Holy Moly - My 3M Thermofax is on it's way!

Yes, I love my Gocco, but sometimes I want a more consistent screen burn or yearn for a larger printing area.  I have invested in a 3M Thermofax machine and it could be in my hands as soon as tomorrow!!!  A Thermofax machine is an old school predecessor to the copy machine.  Copy machines were more reliable for making copies, so these machines were cast aside, often stored in closets and storage rooms for years.  They are now super popular with tattoo artists for creating stencils and for screen printers which has driven the price up on these vintage machines, but they're built like tanks and should last a long time.

The Thermofax, like the Gocco, burns carbon based images onto mesh screen, but does not use flash bulbs that much be discarded after each flash.  The per screen cost should be much lower than that of a Gocco, though eventually the Thermofax's bulb also needs to be replaced.  I believe that the image size can be as large as 8x11 or something close to that, so it's about double the size of a Gocco B6 size image which opens the door to a lot of new possibilities - larger format prints and maybe t-shirts or tote bags with larger images.  Any water based silkscreening ink, which is cheaper than Gocco inks can be used.  Finally, the screens can be cut and mounted onto frames that can be inserted into the Gocco machines or you can use the squeegee method which is sort of leaving the Gocco world behind and entering the more general screenprinting area.

I'm so excited!!  All I need is to find myself a little more time in each day and hopefully I'll be able to come up with new ideas and projects.  =)