Pressmen and DMAXX

[curiosity]

Can I get feedback from a pressman's perspective?
I am not a pressman, but I know a few people that are (that's supposed to be racial sarcasm...haha?).
Anyway, cooperation and engagement on any project involving my pressmen is often hit & miss.
On this test, so far so good, but there remains a few things to be desired.
During these tests one concern is continually voiced by my pressmen...."she's singing" they say. And I can hear it too. That ink train hisses as densities increase.
On the press in question (sheetfed, 4c, 40" Komori), we run on average of 30 short run sets daily. Two passes.
So what negative impact might that have on our press if we adopt DMAXX as our standard?
And since I don't know the answer to that, and my pressmen are less than forthcoming too (or maybe they don't know either), can someone in this forum enlighten me?

 

[gordo]

The sound is most likely coming from ink splitting on the ink rollers. I can’t see how that could have a negative impact on your press.
Can you post micro photos of your halftone dots? Or at least confirm that there is no tailing/slinging?

 

[curiosity]

Yes, the sound is the ink splitting, and increases as density does. I know that. We ran SIDs as high as they could go before slinging/tailing. Print integrity is sound (no pun intended).
My pressmen show concern that it may not be practical to continually run at DMAXX. Why? IDK. And they don't specify. Of course they bring up the hissing as if it's a precursor of bad things to come. At least it seems that way to me.
But are there mechanical negatives, that could impact print integrity and/or the press itself, involved with DMAXX printing?

 

[gordo]

My pressmen show concern that it may not be practical to continually run at DMAXX. Why? IDK. And they don't specify. Of course they bring up the hissing as if it's a precursor of bad things to come. At least it seems that way to me.
But are there mechanical negatives, that could impact print integrity and/or the press itself, involved with DMAXX printing?

Pressmen are scaredy cats. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BS5S4XtAKB0)

Pressmen also tend to want to run minimum water and therefore minimum ink, As a result most presses are run below standard. They also may not be aware that the SIDs that they think are correct are measured dry not wet, so they probably should have been running about 10 points higher already so that the SIDs hit the standard after dryback.

If the press is running stable and not seeing issues like set off or slinging/tailing or press sheets sticking together then IMHO opinion you're good to go.

I din't know what SIDs you're running but you could always back off a bit until they're comfortable.

 

[turbotom1052]

Pressmen are scaredy cats. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BS5S4XtAKB0)

Pressmen also tend to want to run minimum water and therefore minimum ink, As a result most presses are run below standard. They also may not be aware that the SIDs that they think are correct are measured dry not wet, so they probably should have been running about 10 points higher already so that the SIDs hit the standard after dryback.

If the press is running stable and not seeing issues like set off or slinging/tailing or press sheets sticking together then IMHO opinion you're good to go.

I din't know what SIDs you're running but you could always back off a bit until they're comfortable.
[/QUOTE

The reason why pressman are scaredy cats is because its the pressman that is perceived to be at fault when printed jobs have problems. A press can only SAFELY (and I stress the word SAFELY) print whats on the plate. It often happens that management expects the pressman to compensate for poor pre press work. The good news is that there is a narrow window of safe opportunity to deviate from standard ink densities. The ability to safely deviate from these standards decreases, the further a pressman is forced to "make a job happen on press" In a printing companies quest to "make an image jump off the page" there is often the requirement to push more ink. This pushing of more ink comes at a price. The effects are numerous when pushing the safe window of ink densities. The first think that will be noticed is that in order to push more ink the pressman is forced to run more water. This running of more ink and water creates, in a very short time, emulsion instabilities that have a direct effect on color variations. The higher densities also create a scenario where setoff becomes a concern. This setoff will usually happen in areas of high total ink densities. That super dense rich black that many customers love to see often exceed industry accepted standards. When the ink rollers begin to sing, and your scaredy cat pressman point it out, its not because they dont want to give the customer or the boss what they want, its because they KNOW that when the inevitable quality control issues occur that he or she will be held responsible.
I can say with absolute certainty that the companies that ive worked for that show a strict adherence to regular calibrations of the entire process, have shown to be able to have the least press problems. I can also say with the same certainty that I as a pressman, feel much less stressed and worried about the issues I mentioned above ,when ive got confidence that things are as they should be. I fully get, that there are pressman out there that run scared even when presented with all the best tools, but I attribute that more to the companies that either look to hire incompetent press crews, or to rushing the work through and not allowing the needed time for the process to work properly. Then of course there are the companies that are always trying to produce a silk purse from a pigs ear. Crap in USUALLY results in crap out. Give your press crews quality tools to work with and you will have a much better chance of quality work coming out of the delivery.

 

[Alois Senefelder]

Hello fellow Lithographers,


The "gentle whisper " of sound from the roller train denotes the correct Inking level , hissing equals Inking Over load !


Regards, Alois,

 

[Alois Senefelder]

Hello fellow Lithographers,


Part Two

 

[cementary]

Hello fellow Lithographers,


The "gentle whisper " of sound from the roller train denotes the correct Inking level , hissing equals Inking Over load !


