Waterless Lithography

When I was a young apprentice to Letterpress Printing in the mid 1960’s, there were a few Printers in Adelaide, (South Australia), who ventured into ‘waterless’ offset/litho. I don’t recall that the inks were water based but the big difference was in the plate. The image and non image areas were different substances . I think the non image area was something like Teflon and rejected ink and the image area was matt chromium and attracted ink.. I thought the ink was similar to normal offset/litho. ink but years have faded the memory. The biggest problem was specks of dust, grit and ink skin, scuffing up the non image area, creating circumferential lines that attracted ink. I think the Fuji Corporation in Japan produced both the plates and ink.

Good Luck

There is a product called a “Toray” plate. You use a film or negative to expose the plate, develop it and then ink up with a brayer and oil-based litho ink. No water required for the inking process. When I did this I printed the plate on an etching press with felts, using dampened paper.

To my knowledge waterless or (single fluid ink) is not available on the open market as an item for sale.
In answer to your speculation, the answer is yes, the research funding for SFI was provided by Fuji, back in the late 90’s. I worked on the project, for the final 2 years in Colebrook, New Hampshire, with a group Vitek Research, along with John Peterson, chemist of Scott Paper Fame. John held eleven patents at one time. Part of 3 test locations for the ink and other stuff like waterless plates. The plates are on the market, available from Presstek in Hudson, New Hampshire. Imaged by laser oblation, on press. The ink PR information for the product is on the Flint Ink website, listed as single fluid ink or SFI ink. It was a fun project. The ink was hailed at the drupa convention, but the formula Flint tried to run away with never made it commercially that I know of. They and Fuji should have stuck around a little longer. We were turning the billion dollar ink tide as the printing world knows it today, but they were too eager to get it on the market.
Know anyone who has $$$ for a good ink formula, let me know!

WATERLESS LITHOGRAPHY:
The procedure uses recycled aluminium offset plates and a silicone mixture to repel ink instead of water as in the traditional method.
Images are created with a variety of materials from Omnichrom pencil to photocopy transfer.
Inking up is swift and effortless using a small hard roller and Van son Rubber based inks.
Nik Semenoff pioneered the technique.

I’m holding a workshop in the technique in September 2010
www.annieday.com.au