Category: Letterpress for beginners
Later topic: Some questions about letterpress
Earlier topic: Photo-polymer Plate Washout brush

‘Fat’ text when trying to print

Wonder if anybody can help. I was printing fine yesterday (well other impression problems which I won’t go into here), I used the same type you see in the picture for the ‘ANDREW AREOFF’ bit but used new type for the ‘With the compliment of’.

On the previous job the ‘ANDREW AREOFF’ bit printed fine but now the lettering gets ‘fatter’ towards the bottom.

Why might this be?

Same ink, same roller height, same packing.

But lettering completely different and not at all nice.

Using an Adana 8 x 5.

image: The 'fat' lettering in 'ANDREW AREOFF'

The 'fat' lettering in 'ANDREW AREOFF'

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If it’s lead type, and you overpacked (too much of the material behind your paper that is being printed), it could be that you flattened the type a bit at the bottom and didn’t notice yesterday- take a look at the type and see if it gets wider and mirrors the print. You need to see it ‘inked up’ and look closely.
But that would usually also include a bit of lightness or under-inking there, and if the distortion is ONLY happening on the paper, I’d say it’s the packing in the press that is causing this problem- too much or too little or imbalanced or not properly made ready.
This would usually be at the bottom of the chase as that is the strongest point of impression on platens like yours.

Another thought- Perhaps you need to balance your platen? Is it level? That would mean it was suddenly putting too much pressure at the bottom, causing ink spread and impression that can smash the type.
Look up balancing platen on a tabletop press, there are extensive threads on the subject, shouldn’t be gone into here but you can find the information.

Thanks HavenPress for all this information. I will have a look all all these things.

I did wonder if I had too little packing (only about 5 sheets of 100gsm paper) and that I’d progressively flattened the type over the previous run because it was hitting the platen.

If your platen is adjusted correctly, too little packing wouldn’t cause you to hit the platen, it would cause you to print with not enough pressure. Too much packing, especially too much soft packing, will smash type.

^ this.