Regards, Alois,

Hissing or whisper it depends on lots of things. Not to mention the age. The older you are - the lesser frequency range you hear.
So it depends.
Jokes aside

 

[curiosity]

Turbotom,

Thanks for your perspective.
Our press problems tend to be mechanical (due to wear and tear) and print integrity tends to be good overall. Our processes are well-controlled, timely and calibrated.
I should have said that I anticipated the potential for over-emulsification. However, I wonder if that can be controlled and/or kept at bay, so to speak?
Do you think it's possible to run 30, two pass runs daily at DMAXX? Or more realistically run only a fraction of the work at DMAXX?

If anyone knows of anyone that actually runs DMAXX daily, that person's perspective would be most appreciated.
Meanwhile, the feedback you all have offered is very helpful.

 

[gordo]

If anyone knows of anyone that actually runs DMAXX daily, that person's perspective would be most appreciated.

Don't hold your breath.

The vast majority of printshops prefer to compete for business by beating themselves up on price - i.e. cross one's fingers and hope the quote is lower than their competition's.
They have no concept of what quality actually means. No concept of marketing. No understanding of their customers.
No desire to differentiate themselves from their competition (except for price). No desire to do anything different than what they've always done.
No interest in extracting the value potential from their hard and software investments.

Rant over.

BTW, I commend "curiosity" for even considering DMaxx.

 

[cementary]

The vast majority of printshops prefer to compete for business by beating themselves up on price - i.e. cross one's fingers and hope the quote is lower than their competition's.
They have no concept of what quality actually means. No concept of marketing. No understanding of their customers.
No desire to differentiate themselves from their competition (except for price). No desire to do anything different than what they've always done.
No interest in extracting the value potential from their hard and software investments.

Show me customers willing to pay for quality, understanding, difference and "value". It is open market - give you customers what they want.
Most of customers do not want DMAX, expanded gamut etc. Because their customers do not want that either.

 

[gordo]

Show me customers willing to pay for quality, understanding, difference and "value". It is open market - give you customers what they want.
Most of customers do not want DMAX, expanded gamut etc. Because their customers do not want that either.

How can print buyers ask for things they don't know exist?
It's not about customers paying more. It's about offering print buyers options in print characteristics to better meet their needs and differentiate your self on something other than just price.
Would you shop at a clothing store that only offered red clothes? Are you really giving your customers what they want if you only offer one service? If all the clothing stores only offered red clothes, would a store that offered blue clothes in addition to red stand out from the rest?
It's not that customers do not want DMaxx or expanded gamut. They don't know that these options exist nor the value they might have for their specific print jobs.
Perhaps the market segment that you operate in is strictly price driven as it seems you deal with an intermediary and not directly with the print buyer? Even there, if you can offer the intermediary more options than your competition it might allow that intermediary to expand their offerings to their clients and possible gain more market opportunities and more business for you.

 

[Lithocrafter]

A mechanical issue that results from continually over inking is "ink fly". You may see the inks misting on the underside of the guards and the inside of the unit....at first. If you carry on running like this daily like you intend then this will end up everywhere within the inner cavity of each unit. It will build up on the bottom of the ink ducts, over your bearings and journals, into worm gears etc. Wet on dry, layer upper layer. Eventually stalactites of crusty ink start forming which if left unchecked will go on to become a thousand hickeys someday. The mist of ink won't discriminate. It will slowly crust over components inside the unit that your printer wont be capable of fixing. You'll need an engineer.
To allow the ink to dominate the damp in you ink water balance from time to time is not much of a deal. But all the time is a problem and a problem that is being pass on to someone else. I'd be exploring other options.

 

[curiosity]

Lithocrafter,
Thank you for addressing my OP. Very, very much appreciated. I will share this with my pressmen and hopefully we'll discuss its projected ramifications.

 

[cementary]

Perhaps the market segment that you operate in is strictly price driven as it seems you deal with an intermediary and not directly with the print buyer? Even there, if you can offer the intermediary more options than your competition it might allow that intermediary to expand their offerings to their clients and possible gain more market opportunities and more business for you.

That's true, for sure. But. Some years ago we were into staccato implementation badly. Willing to print everything with it, market it to our customers. One of our main customers told us (after some orders printed with staccato) that "staccato is good, for sure, but we do not want that". Other big customer didn't even want to hear about that — "we need 175 lpi Elliptical, that's all". Those two customers are about 65% of our market. And they giving us a lot of orders.
Now, on the other hand we've stumbeled in the wall of "not understanding" from the higher management. But that's all another story...

 

[gordo]

That's true, for sure. But. Some years ago we were into staccato implementation badly. Willing to print everything with it, market it to our customers. One of our main customers told us (after some orders printed with staccato) that "staccato is good, for sure, but we do not want that". Other big customer didn't even want to hear about that — "we need 175 lpi Elliptical, that's all". Those two customers are about 65% of our market. And they giving us a lot of orders.
Now, on the other hand we've stumbeled in the wall of "not understanding" from the higher management. But that's all another story...

That's fine. If a customer specifically asks for a certain screening then you should give it to them...I mean, print the job according to their requirement.
My issue is with printers who think that a one size fits all approach is the way to do business and who, as a result, don't extract the maximum value potential of their equipment and human resources.

