Another option might be to buy a cheap hobbyist CNC machine and
    change the routing tools to Draughtmans Ink pens.

Are cheap CNC machines cheaper than used pen plotters?  Once you get a CNC
machine, you might as well have it mill away copper (aside from the rather
obnoxious cost of milling tools.)  There's been a fair amount of traffic on
usenet in the past on which inks to use in plotter pens.

I have an LPKF PCB milling machine purchased off of ebay.  It's quite
different to have turnaround time of a hour or two (for small PCBs) from
Eagle layout to solderable PCB.  Sorta like having a word processor instead
of a typewriter; it's so easy to tweak things "just a little bit" that you
have trouble figuring out when you ought to be DONE.

(Hmm.  I wonder if I can address that "obnoxious cost of milling tools"
issue by having the LPKF mill away (softer) resist coating, and then etching
to do the actual copper removal?)

IMO, there's a lot of work to be done with laser printers that would be more
promising than ink jets.  To start with you can get rid of the power to that
fuser so that you're left with paper coated with loose toner powder; ought
to be easier to transfer to copper that way.  Then there are assorted things
other than paper that might be interesting to run through the machine,
assuming that it's JUST for PCB use...

BillW

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