Daylight AQ Negative Film used for making photopolymer rubber stamps

On Oct 3, 1:30 am, "Nicholas O. Lindan" wrote:
"stampmaker" wrote

If you can work under red lights then a plain-ole-lith-film
is the easiest and cheapest approach, you expose it with any old
white light.

The stuff you were/are using is a pigmented gum-arabic-like emulsion
that hardens with UV light exposure.

The developer is most likely a 1% lye solution (does it feel soapy?)
that washes away the unhardened emulsion.

My guess is that M&R Marking may indeed be the manufacturer
of the film and they sell it as 'Ideal AQ'.

I am not sure why you are looking for who makes it rather than
who sells it [and lots of people sell it]... if it is to 'cut out
the middle man' you will probably have to order a pallet-full
of the stuff from the factory. The stuff was pricey when 3M
made and sold it. It may be cheap as dirt to make but the market
isn't very big.

Nicholas O. Lindan,

Nicholas

Ah yes, it is always too good to be true, and there is always more to
learn

You may be right about lye as the developer, it does feel soapy/slick.

As you state the rubber stamp business is small, and the few suppliers
keep going broke or consolidating.

We just suffered a 30% price increase in our resin, so we need to find
any way to lower our costs.

I guess if we must we can set up a darkroom, I suspect the time to
develop a negative either way will be similar, and it looks like the
darkroom route will be cheaper than our current process.

Thanks