Printing text over blind deboss

I have a client who wants to print text over a large area of blind deboss (essentially he wants a poor man’s embossed border)

I’m using lettra 110 on a vandercook #4 with photopolymer. I told him I was concerned about executing this, but I’ve not tried this before. It’s more a general sense that something is not right about doing such a big area of deboss and then attempting to print on top of the debossed area. Should I go ahead and try it? Is there anything I need to be careful of?

The invitation is going to be mounted, so a bit of punch-through wouldn’t ruin my day.

Thanks for all your help!

Eric

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You want to print the ink first then hit it with no ink to deboss. Not the other way around.

Casey

Thanks Casey. Do I need to be concerned with the inked text deforming under the deboss?

If you are just debossing a flat panel, and then printing the text within its edges, I would do the deboss first (and have done just that) and print second. Otherwise the deboss will flatten out some of the impression your customer no doubt expects (and I wouldn’t do too deep of a deboss either or there won’t be much left to punch into).
If the text was going past the edges of a deboss, then you would need to print first.

It’s the former - the text is only within the space that he wants to be completely debossed.

I certainly would print the ink after the depressed panel. It stands to reason that the depressed panel will squeeze the fibers down if it is to be evident, so as parallel says, there will be less available depth to leave an impression with the typographic imprint, but there should certainly be enough evidence of impression to assuage the letterpress beast in most reasonable folks.

John Henry

I have always kissed the paper with ink then come back and put a firm impression into the paper with no ink. It appears paper with lots of fiber, Cranes and others will bleed only a bit when printed with lots of impression. I suppose either way would work.

Eric

I have a job in the shop where there are two debossings required to create a fake emboss. The effect is even better than an embossing, especially as there is no obvious concave disturbance on the reverse. But yes, you need to print any additional inked text or imaging into the debossed flat. You don’t necessarily have to alter the impression as these are different types of forms and the impression varies due to the amount of surface pressure required for each. I’ve found you will still be able to get a decent impression with type on a flat panel using the same amount of packing.

Gerald
http://BielerPress.blogspot.com

Thanks for all your help everyone, I’ll give it a go.

Also, I’m totally taking credit for the sister thread in General Discussion about my apparently abhorrent lexicon.