Did a few experiments over the weekend.
I sanded all boards in this experiment with 400 grit paper with random orbital sander.
Instead of acetone I used lacquer thinner.
Label on lacquer thinner shows these components
methyl alcohol, toluene, acetone, ethyl acetate, xylene, methyl ethyl ketone, ethyl benzene, petroleum distillates.
The alcohol I used is fuel grade, percent not listed on can.
I tried the mix suggested in another post, 2 parts alcohol 1 part lacquer thinner.
With cheap 20# copy paper the transfer was very bad, most toner fell off or pealed off with the paper.
With Hammer mill color laser gloss had excellent transfer but the small holes in via’s partly closed, bleed.
I thinned the mix a bit more 3 parts alcohol 1 part lacquer thinner.
Even worse results with copy paper.
With color laser gloss got near perfect transfer, at least as good or better than with my laminator, via’s stayed open, perfect.
I also tried boards pretreated with lacquer thinner, to form the oxide layer, and not treated. The treated boards seem to do a slightly better but not much.
I also notice that by setting the paper type to photo or gloss, and setting the gloss level to best, seemed to put more toner on the paper an got better transfer.
I did not so to speak, burnish the boards, but just applied a moderate amount of pressure with the folded up edge of the paper towel used to blot the board. I was worried that too much pressure might smear or widen the small traces.
I did a double side board, two 1/16 boards, using the 3 to 1 mix, color laser gloss paper, and got boards as good as any I have ever done with my laminator. Lost one trace right on the edge of the board, think it may have been where I picked up the board with fingers. All the traces down to 0.012 are perfect, even the feed thru between .1 headers where perfect. I struggled with my laminator for a year before I got boards this good! I could even use a non-woven abrasive pad, I use the white ones with no actual abrasive, to clean off the remaining paper, there is very little paper residue left anyway, much less that with my laminator.
One trick I use for patching toner that did not transfer. Use an ultra fine sharpie, and draw in the missing section of the trace.Go over a couple times, let it dry in-between passes. If you limit coffee input you can even touch up .012 traces.
RD