PCB manufacture

[skippy]

Does anyone know of any good articles on PCB manufacturing? Specifically what I'm looking for are articles that describe the processeses involved, give an explanation of the terms used, both on a hobby level and also on a professional level (1 - 500 boards at a time, i.e. not Panasonic or the likes), mainly relating to single sided boards. The other day I spent quite some time researching the subject and all I could seem to come up with were articles that were written for dumbies or the other extreme, electronics engineers. Questions like what chemicals do the pros use for acid etching, what product is used to make a solder mask, are solder masks only used when the PCB is to be put through a wave soldering machine, etc,etc.
Thanks in advance for your help

Phillip Mc

[Al_The_Man]

Are you the intended end-user or are you looking at making boards for a living, the reason I ask is that if you fall in to the first category, I would look at finding a small shop that would handle small runs, I looked into this and luckily found a local guy that does anything from one-off's to large numbers, nothing fancy, he cannot do multilayer boards etc, but so cheap I found it not worth getting into the messy chemical thing for only a small runs for example, I had some small 2"x2" boards under 100 qty and he did them, etched and drilled for $1.50 each, I would not even try to do it for that price.
Al

[skippy]

Neither at this stage. It's just something I've been curious about for some time and would enjoy reading up on it.
Phil

[davesaudio]

Al is that still a viable pricing model
single sided 2x2 50-100pcs 1.50ea ?
left coast, right coast,
you are giving me ideas....