Ink for Christmas Cards

[William CW]

Hello, a "Newby" here. I just bought a C&P 10x15 press.

I want to print Christmas Cards for this season but I don't know what ink to use.

I see videos of folks printing cards and stacking them directly on top of each other as they work. How can the ink dry that quickly?

I printed cards last year on a small Excelsior press I have, but I had to lay the cards out on a table for 2 or 3 days to dry. Any advice would be great. Thanks.

[Bob Mann]

I have been using offset ink in all colours for years and never had any ink transfer when cards are piled on top.

If you rub ink after impression and image smears you are using way too much ink.

If you need Christmas cuts mounted for letterpress I have plenty from my newspaper days all sizes from one column wide to five wide.

Where are you? 

[Charles Holden]

Would love to see what cuts you have and the price. To the original question you may have been using a rubber based ink which could require some additional drying time.

I use standard oil base inks which would allow stacking unless your ink coverage is large. I also keep the stacks small, like 15 sheets before taking them away from the delivery board.

Inks dry by 3 methods: Oxidation, evaporation and absorption. If the stock surface is coated or calendared it may require more time to dry.

[printsmurf]

I once printed some wedding stationery for a friend's wedding. This involved the usual 'save the day' cards, invites, R.S.V.P. cards along with the order of service sheets etc and serviettes.

He also wanted some book matches printed. The book matches were similar to Chromolux and Astralux. I ordered some special ink suitable for printing on cast coated board (which I seem to remember cost a small fortune) and printed the book matches.

Everything went well and he was delighted with the results.

Three months later at the wedding my wife turned to me and, holding one of the book matches in her hand, proceeded to wipe the ink off! It was 'touch dry' but had not hardened off properly! 

At the time I was running a heat-set web press on a continental shift pattern and had asked my boss for some ink to use at home. Being heat-set it stayed 'open' on the ink disc and rollers overnight, saving me a wash-up at the end of the day. Although needing an oven to dry whilst printing it also dried when the items printed were laid out on my drying rack.

I never had any trouble with it drying on any substrate I used from letterheads to the afore mentioned wedding stationery.

I have used rubber based inks but I once had the ink bleed through slightly on some compliment slips I printed.

I used to interleave printed board with kitchen roll on my drying rack. Too heavy a weight of ink on anything you print and you will always have a long wait for stuff to dry.