Metalic Orange Peel

Running a SM-74 when printing gold 872 i seem to get a pin hole effect.
Job was run in following sequence k,c,m,y,872,gloss varnish.
Paper used was 270 gsm opalcote 1 sided boared.
I tried to use minimum water and was running with bridging roller not engaged, although i did try engaging with little difference to outcome.
Any ideas?

 

I always run metallic on the first unit

 

I have always had better luck running golds in the 1st unit..

 

The pinholing sounds like there's overinking going on, that can show as a reticulation or peaks and troughs or it may be that the surface of the board may not be as receptive to metallic ink as your cmyk set.

Do you get the same effect with other materials - what about the varnish - do you get the same pinhole effect when you leave the varnish off?

Are you carrying a lot of damp on your 1st 4 units - this can carry over on the sheet. Running the gold on its own... do you still get the problem?

Print sequence - if there's a large solid then we would tend to run it on unit 5 or 6 as you can get 'stripping' as it transfers onto the subsequent blankets.
Plus it minimises the potential for marking.

Opalcote - it's not a cast-coated material by any chance?

 

If there's no trapping then yes put metallic in your last unit, if there is and you still put it down last, then good luck

I find the the added offsetting on subsequent units enhances the metallic effect, it's almost if your getting 4 or 5 bumps of metallic for free but then again if screens are involved, you may run into trouble

I guess what I'm saying is, look at the job, weigh up all the variables and make a decision based on how many units, trapping, screens etc is involved

Good luck

 

I'd say that depends on your ink and the nature of the trap required.

We tried MetalFX ink. Heavily pigmented, great shine with the big advantage that you could either lay it down first and overprint cmyk wet-on-wet.

Shame they wanted so much for the license to use it - probably why they aren't around anymore.

We now use MetaPrint Lithogloss gold and silver by Schlenck, fantastic inks that seem to share the same properties as MFX.

 

Kohl & Madden for all inks PMS CMYK and metallics, no problems except on some of the reds which sometimes want to pile

 

We had a monthly job which piled heavily on the black trailing edge.

The usual remedy of bringing damps and inks up never worked - we changed paper stock to a cheaper grade, guess what? Yup, no more piling.

 

gold ink problems

what i like to do when it comes to printing gold inks is to run 1 number in the pms book higher than what is called for. for example if the job calls for pms 872 gold ill always run pms 873 gold. ive found that running the higher number will allow you to run the ink at a thinner film. i think that its very difficult to match the pms book with a single hit of any metalic ink or with any dayglow ink.
sounds like your pinholing might be as a result of too thick an ink film
metalic inks usually run down before anything else if there is a need to trap it inline. i also like to add a little water repellant varnish to metalic inks just to increase the tack a bit so that its less apt to emulsify

 

thanx 4 all the tips.
Had a simular job and ran the gold on unit 1 with a good result