A long note about the panel pictures.

Hi Guys! The big picture shows a fame with three masters on it. Oh yes you might say they put the panel in and print in three passes. Er no. having three different colour inks sloshing around in a frame at the same time might cause a few problems. From bottom up we have Terracotta, then amber and finally white. First they line up the blank panel with the Terracotta master and screen all the blanks with that colour. They go into a special rack to dry. Now they have to get rid if every trace of Terracotta ink without messing the master up. They like to leave 12 - 24 hours between passes. (Overnight if they can) . They repeat the process for Amber . Finally we come to the White layer. Try putting a 1mm white line between two different colours , always keeping the two colours on the correct sides of the line with no gaps. OK thats what they did with the first batch. Generally they were very well received and looked good. I asked for feed back and one list member said the real ones appear to be matt black on the front. I got an old panel shipped over because I thought it was just age and dirt. Well it wasn't matt black nor was it dirty. They had put a translucent layer on the front that helped to deffuse the light from the lamps and had this strange optical effect of making the front look matt black. Going back to my DEC days I think the the general view was they were matt black on both front and back to stop unwanted reflections due to the point light sources from filament lamps. So I asked if we could get some suitable ink. and try it out. Well the answer came back that whilst it was fine for deffusing the light over the holes on the back , they were not happy with the results on the front. A thin layer of real matt black on the front was much nearer the sample they said. So I added a thin matt black layer on the front for the current batch. You can't tell the difference. I think I know what may have happend. If you put a layer of matt black on the front you need an extra screen with holes that line up with those on the back. A translucent layer just goes right across. I believe it was intended to be black on both back and front but somebody did a bit of cost engineering. Well two can play that game and I have come up with an answer. From my normal supplier I have been able to source our standard 3mm perspex but with one side having a silk finish. It minics the effect of the old plastic with the diffusing ink perfectly! The front looks matt black. It also makes the ink adhere better Saves putting a front matt black layer on future batches and you cant tell. Rod