The first 4 emulsion sheets we received with our Yudu went fast. With three of us in the house designing images we knew we needed to find a less expensive option fast!
Al did research and we had already decided to go with liquid emulsion by the time I got to my first screen.
I had read horror stories about liquid emulsion, and being the messy crafter that I am, was sure that a disaster was in the making. Al set me up at the kitchen counter with the scoop coater that he had made out of aluminum angle and newspapers on the counter.
We carefully poured in the emulsion to the scoop. It surprisingly did not smell very strong at all and was a green color. We turned off lights, and kept direct sunlight from screen but we did not need to coat in darkroom conditions.
Starting a half inch from the bottom of the screen, tip scoop coater so that it is as level as possible and all the liquid is evenly touching the screen.
Slowly pull the scoop up the screen continuing to keep the scoop and liquid as level and even as possible.
Start tipping up the scoop as you get closer to the top to allow the emulsion to flow back into the scoop.
It gave a very smooth coat, even though it was my first attempt at liquid emulsion. I added another coat using the same process on the emulsion side. On the well side, I added on coat. It didn’t drip.
I then carefully placed it in the Yudu chamber and dried it for two cycles of 8 minutes and finished it up with the hairdryer.
We reclaimed the liquid emulsion in the scoop and put it back into bottle.
It was so easy and I didn’t end up covered in the emulsion as I thought I would. I am the crafter that is always wearing the paint on arms, shirt and usually the tip of my nose. It was nice to have Al’s help since he is a genius with figuring things out and he had already done a lot of testing on angle, pressure and quantity and knew what to do.
Once dry, I lined up transparencies and placed screen on top with emulsion side down. We exposed the screen 8 minutes since I did not have very detailed images. I pulled out the screen and I could see the image in a light yellow. At our kitchen sink, I gently washed off the unexposed emulsion with cold water and a sponge. I was surprised to see how sharp the image came out! We dried screen thoroughly with 3 cycles of the Yudu and then a short time with the hair- dryer.
Michelle
