I am still learning!
I got my letterpress training at a vocational high school which did 90% of the printing for the school system.
Thought they taught me well in the art of printing. But, 50 years later, it hit me, like a V8 commercial on TV.
Your inking problems are due to poor training. At the school we printed long runs of 10,000 to 50,000 sheets so we would fill the ink fountain with a lot of black ink and it did the trick.
The printers teaching us, didn’t care about teaching us the correct amount of coverage, it was more get the job done in those days.
I had a job of 100 cards with one line, the person name in 18 point to print. It was a open face fonts and in the pass the font would fill in after two impressions.
I thought before starting, there has to a better way. And, it hit me, just put a little dab on black ink on the inking plate and smooth it out before running the ink rollers.
The job turned out GREAT and no filled in type.
The answer to good workmanship, is having a good teacher train you in letterpress printing.
What a great story! I’m just learning now, so it’s nice to know that simple thinking about the problems can lead to solutions. Thanks for sharing!
Yup. Same rule for mixing colors applies to ink. It’s easier to make a color darker than lighter, and it’s easier to add more ink than to take it away.