New guy, AB Dick 360 question(s)

W

washingtonmike

Member
Good morning: Name is Michael in Iowa, a hobby letterpress printer and moving into offset with an AB Dick 360CD. Had my first successful(?) press run yesterday with Baseline poly plates and HP 5000; this about the fourth or fifth attempt. Many of the usual newbie problems; plate coming off during the run (ink all over the place including impression cylinder which was a b**** to get to and clean), too much/not enough ink, too much/not enough water, etc. Finally, on the last run got a decent (not perfect) impression but plate is picking up a lot of ink outside the image area, ergo transferring to blanket as well. I've been pretty careful about etching only the image part of the plate without much overlap but don't think that's the problem anyway. Going thru Kimwipes like gangbusters. Any suggestions?
 
Sounds like you need to start reading manuals and there is alot to read on the internet.. Remember google is your friend.. Just need to understand your machine and implement improvements in each segment of the printing process.

I don't have experience running an Ab Dick but I imagine its really all the same with other brands. Need to understand ink setting and Ink/water settings..

Good luck
 
Is the top roller chrome and it rides on a water pan roller in which both the pan roller and the chrome roller do not ink up? I believe AB Dick called this the super aqua. The chrome roller will come in contact with the top oscillator roller only for a small portion of the revolution. If so that is half your war. That damp system sucks. You need to run 25 percent alcohol with probably 15 oz of pink fountain per gallon of water. That means 24 oz of pre mix fountain then 6 oz of alcohol added. The chrome roller can not get ink on it or it wont work correctly. Best is to wet plate with a cotton pad, Turn on press. Lower chrome roller onto pan roller slowly then drop forms to plate. When you shut off press you need to raise forms, then raise the chrome roller off of pan roller. Can you post a pic of the damp system?
 
No. mine has the standard aquamatic with copper roller. I'm not doing something right in the startup procedure I think but going by how I understand the book. My final (4th) run today I did end up with a clean plate but for the image area but the blanket had a lot of ink outside the image area and I can't figure out why. Thanks for the help.
 
RGPW17100 said:
Is the top roller chrome and it rides on a water pan roller in which both the pan roller and the chrome roller do not ink up? I believe AB Dick called this the super aqua. The chrome roller will come in contact with the top oscillator roller only for a small portion of the revolution. If so that is half your war. That damp system sucks. You need to run 25 percent alcohol with probably 15 oz of pink fountain per gallon of water. That means 24 oz of pre mix fountain then 6 oz of alcohol added. The chrome roller can not get ink on it or it wont work correctly. Best is to wet plate with a cotton pad, Turn on press. Lower chrome roller onto pan roller slowly then drop forms to plate. When you shut off press you need to raise forms, then raise the chrome roller off of pan roller. Can you post a pic of the damp system?
Click to expand...

man that sounds like a headache! i have zero experience with this press so can offer no help.. just some encouragement! If you can sort out these types of probs eventually you will be able to get around anything a press can.. and will, throw at you !!
 
That is the original damp system probably from the late 1970s. They were primarily designed to run rubber base inks and electrostatic plates. Sounds like you are describing picture framing and I doubt you will be able to avoid this with that damp system. That was a duplicator and was not designed to do much for quality. Check with your ink manuafacture and see if they have a water fighting compound you can add to the ink. It might help. You want to get your tack up to around 20. Aqua varnish might help. My guess is you will do okay with black ink but when you start going into the PMS colors you are going to struggle. Compac or dalgren might make a damp system for that machine but it will cost thousands of dollars and with only 9 rollers in the roller train you are still pretty limited to what you will be able to do with that machine.
 
GazKL440 said:
man that sounds like a headache! i have zero experience with this press so can offer no help.. just some encouragement! If you can sort out these types of probs eventually you will be able to get around anything a press can.. and will, throw at you !!
Click to expand...

Running these old duplicators especially with a Thead on the back is challeging. There are times I think these guys should be making the big bucks instead of the SM 74 and bigger machine operators. The risk is not as high but the talent level is. Remember the old days with moliten covers when this was an art.
 
