Windmill inking issue

pressure not on for top position steel roller. these are spring loaded and put pressure on rollers when engaged. Your pic show them not being used.

You are correct, and I picked that up and put them on. Didn’t change anything. I then pressed on them while it was inking and that did it. So is there a way to increase the downward pressure, or has the roller shrunk such that the standard pressure isn’t enough?

Have the ends of your rollers swelled? You can try switching the rollers around to see if you have one particular roller that’s the culprit. If your roller is at the end of its life, you can take a razor blade and chamfer the edges, removing the swelled part. Its a last resort move, but it will allow you to keep using a bad roller for a while.

The rollers are at least 8 years old, so end of life is definitely a possibility. The ends on the 2 form rollers are definitely swollen a bit. It hasn’t hurt my inking for the most part. The inking rollers looked ok, but if the whole thing has shrunk, I guess that could do it too. I’ve noticed any time I use the fountain lately they don’t spin like they had previously. Now I’m seeing that I need to put additional pressure on them to spin.

Are they smooth and slippery? You might have a bad case of glazing as well. This also comes along with 8yr old rollers. If you have putz or another abrasive cleanup paste, its worth a try. If not just to see if you get some traction back.

Oddly, I’ve found the smoother one works better than the textured roller! I’ll putz it up and see if that helps.

Howdy,

It does seem like new rollers are in order.

Nevertheless,

1) I’m wondering how the ink has been added when not using the fountain… It is common to apply the ink to the metal top distributor roller (the one that flips up), and the ink is drawn onto the other rollers.

2) There is an extensive section in the manual for optimizing and aligning the distributor rollers for use with the fountain.