Anyone here know of an anti-offsetting ink additive?

Hey guys, I haven't posted here in quite a while but I'm in a bit of a bind and I would appreciate some help.

Back in the early 1980's I used to run Heidelberg presses in Southern California and we used ink from Spectrum Inc Co. They used to sell us an ink additive called "Spectra Clean" or "Spectra Kleen" or something like that. It was an anti-offsetting compound, and the effect was similar to powdering a print job. The compound had water-reactive stuff that swelled up in size when printed onto the sheet and then shrunk back down when the fountain solution dried out.

I now run presses elsewhere in the country, and I'd sure like to get hold of some of this stuff or something comparable.

Can anyone here tell me where to get something like what I've described? Thanks in advance.

 

Reminds me of the old Shackell Edwards Anti-Setoff paste. The company is still going, I tried a search for the paste without any luck.

Shame really it had a secondary property of reducing the tack so that thin sheets didn't curl when you printed a solid. Pester your ink/consumables supplier.

 

Thanks for the comments, Richard. As I was told, the compound was some sort of gel paste that was infused with dust made from the same sort of material that is commonly sold to mix with houseplant potting soil. When dry, it looks like bits of sand but when wet, each grain swells to almost 7mm to 8mm across because they absorb water! Since the material is ground to a fine dust, of course it doesn't swell to anything nearly that large, but certainly large enough to keep the next printed sheet away as it drops into the press's delivery. Another advantage was that the delivery area doesn't get powder buildup as is normally the case with spray units. But beware mixing too much in your ink...a little goes a long way!

I had forgotten about this product until recently...can anyone at all tell me where I might obtain some?

 

I once saw my pressman early in my career mix a small amount of spray powder into the ink. Having just started in the trade I never though it was a silly thing to do, 36 years later I still don't. The pms solid layed smooth, we used limited amount at the sprayer setting the job looked great and there was no offset.