’ve seen on other blogs lately. This was my first foray into screen printing. Hoo-boy, that’s addictive, isn’t it?

K. and I designed this tiki logo together about 100 years ago. He’s rather a genius in Photoshop (and its poor cousin, GIMP), and was able to separate the two-color design into separate layers, so we could burn the two screens.

Holding them up to a sunny window, we could see that the two parts would be well-aligned when they printed out. So next, we printed them on transparencies.

(Red stuff on the right, black stuff on the left.)

One of the cooler things about the Yudu is that it burns your screens for you. All we had to do was use a little tape to mark the corners of the transparency, so that we could place the other transparency in the exact same location later.

…All of which made a two-color print really easy. And we’ve been printing these tikis on everything that isn’t nailed down around here.

I’ll be blogging more about the Yudu after Maker Faire. What, specifically, would you like to know about it? Leave a comment here, and I’ll answer all your questions when I get back.

Fanie

I guess most of us all agree on the "expense and storage" part! :-D

I would also like to know the difference between a Gocco and a Yudu, if this is possible for you.

That Tiki logo you and K. made is awesome, by the way! ^-^!!

Mia

Yudu 'machine' is a box with a light and fan in it. You can print transparencies and use photo emulsion without it. I don't know how much supplies cost otherwise, but it seems like too much to pay for a t-shirt form and a light bulb.

Sinje

Oh Diane, I LOOOOOVED this screenprinter ever since I saw it! The tikis are really cool. I guess all my questions have already been asked, but I just had to let out my excitement :)

Taueret

I want to know...
will you give my pal Lynne Bruning a hug from me? She'll be at Maker, weaving with LEDs and things. She should have one for you too.

(don't publish this! heh heh)

Meg

1. I too would love to know if it's easy to store.
2. Can you use whatever type of ink you want- or only their brand.
3. Can you keep the screens when your done or do you have to wash them out.
4. How well does it work on items that aren't flat like a tee. (I think i've seen them advertise belts and other very "3d" items.)

I am a little hesitant about the price too- since I've made screens before and know how cheap they are. But I almost never feel like going through the whole big process to make them so if this is easy maybe I'd screen more. I used to do silk screening just about every weekend with kids groups for years and it was so much fun I'd love to incorporate it into my own crafting! I'm looking forward to your review.

h.

I want to chime in on the theme of cost as well!

How many prints can you pull from one emulsion? How many times can you really reuse the screen (I heard that it is supposed to have a limited number of uses)? How expensive do the actual prints end up being after you've spent the $300 to set up the machine. If you were to use the YUDU in a school, how much would it cost to pull 30 prints of a single image? Do you really have to use their special (and spendy) ink? How much do you estimate it cost to print your t-shirt (including ink)?

I love the idea of the machine, and the $300 initial price doesn't totally scare me off, but I'm afraid the price of ink, emulsions, and replacement screens would really limit my ability to use the machine.

Chris

AUGHGGH!! I didn't realize this was on here!! Oh, Diane. Tell me you didn't screen print on Pushkin!!!

actually...

This would be a nice color for him.

I'm so GLAD you've got this and you're making it your b***h! Rock on!

Chrissy P.

It's pretty cool...
BUT...
I had to gasp at the price too!

I miss screen printing & don't have the set up in my tiny house to do it. I saw your post and thought "WOW! That's cool, maybe I can print again!" But I don't have the $300 to splurge on anything like that...

Thanx for the info!

LizAnderson

Yea - I'm big on the cost factor. Is this more than the slightly interested can get involved with - for less than the cost of my first born?

Skulleigh

Love your tiki shirt! :)

The things that make me hesitant about the Yudu:

1. It seems like it would be more expensive than plain-old screen printing techniques

2. My inner punk-radical wants to say "Screw the establishment for putting creativity in a box!" while my mortgage-paying salary worker brain says "but do you have time and energy to to the messier version of screen-printing?"

3. It seems kind of bulky - what do I do with it when I'm not using it? How/where would I store it?