The last step in the screen reclaiming process is to degrease the screen to remove any potential chemicals or oils that might be in the mesh. Degreasing a screen is fairly simple, but very important. It is important to always degrease any new screens you purchase as they might have oil, dirt, or something else that you don’t want trapped in the mesh. Degreasing revolves around spraying both sides of the screen with degreaser chemical and then using a clean scrub brush work the degreaser into the mesh. Once the degreaser has had around 30 seconds to dry it is then ready to be washed out using a power washer. It is very important that all degreaser chemical be removed from the screen before it is dried. Screens can be air dried or in a screen drying cabinet, which is much faster. It is very important that anytime a screen printing shop purchases new screens from a supplier they should be degreased to make sure the mesh is as clean as possible.
When it comes to degreaser there are many manufacturers of the chemical. When it comes to degreaser we highly suggest using Saati Chemicals “HR-6”. Saati is a leading manufacturer of darkroom screen print chemicals that revolve around reclaiming and coating screens. The HR stands for “Haze Remover”, but acts very different than most haze removers/degreasers. Most haze remover chemicals are very acidic and are essentially battery acid that should not touch bare skin. Saati’s HR-6 is more of a degreaser soap that must be applied to a screen using a scrub brush and then the chemical must fully dry (only around 10 minutes) before washing out screen one last time with water. Realize that a screen that is not properly decreased will have problems when it is being coated, burned, or potentially on press.
