DIY Photopolymer Base

I heard someone say they made a photopolymer base using MDF and some other stuff that I can’t remember now…Anyone have experience with this and if so, could you give me some general tips/materials used so I can get cranking on making my own?

Hi!
I haven’t made one myself. I was under a deadline and was going to make one myself since boxcar was sold out of my size. But i was lucky enough to find a real base on ebay. 

Boxcar told me to use cherry or furniture grade birch (or something similar). You need a hard wood that won’t bend, break, warp or get an impression with the pressure of the press.

For my press, with a 5×8 chase, I would have cut the wood down to 3.5″x6.5″

Planed down the wood to .875″, that way when you add your plate (k 152), everything will be type high!
Good luck and happy printing 🙂

While I was in graduate school a professor of mine did some extensive research about this. Our Pilot didn’t have a chase, and the budget that year was pretty restrictive, so while we waited for the on-campus machine shop to make a chase for us we built the chase into our CNC-routed blocks.

Take a look at the following video for more info (CNC chase demo starts at 7:16)

https://vimeo.com/38485036

I made one when I was in grad school and completely broke, and needed one that was larger than the school had. I used mdf for the base, placed a sheet of grid paper on top, then screwed a piece of plexiglas on top, trapping the grid paper in between. I counter-sunk the screws just a little so that there would be no risk to damaging the rollers.

This worked for what I was printing, but I wasn’t printing any fine text, just my own drawings. I think using a hard wood is a great idea, but again, was too expensive for me at the time.

Instead of screwing it all together, you could also try spray-on adhesive, or some other adhesive that you apply in a thin, smooth coat. Any variation in the glue will show in the print (on my first attempt, I randomly squirted some glue on the mdf, and that glue pattern showed up on every print!).

This was just a temporary solution – I saved all my dimes and nickels to get a Boxcar base, and I’ll stick to it from now on 🙂

Thanks for the tip Jessica! I think I’ll try that mdf and see what I get until I can save some pennies too ;0)

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