Does offset ink go bad?

[Disappointed]

As title really, is there a shelf-life for offset inks?

In particular, waterless inks.

Still in sealed tins of course.

 

[Cornishpastythighs]

I would think everything has some sort of shelve life. UV inks and Metallic's have the shortest depending on how and where they are stored. If the ink is stored sealed at room temperature it should last quite a while.
When you come to use the ink and if you have an issue I doubt whether the ink company will honour any claims if it's more than say 6 months old.

 

[Disappointed]

Thanks, I have a feeling its off.

Here's the story...

We were having issues with inks, the press supplier teamed up with Van-Son and between all of us, came up with a set of decent inks. They had a batch made with a view to rolling it out to lots of press users, this seems to have failed and AFIK we are the only users.

This was maybe 1-1\2 to 2 years ago so we are using stock from somewhere in that range, no more has been made.

I have noticed over the last 6m or so that it has needed tack reducer adding to the black and more recently to the magenta and cyan to prevent severe picking.

Today it will not run at all without ripping snow off the paper (uncoated) so we gave up and I'm waiting phone call returns while typing

I have a feeling it has started to set in the tins. i.e. the batch is dead now.

Trouble is, being waterless, there is practically no other choice, very annoying.

 

[F.I.ImGoingFishing]

We used to suffer similar issues with modified oil base inks that were opened then resealed for 4 months or better, mostly those containing high proportions of reflex blue in the mix this included pur Reflex bLue. We came to the conclusion that there was some sort of separation issue as we could scoop the majority of the can out mix well and issues would be resolved.