Magenta blinding on silvermaster - stumped

[CostaRicaPrinter]

Hello Aaron,

Funny you should mention the SLM solution! Just today I was asking around, and was offered that as an alternative. HOWEVER - I am not using Mitsubishi plates, but the Agfa plates. Do both types of silvermaster plates work similarly? I believe that they are not compatible for the platemakers. But if I can used the SLM on my Agfa plates, I'll give it a try. The only problem is that they want almost $30 a quart for it here in Costa Rica! Yikes.

Please advise.

Bill Green

[Asures]

It really doesn't matter what black surface polyester plate you use. The concept and non-image area surface is the same.

As for the $30.00 a quart, that sounds about right in price. You are only going to add 1/4 - 1/2 and oz. to a mixed gallon for fountain solution. Worst case scenerario, 1 quart of the "Magic Potion" that has the potential to cure and eliminate every problem you can imagine with that plate (I'm probably over exaggurating just a bit) can be diluted with 64 gallons of diluted fountain solution.

$30.00 investment or rerunning jobs because quality has been compromised?

You may be dealing with a Miami distributor in purchasing your plate material. They might have better access to the SLM Ao2 product than Sommerus and or Serfgrafic. I am familiar with your market and who the local suppliers are and would suprised if either carried it locally.

There is a similar product also available from Prisco. Their product is Prisco SMA - Silvermaster additive. See the attached link for their item code/product description. I know they have an office in Miami.

http://www.prisco.com/content/librar...12_usa_pbp.pdf
Best of Luck!

[Green Printer]

Get in contact with bestchemsupply ask for the universal fountain solution. I have seen this used on ABDICK, Hamada, Ryobi, Sakurai, Heidelberg, Solna,Meihle, Didde, Hamilton, Shinohara and many other presses running poly plates at 175 line screen and getting up to 50,000 plate life. No hand prewetting. On 1 or 2 color jobs the second sheet is good on 4 color the 5th or 6th. I would suggest using the complete system of fountain solution and ink for the best results. These products were engineered to work together. This link gives a users view BESTCHEM+SUPPLY customers benefit from Habitat Products - WhatTheyThink.

A problem free user.

[BillJ]

The century 3000 is not the same as the 9985/3302. It has a larger ink train and a motorized dampener that was designed by AB Dick. If properly set up it can out print the 9985 as far as coverage and screening. The dampeners are very sensitive and takes some skill and patience to stripe. The water rollers also only last 1-2 years. They can still be striped but will not carry water correctly.

OA2 will probably help. It has fine silica particles which creates an artificial grain on the plate. Mitsubishi also makes a fountain solution called OD-50 that works very well in continuous dampeners. If you look at the price it looks very expensive, but it is very concentrated. Usual mix is 1.5 oz/gallon.

[Dan Roll]

You mentioned that reducing your ink helped and this has always been my observation when working with silver-halide image plates, that often the image area is not adequately ink-attractive to run reliably on small presses unless the ink is somewhat liquid. Whenever there is trouble with this type of plate people usually focus on the background (like adding amorphous silica to the fountain solution) but adding some linseed oil or chinawood oil to the ink usually helps a lot with screens and solids and I have seen this approach lead to making it much easier to keep the background clean.

[CostaRicaPrinter]

Hello all - lots of good comments! My ink provider recommended linseed oil as well, so that will probably be a help. And I'm trying to find the availability of the other solutions mentioned.

We finished our run, and are now varnishing and binding, so it's going to be a little while before I run magenta again. I appreciate all the input! I feel much better armed.

And just a plug for the homely AB Dick Century 3000 - everyone says it's a terrible press and you can't print with it, but there are Century's out there with many millions of copies (like mine) doing some pretty fine work. Great screen quality, great registration - just finicky on the magenta silvermasters!!! But we are going to get that fixed too. Thanks for all the help!

Bill G.

[CostaRicaPrinter]

Hello Aaron,

I just re-read the posts. It sounds like you know Costa Rica! We have a perennial problem with supplies - very limited. But I am on the "look-out" now, and am better informed of what I need.

I'm grateful to all who have given such expert advice!

Bill G.

[CostaRicaPrinter]

Hello all,

Here's an update. We are using small amounts of the solution SLM-Ao2, and we have softened the magenta ink with linseed oil. We have done many runs now of some really heavy magenta and some fine screens. No plugging! In fact, we are running with virtually no alcohol also. So between softening the ink and using the SLM-Ao2, we are in business!

Thanks everyone for the good ideas!

Bill G.