never seen this inking problem
Hi everyone, im here beg for help. I’m trying to break in my golding no.1 and I have hit a wall. see pic attached.
printing from boxcar base, rollers are rubber - and theyre not flat on any side. 10 pt. oil based ink. zerkall book paper 100lb. form is roughly 2×4 inches
No matter the packing or ink adjustment, I just cant get it right. Previously I’ve printed very succesfully on vandercooks and C&Ps - but Ive never had these problems.
im suspecting its an issue with my lockup, oddly enough, as it’s kind of adhoc. The chase also tips slightly back as its printing. the other half of this page is okayish.
might be kind of hard to see in the photo, but the text is blown out from the middle of the letters - white on the inside, mega overinked looking on the outside.
I suspect your lockup; the chase should never move. That is not OK. If your furniture and lockup are bowed, that may be the problem. Make sure your lockup is absolutely flat. Use a sheet of marble or a cutter bed if nothing else for a flat lockup. Replace your furniture if need be, or flip some of it over to see if that helps.
When you washup your press make sure there is no oily residue left over. That can really screw up your ink. Been there done that.
Good luck, Bruce
The chase should not rock, are you using a Golding Pearl 1 chase? It should be sloping top and bottom to sit on the lugs at the bottom of the bed and the latch holding it in tight at the top. This needs fixing first.
Looks like slurring from too much roller pressure and sliding, to my eyes. So, the form/ink rollers are contacting too hard and rolling ‘faster’ than they should, causing the ink to be rubbed across the surface rather than ‘kissed off’ by actual contact.
If this is true, the ‘raised’ or higher parts of the form would be the issue, while low parts of the form wouldn’t be a problem.
The reason you get the ink on the edges is the roller is sort of pushing it across the surface and causing it to collect on the edges of the face, on the shoulder- and the paper is then pulling that off during the impression.
@bppayne - Ive taken a moment to inspect the chase and it appears to not be totally flat. It has a repair, so I shouldve suspected that it’d be a problem. Is there a way I might be able to flatten it?
@platenprinter yes it’s a golding no.1 chase, but there have been repairs. I have one that has been brazed and one that is in two pieces. There isn’t a latch, more just a piece of metal that is supposed to hold it tight - I always wondered why the C&P had such a sturdy hook and I guess now I know. The rocking is ameliorated by rigid tape holding the chase in.
@HavenPress, thank you I think that’s whats going on, that visualization makes a lot of sense to me.
The chase needs to be absolutely flat; I would be looking for a replacement chase, and/or visiting a machine shop I trusted to fix the prior repair,
I’m not that familiar with the Golding, but it should have a latch to keep it secure, sans tape.
A repaired chase indicates that the lock up is being over tightened. Over tightening will often cause the chase to rock.
You’re printing from a base. Is the base planed down in the chase? seems as if one side could be sitting up due to your lockup and cause this problem, inking issues as I described seem indicative of that to me.
It might be interesting one day to put the chase, entirely empty, on a piece of plate glass, the kind called float glass can be trusted especially, and see if your actual chase rocks at all.
I’ve known some that did especially antique cast or wrought iron ones.
I’ve never had experience in straightening a plate however if I were you before getting a new one, and given that the variance in pressure is always the same, it might be worth trying to taping butter paper on the back of the plate on the area where it isn’t getting enough ink, keep adding until it becomes consistent with the rest of the print. If it gets properly inked then until you get a new one you can manage with that, not the best fix but better than having no consistency in the print at all.
Shadi Ayoub
the961collecitve