Speedball Super Value Opaque Fabric Screen Printing Kit (4519)

I've done a lot of screen printing, and I think this is a great beginner's kit. It comes with everything you need from preparing your screen to dropping prints. But, I would recommend upgrading all the pieces in this kit if you intend to continue this as a more serious hobbyist. The ink that comes with this kit are Silver, Red, and Blue. Opaque fabric inks are better used on dark colors, so I can see why black isn't included in this kit. Black on a black t-shirt...yeah no. But Silver on the other hand would look amazing on black. If you're looking for one that includes black ink I think there's another kit available on Amazon, but the inks in that kit are fabric inks that are only used on light colored shirts. If you're having difficulties there are numerous screen printing tutorials available on Youtube, and Speedball has their own channel. If you've never screen printed before reading the manual, having patience, and watching Youtube tutorials would help you greatly. Sure, this kit won't help you make a perfect drop on the first try, but that comes with practice. Expect to do some trial runs on pieces of paper before moving to t shirts. The squeegee is acceptable, I've dropped some prints and they come out pretty decent. You just need to keep them in their prospective angles. 60 degrees for flooding and about 20-30 degrees with pressure for dropping. Expect to do multiple strokes for light colors on dark fabrics. All in all, this is a great kit for beginners, if intending to upgrade parts this provides a great shopping list for those materials.

I bought this kit over a year ago and Ive definitely gotten my money's worth out of it. I had never attempted to screen print anything before buying this kit, although I did watch one of my friends try to print a t-shirt with a kit he bought for $30 at an art supply store (I dont remember the brand, but it wasn't a speedball). Unfortunately, it didnt work out well for him. Needless to say I was a bit skeptical about purchasing this kit but it had enough good reviews to convince me to buy it. First off I have no complaints about the seller, it arrived on time and everything was in good shape (no spilled paint, punctured containers, etc.). It comes with a pretty basic instruction manual which will be enough to get you started as far using stencils. If you're planning on using the photo emulsion method, however, you'll want to get a more comprehensive manual. I was really surprised at how easy it is to make quality prints with this kit. Obviously making the stencil is going to take up the majority of time during the process, but after you make about a dozen you'll be surprised at how efficient you'll get (this is coming from a dude with almost no artistic talent/ability). The first thing I made was a t-shirt with "DIRTBAG" printed on it for a friend of mine (he's a dirtbag), and in spite of the instruction manual saying that lettering is too detailed for the stenciling method (?) it came out perfect. I've made dozens of shirts and patches in the last year and I still have plenty of ink left, I did have to buy another screen about 4-5 months ago but I imagine thats normal. I was very dilligent about cleaning it after I used it but I still ended up with small spots of dried paint that I couldnt remove. I would recommend this kit to anyone who wants to try their hand at screen printing, it has everything you need to get started and you cant beat the price (i saw the same kit at Michaels for $45). The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars is the product description lists the wrong ink colors and the instruction manual could be alot better.

So I purchased this a few months ago, haven't used it much because the ink that it comes with is not right. First the description says Black, Blue and Red ink. Well there was no black ink, only a shiny silver... not much I'm going to do with that. The blue is fine, but the red is too orange in color. So just know that when you get this product from Amazon.

I'm 32 years old and for most of my life I have had Idea's that would make an awesome shirt. Yet time after time after time I failed to make said shirts materialize, usually due to the cost of some one else doing the work making it like $30 a shirt! and most attempts to look into screen printing on my own usually resulted in confusion and the whole process seeming much more complicated than it actually turns out. So when my buddy had the Idea to make our own shirts for an upcoming event I was dismissive at first having gone down this path before only to never make anything become of it. Not this time though! this time I got motivated! I got on amazon and did some looking around at supplies and watched a few handfuls of videos on the youtubes. Finally I settled on picking up this kit from speedball. I ordered it on Wednesday and had it by Friday. Every thing came neatly packed and with out spills. the manual was easy to read but I mostly followed a video I found using this exact kit. I set about making a design and printing it out on transparent sheets. Mixing the photo emulsion was easy and so was the application. I was worried about not using enough and I may have used a hair too much, but it didn't matter in the long run. I did all this work in low light, which does make it a bit of a pain to work with but you don't need complete dark. I took a few hours to dry but it dried perfectly. I placed my stencil on the screen and exposed it to very bright light for about 12 minuets, at which point I used the spray head on my sink to hose off the design. Minus a few finer detailed areas it came off perfectly. for the finer detail locations I used a extra soft tooth brush with little to no pressure. it got all the exposed areas cleaned off perfectly. I used a bit of painters tape on the edges as it is difficult to get a perfect coat of the photo emulsion that doesn't leave gaps at the edge of the screen, the tape covered those areas perfectly. I used the blue that came with the kit on a bright green t-shirt and it turned out great. I made a mistake of letting one of the 5 shirts I was making have a wrinkle under the screen which made the last two shirts I did less than perfect, but they still looked great! I was able to pick up two extra shirts and reprinted with the same design after washing it off the next day and they turned out perfect! This is soo much fun and super easy! I look forward to pushing my skills and trying multiple colors next time. but really all in for the price of this kit you have everything you need to start asking simple and fun custom shirts! So if you're like me and always wanted to make your own simple shirts you totally can! Don't loose those great shirt idea's ever again!

As far as I know this product is fine--I'm glad good clear instructions and silver ink was included. 6 months later: I used this kit in my first attempt at screen printing and was very impressed with the result.

Good kit for starters. Brings almost everything you need to start screen printing. Only thing missing is Speed Cleaning, screen filler is hard to remove without it. (Hint: clorox and boiling water worked for me) Other than that it is a good kit. If you are looking for a inexpensive way to print a few things or experiment with screen printing, look no further. I purchased another squeegee made just for fabrics, I think works better. I love the way the silver ink prints, is metallic but prints well on whites. Haven't used it on darks yet. Also got very pretty colors when mixed silver with the other 2 inks included here.

Haven't used the product yet, but when I received the package each one of the paints had spillled a bit. I think everything is still useable, but this item could have been packaged and shipped better.

The canvas is great! The emulsion and other liquids are great however the package is no good. The squeegee is so-so and these color options could be better. Maybe a black, white since this is an entry level/ beginner kit.You're better off buying the canvas, a better squeegee and better color choices.