I have had several emails from people wondering why they cannot get a deep impression on their table top press. Even with a tremendous amount of packing, you still might not get the desired impression depth. I love my Chandler and Price Pilot but sometimes larger plates, especially photopolymer, will not give me a deep impression. The reason for this is the size (and the fact its manual doesn’t help either). Smaller presses impart a lower PSI than a larger and/or motorized press.
However, I have found that my Poco Proof Press which is also a manual press, make a very deep impression.
This impression was made by a magnesium plate and pressed on 220# Crane Lettra paper. If you take a look at the post Christmas in October, you can see the difference in impression depth between the Pilot and Poco.
My boyfriend and I spent about 5 hours over the weekend trying to planarize the press so I can get an even impression. By about the 3rd hour, I was about to throw the press out the window! Im glad I didn’t because the press prints to perfection now. As you can see by my picture on Gripper arm issue, I was getting a heavy impression on the bottom of my design. To planarize the press on a C&P Pilot, you need to adjust the impression screws (the 4 screws attached to the back of the platen). You definitely need to have patience to do this because it is really just a matter of trial and error. After every adjustment, you need to check the impression and the worst part is that the screws are very temperamental and changing 1 will effect the other 3.
Once that was fixed, I had the problem with it not making a deep enough impression. I know back in the “old days” it was a “sin” to get a push through the paper. Well times have changed and if I wanted to get a flat image, I would just go with offset printing. To fix the impression depth, you will need to add packing. Packing is paper that is added inbetween the 2 sheets of tympan paper. The best way to go about this is to add 1 piece of packing at a time until you get the impression you desire. You might have to change your packing depending on the thickness of you paper stock.
