Old School Workflow Mysteries

[robbg439]

Let me start by asking your forgiveness. I am pretty much a complete newbie to offset printing, so pardon any ignorance you might encounter as you so graciously read this post.

A family friend ran a tiny offset shop out of his home from the 80's until his untimely death in 2004. The equipment sat idle in his shop until a week ago.

I'm a book designer and printmaker (albeit intaglio and silkscreen) who's had dreams of getting into offset production. So I convinced the widow of the owner to let me inherit the equipment and resurrect it to working order. Now I'm playing detective and trying to figure out how to get the equipment up and running again, without manuals.

The press is a hamada 611 ECD 1-color 320 x 450mm with a crestline dampening system. There's an Agfa Repromaster 500 vertical process camera. And then there's the mysterious "3M 1142 FP". I assume FP stands for Film Processor, but I can't find any information about this particular piece of equipment on the internet. It seems 3M divested their prepress equip. department to Imation, who in turn completely phased it out. I think he was working with Silvermaster plates and processing them in this machine, because there is a note on it which seems to record when the silvermaster chemicals were changed. These chemicals were left in the machine, and have completely dried out. Any suggestions as to how to safely clean it?

So thats what I know. Can I assume that he was exposing the silvermaster plates right on the process camera using opaque paste-ups and then processing them in the film processor? Any help, advice, words of wisdom, etc. would be greatly appreciated, both by me and the ghost of printer past.

 

[Captweez]

The 3M machine is probably what was used to process the Silvermaster plates. I can't tell you much about the camera, because I've never worked with that kind of a system, but I can tell you a tiny bit about the film processor.

If you take off the cover there should be three tanks. The one closest to the part where you put in the film is the bath of Silvermaster Activator, the middle bath is for Silvermaster Stabilizer, and the Last bath is for plain water.

There is a chemical that can be used to soak your processor overnight (or a couple nights) that will probably help to clean things up. Be sure to give the rollers a good cleaning. If there are dried chemicals on them, it will scratch the plates.

Also be warned, it sounds like the equipment is quite basic and antiquated. Don't want to discourage you, just want to give you a realistic assessment of the situation.

You will need help. I don't have alot of experience in the pressroom, but I can't predict any good results from trying to teach yourself how to operate an offset press with no instruction.

 

[Al Ferrari]

Captweez is right that you will need some help, and it's not efficient to try to figure all this out by yourself. Are there junior or community colleges near you that might have a graphic arts curriculum? Also try trade high schools:

trade high schools - Google Search

Al

 

[sveibl]

Have you found any negitives taped to yellow sheets of paper?

Are there any plates still on press? If so is it Metal or Paper?

 

[Tommy B]

Silvermaster

Silvermaster

Hi

The Agfa is a darkroom camera that could produce a silvermaster plate by using a product known as BFIII which has been discontinued. This camera is not a good unit to work with. My Advice ditch the camera and processor, and before you go to the expense of building a darkroom buy a refurb HP5100 and laser plates, you life will be much easier.

Tom