I have Googled in vain to find out whether it is possible to easily buy reasonably large (say 1m x 0.5m) sheets of glassfibre material 0.8mm or 1mm thick without any copper cladding.
I want to make some A1 sized portfolio cases for keeping drawings and artworks in.
In the past I have obtained small panels from PCB manufacturers who etch off the coating, but that seems a rum way to go about it.
Ian Phillips
Like this?
Davis Plastics sell this kind of thing. I've bought from them in the past when I've badly needed SRBF for something. It costs quite a bit, but don't be afraid to bargain with them for offcuts. I got the price halved when I said it was a bit high.
Chris
In article , Ian Ph writes
Would formica do instead? Should be readily available in a colour to suit.
Alternatively, look at the archival boxes - such as those from Silverprint in London. PCB material might give off fumes which attack your artwork.
David
What sort of fumes, David?
The basic material these days is 1/16" glassfibre onto which is stuck a sheet of copper. SRBP (Paxolin) is still used for 'punch and crunch' high volume manufacture for consumer products, but most quality stuff is on fibre-glass laminate.
SRBF (Tufnol) isn't used much at all in PCB's.
If the copper is removed, and the adhesive comes away where it is etched, then you're left with just a piece of laminate. If you heat it up you may get something off it, but the OP isn't doing that.
When we had our PCB factory running, we could buy sheets of unclad material from the manufacturers, a Swedish company with a place up North somewhere.
Peter
-- Peter & Rita Forbes Email: snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk Web:
google "fr4" or "g10 glass".
Zillions of suppliers.
Thanks to all for the various suggestions, there is plenty to go on and I will call some of the ones that look promisinsig on Monday. When I searched originally I just seemed to find PCB manufacturers.
Ian Phillips
In article , Peter A Forbes writes
Good question; I was of course thinking initially of the resin bonded paper stuff, which stinks of some resin even after many years.
Still, the glass fibre stuff is also encapsulated in resin, and I am sure you could measure some concentration of monomer or activator given off by the stuff, especially around freshly cut edges.
I didn't know how precious the OP's artwork might be. However, the seminal book on the area of direct interest to me (The Permanence and Care of Color Photographs, by Henry Wilhelm) has some extremely surprising things to say about nasties from the most innocuous sounding materials. Thus, when I am storing photos, I ensure I use material which has actually been tested as archivally sound.
David
You might find something here:
-adrian
PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.