Image of the Day: The End of an Era

After 31 year at Penn State, Ron Wance cleans the press for the final time.

SORM

After 34 years, the offset press Heidelberg SORM at Penn State Multimedia & Print Center was retired. Acquired on May 14, 1979, she was a single color press, and had made 83,755,238 impressions by June 19th, 2013. The last job run was a publication for the Pennsylvania Junior Academy of Science (PJAS) held at Penn State. If you look closely on some of the photos, you can see one of the plates for that job was still hung on the press.

We salvaged some parts to use on our Heidelberg Z-press, and what remained was taken to Lion Surplus, Penn State’s surplus and salvage, to be sold.

Below are some photos I took while she was waiting quietly amid the busy sounds of the other presses and bindery equipment.

Image of the Day: The Printers Sink

Sink in our offset area splattered with Gojo cleaner
used to wash off the offset inks 

Image of the Day: Bad Plate

I love the texture left by the wash-up of the plate.

Gas Ghosting

via  thegraphicgroup

“Gas ghosting, also known as gloss ghosting, is the transfer of a printed image from the front of one sheet to the back of another. The transfer is caused by a chemical reaction when vapors from ink drying on one side of the press sheet interacts chemically with dry ink or paper coating on the other side of the sheet. Gas ghosting can also result when the ink drying on the second side is accelerated or retarded by fumes given off by ink on the first side. The problem is typically solved by changing the chemical properties of one of the variables in the process.”

I recently experienced this ghosting at work. Here are the specs:
Final size 8"x8" booklet cover
Printed two out
Sheet size 20"x28"
100# Productolith Dull Cover
Work and Turn
PMS 877 [Silver], PMS 295 [Dark Blue], flood dull varnish
Printed on Heidelberg SORZ
Wet trapped

The photo shows the gas ghosting of the lion shrine statue [it appears almost like a negative on the solid dark blue area]. It showed up predominantly only one side of the printed sheet. Next year, we plan on printing PMS 877 silver first, let it dry a few days, then come back with PMS 295 [dry trapping]; after that dries, run the varnish. This would be a very cool technique to do on purpose; I wonder if anyone has created a gas ghost intentionally on a printed piece?

More on ghosting can be found on Gordon Pritchard’s blog, “Quality in Print,” here and here.

Ghosting: Mechanical Ghosts

via printersting


“A printing ghost is an unwanted image resulting from the printing system itself. There are basically two kinds: mechanical and chemical. Mechanical ghosts are usually visible as soon as the press sheet lands in the delivery section of the press. There are three types of mechanical ghosts: starvation, blanket, and plate.”


Read the rest of the post here. Part Two on Chemical Ghosts can be found here.