Polystyrene impregnation - you may use pencil and eraser

This idea came from Libor Jech sometime in 1976. From that time, me and many other cavers use only such impregnated survey books for notes on cave surveys. In addition, impregnated maps survived many heavy rains.

The principle is not to try to add a surveying table to a polystyrene card (that divers use for surveying underwater) but to add polystyrene into the paper on which the table is printed. In fact, one may impregnate topographic or other maps as well as all paper forms.

Description of how to do this follows.

First, a word of CAUTION:

• THE MATERIALS USED IN THIS PROCESS ARE HIGHLY FLAMMABLE!
• AND THIS MAKES IMPREGNATED PAPER HIGHLY FLAMMIBLE, TOO!
• ETHYLACETATE ITSELF IS NOT POISONOUS, BUT YOU MUST WORK IN A PLACE WITH VERY GOOD VENTILATION, IDEALLY OUTSIDE.
• DO NOT EAT OR SMOKE WHILE DOING THIS OPERATION!
• USE GLOVES TO COVER YOUR HANDS!



• Do not use this impregnation for print outs from laser printers (copiers, digital printers).

What do you need?

1. Polystyrene foam. The material you may find everywhere. It is used to pack products. You should use only pure white one.
2. Solvent - Ethylacetate. Ethylacetate is not poisonous, it doesn't dissolve the printing-ink, it dissolves polystyrene very well. Technical quality is enough. You may also try solvents for lacquers instead.

3. Ethylacetate in websters-online-dictionary
4. Ethylacetate in wikipedia
5. Lacquers roller and a paint tray. The material from which the paint tray is made must be insoluble in ethylacetate. Use a roller with short fibre.

6. Underlay. Common rough paper able to absorb overflown solution. The glossy or plastic materials are not good. You'll need sheets to change them.
7. Something to impregnate: Millimetric paper, maps, printed documents, tables, etc. You may print any kind of table including colors that you may imagine on cheap office printer with pigment ink and impregnate it too. The print outs from laser printer are not advisable! Several examples, which you may download and print out, follow.

Procedure

You should use 100-150 grams of polystyrene to 1 litre of solvent. Wait half an hour to dissolve it all. Prepare the flat place to dry the impregnated papers and cover the surface with rough paper. Prepare several sheets of rough paper as underlays.

Pour the solution into the paint tray. Lay the sheet of paper printed side up and saturate it by solution with roller. The paper should be uniformly translucent. Don't use too much solution. Transport impregnated paper to dry. Change the underlaying paper if too wet.

You may repeat impregnation on rear side of sheet. Or repeat it twice. But after it you'll receive something what look more as plastic sheet than original paper.

If you want print on such impregnated paper with inkjet printer later you should impregnate the rear side. The inks will not dry on impregnated surface.

Conclusion

You may draw on such impregnated sheets by any common pencils, pens, markers. Spirit markers you may wash out by concentrated spirit. You may rub out your drawing if the surveying paper is wet or muddy. It is possible to glue impregnated surveying tables on PVC cards 1 mm thick. You may use such tables separately without any other support - see pictures.

Note

It is possible to use the polystyrene solution to impregnate paper on professional non-aqueous impregnating line. The tests we made were exciting, However, impregnating the tables and maps may not be popular with commercial ventures: "We must sell maps - not to produce maps that will survive everything." - as one director of a company producing maps for tourists told us. :)

Martin Sluka