Adana 8 x 5 – Rollers & Inking

Hi all

I’ve been having an interesting inking/roller situation on the Adana 8 x 5 and would be grateful for some insider knowledge…

Every impression the rollers travel up the press and onto the ink disk. While the upper roller performs a full rotation, the lower one does not, with the result that a strip of roller remains uninked.

To combat this I rotate the rollers by a quarter-turn when the press in open and the rollers are at the bottom of their journey. Since I often ink a forme twice before taking an impression, this also has the effect of avoiding any ghosting as a fresh layer on ink is transferred on the second pass. Without manually turning the rollers the same area rolls over the forme and removes some of the the ink it has just laid down so the quarter-turn seems to be a good idea.

Is this an issue that others have encountered? Are my rollers correctly set up and can anyone shed any light on the problem?

A couple of other points: I’ve had the roller hangers in other orientations, but the same issue occurs. I’ve also noticed that the lower roller does not quite hit the bottom of the ink disk. I’ve taped the rails (that’s the black & white spots you can see) in order to raise the rollers a little, but it’s not so much as to mean that the rotation starts that much later.

Note – the rollers shown in the attached pictures are old ones. I’ve recently replaced them, but the problem persists…

Many thanks for any advice you can give!

image: Anada-Inking-4.jpg

Anada-Inking-4.jpg

image: Anada-Inking-3.jpg

Anada-Inking-3.jpg

image: Anada-Inking-2.jpg

Anada-Inking-2.jpg

image: Anada-Inking-1.jpg

Anada-Inking-1.jpg

image: Adana_InkIssue-460px.jpg

Adana_InkIssue-460px.jpg

Log in to reply   3 replies so far

just a guess but i think if the roller hooks were facing the other direction it might solve your problem.

I agree. Turn the roller hooks inward.

Daniel Morris
The Arm Letterpress
Brooklyn, NY

Thanks guys – I’ll give that a go!
P