Category: Troubleshooting the press
Later topic: Trucks are rolling, rollers are not...help?
Earlier topic: Windmill Running and Autostop Problems

Flat or Out of Round Rollers

Hey all,

So we started to have some inking issues with out Pearl #1 and have discovered the one of our rollers has flat spot on it. The rollers are rubber from Rotadyne in MA and a little over a year old. Any thoughts on what could have caused this. We didnt have inking issues until recently (last month or so)

NMM

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Did you leave them on the ink disc when not in use?

We ussually take them out to clean them and store them upright until we go and print again. I can not say for certain that we didnt do that, but i dont think we did. Anyone have any thoughts on correcting it?

NMM

  • Geoffrey
  • on 25 Jan 12 (16:55)
  • Updated 25 Jan 12 (23:03)

For remedial action, and assuming the flat spot is not too bad, did you try lowering the rollers on the type/plate a little (or conversely, putting some paper behind the chase to raise the plate)? If the flat spot is minimal, you might be able to gain roller contact in the flat area without sacrificing too much of the quality of the inking in the other areas.

If that doesn’t work, and hopefully if the rollers are larger than the trucks, you might be able to send the rollers back and have them ground down to the point that the flat spot is gone. Even if only one roller is damaged, you should probably send both back and have them ground to the same size because it would be hard if not impossible to adjust for two different roller sizes on the press.

If neither of those approaches are feasible, you will probably have to have at least the one with the flat spot remade.

Some solvents will temporarily swell rubber, and in fact they make a solvent solution for temporarily swelling “smashed” places in offset press rubber blankets, when they have been damaged by paper jambs, etc. This is to enable a pressman to get through a job before changing a damaged blanket. However, I definitely DO NOT see this as a solution to your problem.