Home made PCB's without a laser printer...

[R.G.]

Back before Press-N-Peel, us hackers flogged all the nonstandard ways to death. Sharpie works, but it's not great. There is - or was - a Statdler pen that was first time, every time coverage, unlike Sharpie.

The premium, deluxe, ultimate end of doing one-off PCBs was to get a small pen plotter, one with actual ink that was plotted on paper, and a flat bed. Yep, put the PCB stock into the bed, fill one of the pens with lacquer based ink, then PLOT the PCB pattern on the copper. Dunk it into the tank, you're done. Beautiful. Small HP flatbeds were once almost free as ink jets replaced them.

Actually, an ink jet plotter would do this perfectly well if you could get it to plot on a flat surface instead of on a piece of paper that's bent through rollers.