Vacuum frame or Vacuum frame and UV exposure unit for Photopolymer plates - Australia

awty said:

What is intaglio?

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awty said:

What is intaglio?

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MurrayMinchin said:

Here's a good short video of the process...one which is 'direct to plate' so a vacuum frame isn't needed. The OP might be using large format negatives, so the first part (digitally enlarged negative) might not be relevant:

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awty said:

Cool, looks fairly straight forwards.
Is there any particular type of Polymer Plate necessary? Might get some to have a play.

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momus said:

Intaglio printing should be done in a manner that gives a tooth for the ink to settle into, while will give those deep blacks. Drypoint can be used w/ this style of printing, as it gives a very ragged, toothy line to the plate, and the ink loves it.

But, this is all done after a ground is melted onto the plate, the design is traced onto the ground, and it involves a toxic, acid bath to etch the lines/contrast areas. I assume the op has a proper printing press and blankets? I wonder if they meant photogravure prints?

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samcomet said:

For what it is worth, M, my workflow in Sydney is as follows: scan my 35mm negs into iMac; futz in Lightroom; print out on GCC laser printer onto A4 GCC clear acrylic OHP sheets; spray with GCC Toner Intensifier to make toner truely opaque (does NOT affect blank parts of image only the toner); GCC printer has inbuilt halftone screens so no need to apply any thru software or 2nd exposure of plate; I glued an A4 sized magnetic sheet to some marine ply and stick the metal plate magnetically to this surface to expose; using magnetic strip tape, not the glue side, I adhere the pos printout from the Laser Printer making sure the image and plate are slightly smaller than the edges of the acrylic medium i.e. the magnetic tape does not interfere with the image; the two opposing magnetic surfaces seem to hold the plate and the image in very close and tight contact (all my magnetic stuff came from Officeworks); I use an Osram 500w. incandescent UV bulb (after checking the spectrum of the bulb and the plate marry), attached to an old Durst enlarger, without the lamphouse/head and expose using an old enlarger timer; cure & washout as per the vid in this thread. Not really elegant but it does work and I'm proud to have kit bashed the setup myself. Anyway hope this gives you something to think about in the low rent department. Best of luck & cheers! Sam

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samcomet said:

For what it is worth, M, my workflow in Sydney is as follows: scan my 35mm negs into iMac; futz in Lightroom; print out on GCC laser printer onto A4 GCC clear acrylic OHP sheets; spray with GCC Toner Intensifier to make toner truely opaque (does NOT affect blank parts of image only the toner); GCC printer has inbuilt halftone screens so no need to apply any thru software or 2nd exposure of plate; I glued an A4 sized magnetic sheet to some marine ply and stick the metal plate magnetically to this surface to expose; using magnetic strip tape, not the glue side, I adhere the pos printout from the Laser Printer making sure the image and plate are slightly smaller than the edges of the acrylic medium i.e. the magnetic tape does not interfere with the image; the two opposing magnetic surfaces seem to hold the plate and the image in very close and tight contact (all my magnetic stuff came from Officeworks); I use an Osram 500w. incandescent UV bulb (after checking the spectrum of the bulb and the plate marry), attached to an old Durst enlarger, without the lamphouse/head and expose using an old enlarger timer; cure & washout as per the vid in this thread. Not really elegant but it does work and I'm proud to have kit bashed the setup myself. Anyway hope this gives you something to think about in the low rent department. Best of luck & cheers! Sam

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Mick Fagan said:

Well NuArc were pretty much everywhere in graphic arts trade houses in Melbourne. On the floor where I worked we had four double sided flip units alone. Downstairs there were something like another 3-4, then there were our other establishments around various Melbourne suburbs, the total may have been as high as 40-50 units just in our group of businesses. This was the seventies through to the early nineties when film usage dropped through the floor, as did our requirements for NuArc exposure units. We didn't give them away nor did we sell them, they were mostly scrapped to ensure competitors didn't get high quality equipment at bargain prices.

There were plenty around in Australia, including Brisbane, so you may be lucky. They do however chew through electricity as their lamps are on all of the time with a blind that draws back when the vacuum frame is locked in position and the go button is pushed.

I myself have had a couple for my own business in the nineties through to the noughties, they were Italian designed and made and very robust. The smallest had an A4 footprint reasonably rare, my larger unit an A3 footprint vacuum system. In both cases the vacuum was created by placing the metal backed polymer plate onto the vacuum board with the squillions of holes for the vacuum. Then a rolled up semi opaque plastic sheet was unrolled over the plate and vacuum frame, then you sucked it down. The drawer was then pushed in and a row of UV tubes were switched on and away things went.

Mick.

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MBLEEPN said:

Thanks Sam,
That sounds similar to my earlier efforts where a glass sheet was clamped on top of the film positive, then plate, which are pushed into a bed of foam mounted on ply ( this was somewhat successful).

Sound like something I will try I am still curious as to how you adhere the transparency over the top of your plate nice and tight ?

Is it something like this image:

View attachment 283507
Blue is the ply board, Grey is the magnetic mat, yellow is the plate and the black is the magnetic taped edge of the transparency stuck over the top of the plate to the surrounding magnetic mat by magnetic force?

Regards,

M.

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