RGPW17100 said:
Running these old duplicators especially with a Thead on the back is challeging. There are times I think these guys should be making the big bucks instead of the SM 74 and bigger machine operators. The risk is not as high but the talent level is. Remember the old days with moliten covers when this was an art.
Click to expand...

Totally agreed! Today I run a semi automatic 40inch that i can make ready and be running a new job at 15000sph in under 15mins including stock size type and weight changes etc etc.. lat week i ran an older 26 inch 5 col komori that was easy enough but still required manual plate cocking and profiling, and an old GTO52 that was a pleasure to print with but it made me consider how i am paid roughly double now what i was when running single colour GTOs etc yet probably had to think more about what i am doing then than now! Yes, sewing and setting molleton dampers(i still have my needle and thread!) and setting the nips juuuust right to get a clean print(clear base and feel the drag), mixing PMS colours(sans scales!! a lost art now methinks!) and getting perfect density with one pull and 20 sheets just by knowing damn well what your sweep and keys would need to b before you even ran it up(you would often get say a 32 run 1or2 col bus card and get 40 run sheets!!) The touch and thought required to run a small press is often far more required than that to run a large format high speed press.. that sadly has little of the character of an old girl with handles and no console! I guess the difference is that screwng up a 32 run bus card costs very little in comparison to screwing up 100000 sheets of high end gloss etc!
 
Last edited:
re A B Dick press

re A B Dick press

Hello some information that you might find of use

2 PDFs

Regards, Alois
 

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[email protected] said:
This forum is geared more towards sales of product rather than help with questions like yours. Companies like Presstek that advertise here wish that AB Dick would go away so they can sell you a Ryobi or a DI copier.
Try "PrintCities"Printing Equipment Marketplace--New and Used Printing Equipment, or Digitalprintplanet.com for more help.
The 360 is a great machine but the toner tots could never operate one.
OG
Click to expand...

And your comment is geared toward _______???
 
thanks for asking

thanks for asking

My comments are geared toward helping this user that has a AB Dick 360. A machine that still runs strong and produces a nice income for many printers, as does the 9800 series and the 9910. Printcities has an excellent forum with great tech help geared towards Offset printing rather than Pre Press and Digital copiers.
I have no affiliation here or there but I like to help to people and present the plain truth as I know it!
This forum is great but it is supported by paid advertisers correct? I see and hear the problems every day of the various machines and their problems with performance and service so I feel confident I know what I am saying.

Keep up the great work , I recommend this forum to others also.

Offset Guy
 
problem on its way to a solution

problem on its way to a solution

Many thanks for the informative replies. I've been recently advised by a professional printer whom I know and he's apparently nailed the problem on its head(s). Seems that by etching the plate OFF the press then mounting it and running the press for a short period without inking is the key to the problem. His suspicion was that the plate was not sufficiently wet before starting the ink/image run. That seemed to take care of the plate/blanket loading up with ink and I've since then bought a plate punch which should arrive this week; that will eliminate the plates pulling off the main cylinder.


Hopefully I'm headed in the right direction. Michael
 
So you are running paper poly plates? If so even with the punch you will see stretching in the clamp area. Man this brings back the good old days. Two ways we used to do this was to use spray mount on the back of the plates. The other way was to ink up the plate cylinder and then put the plate on it. Silvermaster type plates will need etching as you mentioned for the best results. You can mount the plate then etch then wipe with fountain solution then drop forms. SLMOH was the product from silvermaster. Not sure what the megalith name was for it.
 
poly plates

poly plates

Yes, Baseline poly plates. I'm going to start reinforcing the head and tail, hope that will help some. There's a video on u-tube showing guy running a press and he occasionally puts a couple of squirts of something on what I think might be the plate cylinder while the press is running. I'm wondering if that's not fountain solution? Cheers, Michael
 
You can tape the gripper edge then punch. Kind of a pain. No need to do so on short runs but on longer runs it might help.
 
Do these AB Dick 360's have a manual? Anybody got one in PDF? I too snagged those two PDF's from Alois. Thanks alot!
We've got a 360 sitting in our basement untouched. I'd like to learn how to run it. We've also got an electrostatic platemaker. They look like they go together.

Naively optimistic beginner alert!
 
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