Ink inconsistency with transparent white
So I had to mix an interesting orange a couple of days ago that called for transparent white. It was 16 parts trans. white to 1 part warm red and 3 parts yellow.
Printing on my 10 x 15 C&P with 3 rollers and no ink well.
To get the color to work I end up doing a double hit with the press and the transparent white makes it so I have to run barely any ink on the disk to make it work right. That means I am inking every 50 impressions, a pain cause I am doing a run of 1000 for a client. The art area is pretty solid at 3.5” x 5” so it is pulling a lot of ink. If I add more ink to the disk it just wants to pull the card onto the form. It is hard to keep a consistent tone with inking so often.
What can I do to make it ink and print such a large area consistently? I have a bunch of hard packing already about 6 thin sheets normally I use 2 or 3.
Use the small ink well I have?
I have never had to use so much transparent white on a job before so I am at a bit of a loss.
cody
Assuming that by “ink well” you mean an ink fountain, yes, this is a good example of the sort of job ink fountains were designed to make easier, by constantly feeding more ink to replenish the ink used for each impression.
You’re feeling that the large amount of transparent white in your mix is making the ink unusually sticky? I’m not so sure that would typically be the case. Have you run other jobs with a big solid like this, in other colors, and not had the problem? What if you try this job in a different color? My guess would be that any ink will be sticky enough to want to pull the card out of the grippers.
There are some things you can try with additional fingers on the grippers, or string or rubber bands across them, to help pull the card off the form. But I think this is a case where you’ll need to add tack reducer to the ink, so it will release better. Then you should be able to run a regular amount of ink.
Dave R. (the Ink in Tubes guy)
With the description you give of the image, it’s not surprising you need to add ink often. Adding a smaller amount every 30-50 copies is a good way of keeping color consistency in a press run.
One thing you might be able to try is to run the card on double-sized stock and print then turn and print the other half so there is a larger sheet to be held by the gripper/frisket fingers.
Another thing to assist with pulling the sheet off the form is to tape a piece of fairly heavy paper to the frisket fingers and cut out the areas where the image prints. This provides a custom frisket all around the image and will give better pulling of the sheet off the form.
thanks guys! Will get out my small fountain add some tack reducer and cut some frisket. hopefully that will be the end of this dilemma!
note to self: no more jobs using so much transparent white!
If you’re not going to be using your ink fountain, how much would you sell it for? :)
not for sale!