Short-printing spot color inks and the use of residual ink

In packaging and printing, there are a lot of short prints ranging from a few thousand to 10,000 copies, of which a considerable number are live print jobs. In the deployment of spot color ink, the adjustment is more, resulting in waste; less adjustment, but also re-adjustment, not only time-consuming, it is difficult to ensure consistency before and after the transfer of ink color, resulting in color cast. Therefore, how to accurately control the amount of spot color ink is critical.

Determine the amount of ink transferred according to the number of prints

Based on my many years of experience, I have obtained empirical formulas for controlling the amount of ink transferred, which can help the ink adjuster accurately grasp the amount of ink transferred, and also provide a basis for management personnel to manage material costs.

1kg ink ≈1 order full version of the paper ink (positive positive off)

Involving papers with different openings and solid areas with different areas can be converted according to the above formula according to the specific conditions of the prints. Note that when the ink is dispensed, the amount of ink transferred is 0.5kg more than the converted value (such as the printed version, 1kg of ink can print approximately 16 copies of the size folio).

Spot ink ink remaining ink treatment

For the residual ink treatment of short-run spot-printed spot color inks, many manufacturers are now placing them for a long period of time, resulting in crusting, dust accumulation, and even oxidative deterioration until they are scrapped. In fact, we may take the following two methods.

The first is when another batch of dark spot solid spot inks is blended, according to the differences in its components and its hue, it is blended with the original spot color residual ink, but the hue of the transferred ink cannot be changed.

Second, the long-term storage of various colors of ink (commonly known as miscellaneous ink) in accordance with the principles of the three primary colors of ink color, mixing it into a "black" ink. If the darkness is not enough, black ink can be properly added. The "black" ink called out in this way can be used for book printing and general coated paper color printing. As we all know, in the four-color printing, the black version only plays a role of “delineating” and “emphasizing” the skeleton of the pattern in the dark tone, and will not affect the basic color of the pattern. However, because the “miscellaneous ink” has many inks, the spot will be spotted during the printing process, and the “black ink” blackness is limited, which will cause the gray part of the field bar to appear gray, so it cannot be used to print the black field. Bar pattern.

Author: Huang Tao

Reprinted from: Printing Technology