I’m a big fan of gel plates, both homemade and retail. I’ve got a few of my own and A LOT of them at work. I try to have one per kid, as they get worn I can purchase new ones. I’ve written about how to take care of them but how to condition them before, but storage has always been an issue.

The Gelli Plate tin containers are top notch, but if you have to buy 14 of them, well that’s pretty pricey. I’ve looked into plastic clamshells, but most have mold lines. Cake pans with lids often have ridges around the edges. All of these things can damage the plate or deform it.

I was sent one of these for review:

That’s a SafeTect gel printing plate. I’ll write a full review of it at some point. Bu the important part is how it was shipped to me- in a 9x 11 box with 2 sheets of plastic on each side of the plate, a brayer tossed into the box.

The plastic sheets are a little larger than the plate and keep it from touching the sides. Brilliant.

It made me thinking. I normally store the gel plates in their original clamshells with the plastic sheet on one side, but I have some that are VERY old, and the clamshells shattered when I opened them.  They’ve been sitting out on a flat table.

I put two rolls of tape into  a 9×12 cardboard mailer. Then I put the gel plate with a piece of plastic on the backside into the box. It stays put and protects the top of the plate. The sides of the plate do not touch the sides of the box. It works so well!!! 

I put arrows for this side up on all these boxes and plan to put all my gel plates into boxes like this. The original plastic clamshells seem to always collapse onto my plate and leave bubbles.

This solution could be done with clean pizza boxes and better tape or even double sided tape. replace the tape as needed.

To get the plates out, you just peel them off the tape.