Making a Photopolymer plate for letterpress

Here is something I just learned to do...make my own photopolymer plates. With a lot of digging and asking questions along with a ton of trial and error I have found a way that works for me to make a photopolymer plate for printing on my C&P letterpresses.

Watch the video to see my work flow from art and negatives to exposing and rinsing a photopolymer plate. I will give you info on where I get my supplies for printing and platemaking as well as what I use to expose and wash out my plates.

Feel free to leave a comment or question and I will be more than happy to post responses. I just want to give others the change to have an easier start than I did.
http://www.itsfancy.com

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• letterpress
• It's
• Fancy
• Letterpress
• Studio
• photopolymer
• plate
• printing
• eposing
• exposure
• instruction
• instructional
• how-to
• how
• to
• do-it-yourself
• cody
• langford

[Ombad]

is the photopolymer plate giving the deboss effect like original plate?

[itsfancy]

@Ombad the photopolymer is raised. It will deboss the paper once the press makes an impression. You can set your press to just kiss the paper or leave a hard deep impression.

[dalighire]

Hi Itsfancy.  Thanks sooo much for this great video. I'm considering getting into letterpress and have been researching for probably 4 hours. FINALLY found your post. :D Nice!

savethedatestickers ~ Deb

[itsfancy]

@dalighire glad you liked it! If you have any questions please feel free to post them.

[sumenemsay]

Hi, i`m going to make a homemade lightbox table for exposing the photopolymer plates. Can i use the 20 watts uv lamps instead of the 40 watts uv lamps?

They cost half the price were i live.

I just have to increase the exposure time right?

Thank you for this video!!

[itsfancy]

@sumenemsay for my light box I used what ever was available at the hardware store or Walmart. You just need to adjust your exposure time.

[isis416]

Thank you, I have been trying to get to the bottom of how they get the deep impressions from letterpress printing :) Great video!

[sumenemsay]

@itsfancy that`s what i thought.

Thanks! ! !

:)

[malithpramoda]

can u let us know the what are the related web sites about this field??

for self study.

thanks a lot for your video :) :)

[itsfancy]

@Coraxo333 ya you finish up the plate after it is completely dry with double the initial exposure time.