What did you use for film printing before the epson?

[Inkworks]

I've worked my way through Letraset, Rubylith, Vellum and Toner-aid, even had a Agfa Imagesetter at the Membrane/overlay shop, We even used to sub out film to a company with an image setter at $1250 per sq. foot. now it's just the Epson 3000 doing 90% of the work and the Epson 7880 handling the rest.

[royster13]

1250.00 or 12.50?......most I can ever remember paying was 35.00 a square foot in 1979 or 1980....

[Screened Gear]

I use a Canon. Never have had any issues.

[3Deep]

Well I never answered my own question, but I had a camera came with all the equipment I purchased, but didn't have a glue how to use it, so I used clear film printed from a copier and taped together, then moved to a laser printer using vellum.  I saw an article in a mag talking about the epson 3000 being the poor man's imagesetter, but 1200 bucks back then it was still to high for my blood, so I got an epson 1450.   Most of you might not know who David Crain is, but if I'm right he was the first to work with the epson 3000 for film output and EDG or something like that did test runs featuring the top 3 sep programs (The Press Mag which is not around any more) did the article.   David was selling the 3000 and 1450 alone with his posjet film which was pretty high dollar back then.  I know many of wish Epson would make a printer just for screen print, but would it sell being that we can use there other printers now and do the same thing for maybe cheaper bucks.  I will say some of you go back pretty dang far in film seps.

[inkman996]

We had an image setter we bought from another shop but realized it was to expensive to run after a while. We gave it to a local screen maker to use on condition that he prints our larger films with it. We bought a laser printer with PS and it was expensive as hell and used vellum for a bunch of years, all the while having the other guy print our larger films. Since we switched to Epson we haven't needed him to print anything for us anymore and he still uses the setter to this day. Good deal for him I guess.

[Doug S]

We used a gerber edge for sign making but would buy a 13 inch wide punched roll of transparent film for positives.  It would only print 11 3/4 inch wide but it was accurate because of the punched material.  We used it probably 5 years before buying an epson.

[TCT]

When I started the place I worked at had a accordion camera in a small dark room. Now when I say dark room it was exactly that, didn't have a working safe light for years. Had to feel around to do everything, the developer smelled like crap! Didn't have a working timer either, you had to count in your head.

After almost 2 years I talked him into getting a computer, think it was like a second generation iMac, Epson scanner and a HP something laser printer. Later on we upgraded to a Lexmark E312L, if the image was bigger than 8.5 x 14 we used scotch tape to join the velum sheets:)

When I opened my shop, I started with a Epson 4000, man I felt big time!