To shed some light on stencils made by electroforming: it is an electrolytic process. Plating to be exact, deposited on a mandrel where at the end of the process the mandrel is removed or separated from the electroform (the stencil). Depending on the complexity or other design requirements of the electroform, the process can take a long time. Plating in the electroforming process can have the same problems as plating in pwb fab: non-uniform deposit thicknesses. There may even be some mechanical post processing or machining required to even out the thickness of the deposits. --------------------------------------------------- Technet Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 15.0 To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF Technet To temporarily halt or (re-start) delivery of Technet send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet NOMAIL or (MAIL) To receive ONE mailing per day of all the posts: send e-mail to [log in to unmask]: SET Technet Digest Search the archives of previous posts at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815 -----------------------------------------------------