Rubber Base Ink

Hello printers,
I bought some Rubber Base Ink off my paper supplier. And it prints bad . Tried every trick in the book, still prints bad. The ink just seems to be too liquid. Is it possible that the ink was formulated for offset printing?
Says +Alcohol +Alkali +Nitro on the side of the label.

Thank You

Alain

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What is the brand?

Van Son ink

It also depends on what type of paper you are using…I’ve only had awesome results with Van Son Inks.

My only experience is it comes out darker - Ive heard mixing opaque white will make it the color you want.

I also have awesome results with Van Son Ink rubber base black, on any stock. But I am having problems with the opaque white and process blue. The white prints o.k. on fine paper, but it seems like there is always to much or not enough on regular stock. It always seems to break or fade.

As far as I know, all Van Son inks (and almost all other inks carried by most paper & printing suppliers) are indeed formulated for offset rather than letterpress printing, but they should still work fine if your press is adjusted well and you’re getting the right amount of ink to the type (or plate or whatever). If you’re not inking your form nicely, you need to solve that problem before you can hope to print well; that can be ink (typically too much or too little) but more likely a roller problem. Different pigments do make different colors behave differently, though. (Most violet inks seem thinner-bodied, sometimes almost runny, for instance!) Can you post some photos and/or give a better description of your problem?

Dave (the Ink in Tubes guy)

Hi Dave, i printed the form in black first, it worked great… I’ll try the white and the blue again on monday and will post some photos monday night.

Thank’s

I didn’t print on monday, the prints on friday were not that bad. I guess i was just mad because the white didn’t print like i imagined it and it also took me over a hour in makeready. At the same time it was exactly the point of the exercise, i wanted to see how the ink look on the papers i like to use.

Thank You

Alain

image: papier st-amand

papier st-amand

image: papier indien

papier indien

image: papier indien

papier indien

image: domtar hot

domtar hot

Alain, I’m guessing you wanted or were thinking the “Opaque White” and perhaps even the Process Blue would print truly opaque? Even though letterpress puts down a thicker ink film than offset, it’s still not thick enough for complete opacity except with some metallic inks - and of course Process Blue is intended to be a transparent color, to allow overlapping layers to look like other colors in four-color process printing. I’d say your printing looks good, and it’s good that you found out what certain paper & ink combinations look like!

Dave