The present invention relates to an art of cutting out a thin film stuck to a base plate, and more particularly relates to an art in which a continuous dry film which consists of a light-transmissible resin film and a layer made of a photosensitive resin such as a photo resist and provided on one side of the resin film and is stuck to the main surface of an electronic circuit base plate such as a liquid crystal display electrode plate and a printed circuit base plate is automatically cut out along the contour of the base plate.
There is a dry film sticking apparatus for sticking a thin continuous dry film to the main surface of a base plate by a prescribed temperature and prescribed pressure. The sticking apparatus comprises a base plate loader by which a plurality of base plates put in a cassette are placed on a conveyance film which is a continuous polyester film, a film feeder for supplying the conveyance film and the dry film, a pressure sticking vacuum chamber unit by which the continuous dry film is stuck, at the prescribed temperature under the prescribed pressure, to the main surface of the base plate on the conveyance film in a vacuum or an atmosphere of reduced pressure to seal the base plate with the dry film and the conveyance film as vacuum packing, to produce a stratified body of the base plate and both the films, a heating and pressure sticking roller unit by which the dry film stuck to the main surface of the base plate by the pressure sticking vacuum chamber unit is heated and further stuck to the main surface, under pressure, a film pull-out unit for moving the conveyance film and the dry film to each step of processing by the apparatus, a film cutoff unit for cutting off the dry film and the conveyance film at every prescribed interval for each stratified body, and a put-in unloader by which the stratified body consisting of the base plate, the dry film on the upper side of the plate and the conveyance film on the lower side of the plate is put in a cassette, as described in the Japan Patent Application (OPI) No. 244465/89 (the term "OPI" as used herein means an "unexamined published application"). After the stratified body is put out from the dry film sticking apparatus, the dry film and conveyance film of the stratified body are manually cut out along the contour of the base plate.
Since the dry film and conveyance film of the stratified body produced by the dry film sticking apparatus described above are manually cut out along the contour of the base plate, the efficiency of the cutting-out is low, namely, the productivity for the stratified body having the dry film and the conveyance film cut out is low. This is a problem.