Uneven base

Ok, so it's the base that's uneven. It sinks slightly in the middle. I borrowed my brother's calipers (which are so fantastic, I've just bought a set on ebay), and found a height inconsistency of 1.04 mm.

Would love to buy a proper base, but I just found out that I finish my job in 4 weeks, so financially, it's just not going to happen at this stage. So for now, I have to work with what I've got. I spent a night sanding the high points of the base down, measuring every 0.01 of a millimetre. Works much better, but still far from perfect.

First run from yesterday, print now mounted with spray adhesive, printed with unmixed Pantone Red:

I'm happy enough that it's a clearly defined low area. Much better than being a few areas. Just to make sure it's definetly the base and nothing else, I temporarily pasted paper strips behind the patch, then did a second run:

So it's definetly the base.
Spent a bit more time yesterday making it a less dodgy paper fix, so I could get a little closer to printing the actual cards (yes that's right, 3 colours in one day!). I still have a problem spot, but it's not base-related this time. Low point on the photopolymer?

Also, still working on getting just the right green to match the sample from the bridesmaid's dress (that's the sample up the top of the pic):

And here's where I'm up to. Still patchy, and some uneven inking to boot, but it's getting better each attempt:

Problem with this print is that even though the ink is quite heavy, it's still very patchy when it was more even in earlier prints. Augh, can't win. Can't get any bite in the paper either.

I've got a whole day to work on it again now (and if I can't find a job in the next 4 weeks, I'll have 7 full days a week to work on it... sigh).