I've been using laser transparencies to burn some soldermasks and it
works pretty well. I export the Gerber layer into DXF from Altium
Designer and it cuts all the holes from the DXF file directly no
problem but I get some melting near the edges so I ordered some kapton
film to burn also.
I was thinking why not burn the top and bottom mask layers also? Then
you could glue the layers onto the pcb. They even make kapton in tape
form so you don't even need to glue it. The melting temperature for
kapton is 400C so should survive soldering.
Anyone try this? Seems like an easy way to make the two layers. Some
place like
http://ohararp.com/Stencils.html will sell you a whole
8.5"x11" sheet for $25. You can glue the top/bottom soldermask as
well as get the soldermask stencil all at the same time and just cut
it with a paper cutter.
That said, you can still buy finished pcbs for like $50-100 total so
probably not worth it if you don't have your own laser cutter.