When screen printing, i dont get the buring the image step.?

Question

for screen printing stuff like clothes, sometimes theres a step that says you burn the image or something onto the screen. i dont get it. how does it work? what does the glass do? any help here?

Answer 1

Burning the image onto the screen is sortof like developing a photographic image on a roll of film.  A UV light sensitive emulsion material is applied to the screen.  A negative of your design is printed or drawn on a transparent material and layed over the emulsion coated screen and exposed to UV light.  The UV light hardens the emulsion material where light passed through your design.  The unexposed emulsion material is washed out of the screen, leaving your design.

You can find general info about it at Wikipedia.  There's step-bystep instructions at the 2nd link below.