Printer advise needed & Hello!

[Geoff Vane]

Hello I’m Geoff and I’m new here.
I probably have posted this in the wrong section but I'm a total n00b.
I’m researching for an artist to find the ideal printer for a certain process.
The artist wants to print like the risograph method. But for that in CMYK you would need two riso machines. This would be too big and too expensive. Overkill. Using these riso machines means you can fake the silk screen cmyk method. So what is the plan: design something on the PC. Either draw in C, M, Y and K separately or have work split by Photoshop for instance. Then, print paper in overprint by printing each CMYK pass separately. So you would feed the paper four times into the printer. Not print in one go. I am VERY sure I read about doing this with a simple home color printer. I forgot how this is called. Maybe someone knows here?
The printer should have certain characteristics:
1. Preferably it would have an A3 flatbed scanner
2. Print size A3 and A4 should both be possible without difficult tricks.
3. The ink quality should be pigment quality and last a lifetime (no dye)
4. The printing system is still a mystery to us: laser or ink-jet? The prints will be rough style. Cost effective is more important than precision but the result must last.
5. The printer must be able to process heavy paper like watercolor paper. Real art paper for traditional media. No special color printing paper if possible!
6. The mechanism and printing material should be able to take multiple passes in overprint. So no clogged heads, smeared drums or other overprinting problems.
7. Even though the printer is forced to print each pass separately, one still could choose for a printer that handles the paper internally with a multi-pass or one-pass mechanism. What is the best choice?
8. The ink should be refilled in the most cost effective way. Separate colors.
9. If the printer must be an inkjet, then please advise us on the right head strategy: heads on the cartridges or a head that stays on the printer. Clogging is a risk for a head in the printer but heads on the cartridge might be very expensive… Refilling heads on the cartridge seems best. Throw them away when they break?
I hope someone can point me to the name of the process and give me advise about good printers.

 

[Puch]

Too much requirements, and you still want to escape the heavy lifting. Without explicitly specifying the needed quality, I would suggest buying an old offset press with one 'werk', and print processless plates on a refurbished, cheap Epson 7900. Then – with much effort – you can do anything you've listed (or more) in a garage. Of course your fingers won't stay clean...

 

[Geoff Vane]

Thanks. The quality of the actual lines and colors may be rough but the ink shouldn't fade. It's seems impossible to find consumer printers that do not fade. A real bulky press is out of the question.

 

[gordo]

Thanks. The quality of the actual lines and colors may be rough but the ink shouldn't fade. It's seems impossible to find consumer printers that do not fade. A real bulky press is out of the question.

If your concern is fade resistance with consumer printers then you might want to explore here: http://www.wilhelm-research.com/

 

[maas]

I note you are in the Europe, there is a print company in London, Hato Press - http://hatopress.net/ who are pioneers in this process and may be able to give you more direction

 

[gregbatch]

You only need 1 Riso machine and 4 drums. 4 passes. But artists using the Riso machine are usually avoiding CMYK and doing mechanical color with various color inks like they would if doing silk screen. 7 colors is 7 passes with 7 drums. Inks are available in vibrant colors that are beyond the gamut of CMYK. There are usually plenty of Riso machines on eBay and drums as well. There are service providers that offer Riso printing, but I find most artists like having their own machine to have complete control over the work.

If you want CMYK one pass you can get close with an Epson P400. It uses archival quality pigment inks and adds red and orange to the CMYK for extended gamut, true reds and vibrant oranges not possible with CMYK.