Ink distribution on Windmill

catherinepolacek
on 10 Mar 14 (16:42)

I’ve recently come across the issue of ink not distributing evenly across the rollers and the drum on my windmill.

The form that I’m printing is far over to the right hand side of the press but the press seems to call for more and more ink more frequently than I’m used to. (I have been adding more ink every 50 or so impressions).

The rollers all seem to be in contact with each other (and with the drum) so I can’t quite figure out why the ink would be having such trouble distributing evenly.

Any ideas? Thanks so much!

dicharry
on 10 Mar 14 (16:47)

Are you using the fountain or just putting ink directly onto the main drum?

catherinepolacek
on 10 Mar 14 (17:07)

Hey Brad -

Just adding it directly to the drum.

Thanks so much for your response!

mikefrommontana
on 10 Mar 14 (20:12)

If you are running something with decent coverage with runs over 150 pieces, it’s worth your while to spend the time putting the fountain to work. A properly set fountain will reduce ink consumption, speed drying, and yield a more consistent product.

One important detail is to run the fountain ball at full travel (6-8). That applies a thinner ink load to the ink train and reduces the likelihood of “piling on” the ink, which will create all sorts of problems with set off, squeeze out, etc…..

danielheff
on 10 Mar 14 (21:12)

A related note:
Does anybody know why sometime I’ll get light inking on every 3rd or 4th print? The impression is equal to every other print but it’s clear that there wasn’t enough ink applied to the plate. And this is not “ghosting”, it happens on even very small forms.

mikefrommontana
on 11 Mar 14 (14:12)

You probably have a bad roller, though it could be the bearings if your press is equipped with ball bearing on the rollers. Still, the fact that the “light” sheet occurs regularly would indicate that the bad (probably flat) roller is cycling around enough to show up at that frequency..

danielheff
on 11 Mar 14 (22:57)

Hmm. The rollers are brand new and are the runners. I can’t see any light passing under when I roll them on a flat surface. If just one of the rollers had a flat spot wouldn’t the other roller still put some ink down on the plate?