 

[turbotom1052]

Turbotom,

Thanks for your perspective.
Our press problems tend to be mechanical (due to wear and tear) and print integrity tends to be good overall. Our processes are well-controlled, timely and calibrated.
I should have said that I anticipated the potential for over-emulsification. However, I wonder if that can be controlled and/or kept at bay, so to speak?
Do you think it's possible to run 30, two pass runs daily at DMAXX? Or more realistically run only a fraction of the work at DMAXX?

If anyone knows of anyone that actually runs DMAXX daily, that person's perspective would be most appreciated.
Meanwhile, the feedback you all have offered is very helpful.

it doesn't matter much in my opinion if you call it DMAXX, or if you call it OVER inking. Regardless of how you define it the results will be the same. For you to ask how many jobs can be safely run with elevated ink densities I would say Zero. The reason I say zero is that there are far too many variables to be able to assign a number. Speaking in very general terms I will say this.... If your equipment is kept in good mechanical order, and manned by fully competent press crews then you've got a better chance. But even then, there are variables, that in my opinion MOST (and I stress the word most) office staff, and pre press staff can not anticipate. This is one of the main reasons that ive repeatedly on this forum, advocated for a dedicated and fully competent pressroom supervisor to be liaison between management, pre press staff and the guys actually doing the job of ink on paper. As mentioned in an earlier post on this thread by Gordo, the general consensus is similar to his, in that pressman are all afraid to run ink densities up. Very often pressman feel uncomfortable with elevated SIDs because they have a better understanding of when you can and when you cant get away with them high SIDS. It should be a companies expectation that pressman do know when the limits of safe running, but at the same time be willing to listen to these same guys even when its not exactly what they want to hear. For me to outline here all the variables would require far too much time, and an attention span for many readers thats likely to Peter out long before im done.
This is very reason that your press crews and supervisors for the most part are worth every dime they get paid.

 

[curiosity]

Thanks Turbo.
Although we are pretty tight overall, there continues to be rough spots when anyone (namely myself) suggest testing different approaches to printing. We can talk about it, but when a pressman says I wouldn't do it, but literally clams up when asked why, I feel that is less than desirable in a professional workplace. Then again, maybe their response is due to lack of knowledge...even with 30+ years of experience, which I find to be unfortunate. In unrelated queries, our pressmen have been invaluable to our overall printing process. And that is why I am reaching out to others. Regardless, the tests continue and the results are promising. I imagine that if we were to adopt some sort of extended gamut printing, our pressmen's day to day responsibilities would also require some adjustments.
Exactly what those are, I do not know. And again, that's why I'm asking.

If you have the patience in sharing any variables of which you hesitated to disclose originally, I assure you that your comments will be well received, and attentively!

 

[turbotom1052]

it doesn't matter much in my opinion if you call it DMAXX, or if you call it OVER inking. Regardless of how you define it the results will be the same. For you to ask how many jobs can be safely run with elevated ink densities I would say Zero. The reason I say zero is that there are far too many variables to be able to assign a number. Speaking in very general terms I will say this.... If your equipment is kept in good mechanical order, and manned by fully competent press crews, and have a pre press dept that will actually listen to the pressroom, then you've got a better chance. But even then, there are variables, that in my opinion MOST (and I stress the word most) office staff, and pre press staff can not anticipate. This is one of the main reasons that ive repeatedly on this forum, advocated for a dedicated and fully competent pressroom supervisor to be liaison between management, pre press staff and the guys actually doing the job of ink on paper. As mentioned in an earlier post on this thread by Gordo, the general consensus is similar to his, in that pressman are all afraid to run ink densities up. Very often pressman feel uncomfortable with elevated SIDs because they have a better understanding of when you can, and when you cant get away with those high SIDS. It should be a companies expectation that pressman do know when the limits of safe running, but at the same time be willing to listen to these same guys even when its not exactly what they want to hear. For me to outline here all the variables would require far too much time, and an attention span for many readers thats likely to Peter out long before im done. If you really want the list then I suggest that your staff your pressroom wisely and listen to them. If your a company that refuses to listen to the lowly press operators then you could always pay me a consulting fee, but I can tell you the crash course is going to take more than a week!!!

 

[Deleted member 16349]

Interesting topic. When I was involved in offset packaging printing at Tetra Pak, about 30 years ago, running higher densities was quite common. We had target densities but customers tended to want more pop and densities were run higher. I suspect packaging printing has never been too worried about pushing densities to get a specific look in the product.

In the discussions, there are comments about problems with running higher densities. I am sure there are issues but if it is partially a matter of control, then I wonder if anyone has experience with running higher densities on a press that has inpress density control technology? It would be interesting if there were some comments from them. I won't bother to comment on the positive ink feed potential.

Higher densities with respect to Dmaxx imply printing a thicker ink film. So there is a concern about printing thicker ink films. Just a thought. Newspaper presses run with lower strength inks and due to their speed, they also tend to run lower viscosity inks. Therefore they run with higher ink films than commercial presses for an almost similar print density. They do it everyday. Maybe the positive ink feeds on some of these presses help.