A Screen, A Wall, A Dome, A Brick and a Veneer

If you saw a screen meet a wall on the street what do you think they might do together? They might hang out together. Now if you had a bunch of screens coming down the street and they met a wall how would they all hang out together. The metaphor isn't applicable except that I have a bunch of screens from my screen printing business and I needed to make a wall and covering to shelter my old Hopkins 4-color press that I have in my backyard for down and dirty screenprinting at home. I also dug out my old magazines on building Dome houses from the Sixties and thought of different ways to connect my frames in the same way that the Dome builders were using triangles. Surprisingly it worked quite well.

I did some experiments with nailing my wooden frames together, approximately 16" X 19", and attempts to make a matrix that would make a curve and that worked reasonably well. Then I worked on a more complex matrix by overlapping two curves and although it had potential I stopped before I went too far. Next I switched out the wooden frames for aluminum frames to work on the strength of an actual structure. With 4" bolts a drill and a wrench I was able to build a curved shelter that was very light and reasonably strong. The arc is made by each panel and with a strip of wood at each joint the frames are slanted about 10 degrees for each 24 inches. The height is approximately seven feet high and the covering shades around 8 feet of flooring. I haven't finished the sides, but have made it so that I can take out the panels individually and deal with other issues like sealing and finishing the structure before I worry about closing in the space.

The advantage of this structure is with the light weight aluminum and although I have a wide range of methods for sealing and finishing this sort of structure easily, I don't want to use the feather-like nature of the frame and screen matrix. There is also the art concept that is inherent to the silk screens since many of them are from other experiments and jobs with printing so there are designs already on the screens and ink residue that adds random color. Still the screens didn't break and the emulsion is a naturally made to resist water, so I am comfortable that the screens themselves won't breakdown under a normal amount of exposure to the sun and rain. The interesting part of the screen is the photo-fresco part and that is that I have developed many techniques, previously discussed for years here, that can turn these frames into individual art pieces with a high degree of resistance to weathering. However, if I cover the frames with a quick and cheap paneling or coating then the designer effect is loss and the weight on the structure starts to increase.

A young neighbor was checking out my adult play structure and asked if it leaked and I admitted willingly that it wasn't made to keep water out, yet. Then I showed her a picture from the magazine on dome houses and the people in the house were sitting around a bunch of cans and hanging plants to catch the water from the leaking domes. This shows a problem that the dome houses have as a result of the many joints and non-flat construction and that is sealing the beast, or as they named them living houses. Later in the magazines it became apparent that the builders resorted to standard tactics like spraying the roofs with foam and plastics that made a water-tight structure with some insulating properties. As much as I want my life to be easy, I just can't do that, it's degrading to have to cover a curved piece of construction with a foam like it is the undercarriage of a car. My favorite idea in the magazines was to cover a dome with records as shingles and let them bake onto the structure. I've got plenty of records so that sounds like fun.

As I pondered the methods of sealing the frames with the screen printing residue still on them I wandered around my yard and picked up weathered frames that I had covered with a wide range of coatings to see which ones were holding the best. Many of my wooden frames are rotten on the ends that have been sitting unprotected in the mud and leaves, which is a good indicator of what would happen if a structure goes unprotected for years. Some other frames were peeled where I applied latex paint on top of vinyl. Others were I used mixtures of polyester resin had cracked and could be chipped away. The frames that I had made with epoxy using the frame as a mold only, without the screen mesh, showed the most promise in that they weren't cracked as much as the ones that I had used cement in.

Over the years I have been using a brick motif as my texture and from all of these experiments the epoxy mixed with pigments has proven to be the most durable and flexible material of the readily available products on the market. Cost is an issue, but for creating a thin durable layer epoxy just can't be beat. The drawback is that epoxy doesn't directly bond well with the emulsions and vinyl inks that are loaded in my screens. If I make a screen just for use in a structure, then I lose the recycling aspect of this project, however, I do gain much more flexibility in the overall design since I wouldn't be working with frames that have been used for print jobs before. The scenario that would be easiest to implement would be to simply coat the screens inside and out with a sealant that bonds to the ink and emulsion that is already in the screen and then connect the frames with bolts and seal the cracks with a flexible sealant that bonds to the aluminum. This isn't much different than spraying a coating of foam on the inside of a structure,and it would not provide any significant insulating effects. Cleaning my screens is my least favorite job, which is why I have so many screens to begin with, but the loaded screens with ink and emulsion doesn't feel much different than a gloried tent.

My instincts say that a truly finished product will require a screen to be completely cleared of the emulsion and ink before I start the job of making a newish screen structure. Purchasing new screens is almost as economical as the time, chemicals and labor involved with cleaning the old ones and there is no order to the designs that are on the old screens, so I don't think there is a real application of the old screens with designs unless they are covered and coated as previously discussed. Still, they are frames and could find a use as a test structure in the desert. I must accept here that the advantages of new screens are greater than the cost of the old screens except in the case of coating them and filling them with material that seals in the ink and residue.

