Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: Homebrew PCBs

Hi,

Can anyone suggest any chemicals which can dissolve paper fragments
from a toner-transferred board without damaging the toner deposits or
eating into the exposed copper?

Background:

After some experimentation with thermal toner transfer technique, I've
been getting the best and most reproducible PCB artwork results by:

1) Laser-printing the artwork onto glossy inkjet paper (this gets me
good quality image transfer - 'time magazine' glossy paper tends to
distort the image)
2) Putting paper onto board, for 10 passes through laminator
3) Soaking paper+board in warm water
4) Peeling off the bulk of the paper (some remains stuck to board)
5) Removing remaining paper fragments by gently rubbing board with
fingers under water
6) Using a head-magnifier and a fine knife, carefully picking off tiny
remaining fragments of paper, taking care not to damage toner deposits
7) Etching in FeCl
8) Removing toner with acetone

Biggest problem I'm having is with steps 5-6. This is a time-consuming
process. If there was a way to get the paper off fairly quickly,
without damaging toner or copper, that would be great.

Thanks in advance for any help

Cheers
David