Mixing of special colours in an ink kitchen

[Printus]

We must very often mix special inks for new artworks. Unfortunately it is not possible to take the ink, e.g. Pantone, out of the box, because the sheets were laminated after printing. During this the colour may change caused by the heat. So we have to mix against this change of colour.
The testing and mixing of ink, combined with sample lamination, costs a lot of time. So we plan to mix the inks in the future in an ink kitchen.

Who has experiences with such a kitchen?
What equipment is necessary?
Are there complete systems available or single components?
Who produces such machines or equipment?

A lot of questions - and I'm only at the beginning of my investigation. Please help me.

Thanks very much for your kind assistance in advance.

Printus

 

[chad.trent]

We do this quite often. We read the color with a photospectrometer and send those readings to our ink supplier. They provide us with a formula to mix the ink to. Sometimes we have to tweak it a little, but usually it's right on.

We are water based flexo, and we get our ink from Poteet. But I think they only do flexo ink, so they may not be of much help to you.

I know Sun Chemical produces such equipment for offset (I'm sure there are others). I would contact them to get started.

 

[reparan]

Ask resaler of X-Rite equipment or your ink supplier for InkFormulation software. In combination with spectrometer and proper color database for that software (ink suppliers usualy have ready for X-Rite InkFormulation). Software it self cost from 5000 € for offset up to 9000 € for flexo + Spectro 4000 € (eXact Standard spectrometer). Some ink suppliers gives, so called OnLine version, where you need only spectrodevice, but software is working as web aplication, conneted on server of ink supplier.
Second, for precise color matching you need color proofer, small lab device to make print for measurements.