One mold screen I found was a relief brick pattern that I made using the photo-fresco techniques and the inside section was the brick pattern made with an FGR / Forton MG plaster acrylic mixture, or possibly with regular Tufstone plaster. It seemed to be holding up well and the back layer was textured from the plaster enough that I felt an acrylic paint would cover it nicely. The weight of this piece was intriguing and when I compare it to the cement pieces there is a huge difference, yet both of them appear to be brick-like. As I held this particular frame I realized that all of the benefits of the screen printing frames are in the weight and all of the elements of the techniques are in the relief made inside the frame. Capturing these two elements into a usable frame is the essence of this project and finding a way not to have to put a heavy sealant layer may be the key to the uniqueness of this project.

The brick pattern has been repeating itself, literally, in most of this work and I came back to that here with the idea of epoxy laminates of the brick pattern as the outer shell on the frames. I can't cast both sides at once and I am very entranced by one side being an actual screen fresco made with either a plaster hybrid material or even an epoxy or polyester resin that conveys a design on the inside structure of the frame house, so I must adhere, paint or mount a sealant on the exterior to help keep water from getting inside.

Over the last two months I have been making epoxy stickers which are very thin and yet durable, so I went back to my old brick molds and poured a batch of epoxy into the molds to create a brick epoxy veneer that can be layered on top of the exterior shell on the flat part of the screens. I haven't figured out how to overlap the panels or how to seal the cracks between the screens, but this does create an exterior shell that also has a relief pattern that duplicates the pattern on the inside. The thickness of the epoxy will determine the weight of the final screen, but for a durability covering beyond just painting and sealing this should do the trick. The final cost of screen panels will also be determined by the thickness of the epoxy. I added a large amount of iron oxide to create a yellow brick effect and these pigments should allow the epoxy to withstand exposure to uv rays from sunshine.

I know this post is long, but unless I keep this together it will appear as one item on top of the other, so I will continue the explanation of Screen House construction with photo fresco techniques. The image in the image is important, the weight, durability, 3-dimensional texture and durability for exterior weathering. Each aspect of these variables limits the others to some degree. I envision a house that can be carried and built by one person in an afternoon and potentially taken apart and or modified as needed. One area that is not mentioned above in my list of variables is insulation and whether or not my materials will keep in heat or not. The final use of this type of structure may cause it to be modified, but the biggest problem I see is that the frames may get really hot in the sun and the epoxy could become flexible and release if it isn't mounted securely in the heat.

The top barrier and seams will probably get covered with wood trim, which will reduce the amount of heat that transmits through the aluminum frame, but the top layer on the screens themselves will transmit or reflect heat and cold depending on the materials. I also envision that the frames themselves could be solar panels, or work like a simple refrigeration system, but these methods would require testing and materials that are beyond my budget for now. I am currently making thin brick pattern veneers that will cover the backside of the screen panel with the inside of the screen facing inwards towards the interior of the space. If the pieces are connected from the top down then the veneer will have to work around the bolts, but if I move those connections inside then I won't have to worry about sealing a new hole from weathering. This leaves the seams between each panel as the most difficult to seal. Theoretically I want the structure to be able to come apart, so a rubber gasket may be the best bet for keeping water out. The problem with making a seal versus using a strong glue is that complexity usually takes time and creates other problems. For now I am going to assume the seams will get caulked or will allow water to pass through, but the answer is the more permanent the structure can be made when it is built then the more protection it will provide to leaking. Portability will create complexities that may increase cost and leakage.

During the casting of the epoxy brick veneers, or shingles, I have used two types of epoxy and in one sample I added a thin layer of Tufstone gypsum acrylic plaster with fibers to the interior to flatten out the back side and provide some strength. Generally the flexibility of the epoxy could be a positive, so the plaster will remove that characteristic that makes the veneers that I have been making seem more durable than the thin items I've made with other materials like polyester resin, cements, thin set mortars and plasters. I have recently learned of a urethane resin made by Smooth-On that sets in such a way that it can capture bubbles and other details. I'm planning a trip to Douglas and Sturgess to get a sample of this resin and see if it has any uses on the project. Epoxy does take a long time to set up, but the quicker polyester resins can't be made this thin and smell too much. This may be an alternative to both of these depending on how susceptible to cracking the new resin is.

I have also started test with a wide range of materials on the emulsion and through the screen to see which has the most bonding potential that can also be adhered to the epoxy panels. The problem is that time is the best test and I'm very impatient. I can hardly wait for stuff to dry before I want to test it. Still, if I can figure out what is in the emulsions that I use, minus the photo sensitive part, then I should be close to knowing what will bond with the nylon strands that make up a screen. I know there are fillers on the market and more and less durable emulsions that are made to stay in place on the screens I use for thousands of prints, but nothing is made to be permanent and these emulsions can be broken down with the right chemicals.