Homebrew PCBs

I think I might have come up with a quicker way to identify the plastic based 
papers - heat. I found this out by accident - there was a piece of Epson photo 
paper stuck in my soldering stand, and the soldering iron touched it and 
burned it. That got me wondering...

So I attacked a sheet of copier paper, and some samples of inkjet paper with 
my Microjet mini heat gun (which usually gets used for shrinking heatshrink). 
The copier paper and Staples photo paper burned, but the gloss layer didn't 
deform a great deal.

The Epson Premium paper, on the other hand (which seems to be resin or plastic 
based) burned, but the back and front bubbled quite severely before it started 
burning. Around the burn area, there's a lot of bubbling, very similar to the 
sort of bubbling you see on burning plastic.

It seems the "premium" photo papers are more likely to be plastic-based than 
the standard photo papers, based on my tests:

HP Premium Photo Paper, C6040A		Plastic based
HP Photo Paper, C1847A			Wood based
HP Coated Paper, 51634Z			Wood based
Epson Premium, S041706			Plastic based
Epson Durabrite, S041732		Feels plastic based
Staples Inkjet Gloss Paper, 153458	Wood based

FYI, the HP Coated paper has the HP logo printed in the corner on one side. 
That's the uncoated side. The coated side should look brighter and smoother, 
and appears to be a clay-based coating.

Anyone care to comment? Besides the obvious stupidity of burning paper, I 
mean. As the saying goes, "don't try this at home"....

-- 
Phil.                         | Kitsune: Acorn RiscPC SA202 64M+6G ViewFinder
philpem@...         | Cheetah: Athlon64 3200+ A8VDeluxeV2 512M+100G
http://www.philpem.me.uk/     | Tiger: Toshiba SatPro4600 Celeron700 256M+40G