Paper

[pressman57]

Is it my imagination or has paper quality drastically declined in the past couple of years?

I get so tired of fighting big gobs of crap coming out of C1S or scrubbing the slime off my blankets left by whatever they're putting into opaque cover these days. I run a 4-28 Akiyama with no feeder, so when I'm in the back fighting short-grained wavy warped stock I have no idea what's coming out the other end.

Any paper brands you guys recommend?

 

[5150pressman]

Paper nowadays has lots of junk in it. Most of the paper now had some kind of recycle content in it.

For c1s cover we like to use Carolina. We don't have a coater and Carolina dries fast.

For uncoated we use Finch or Cougar.

Sometimes with the blanket/fountain solution/paper combo you'll get the bad build ups on the blanket.

 

[gazman]

I feel your pain pressman57I don't think its our imagination @all paper quality has thken a nose dive.

 

[RichardK]

I run a 4-28 Akiyama with no feeder

Sounds kinda slow, having to handfeed each sheet

Just kidding - short grain paper can be a PIA. But it sounds to me like you aren't letting the material come to to ambient temp/rh (I guess it's a symptom of the short timeframes we now work within) so you get moisture being 'sucked into' the paper at the edges creating the wave. At worst you'll get creasing, at best variable registration between colours.

I guess you better get used to using lots of paper smoothers at the feedboard.

 

[pressman57]

Hi Guys....thanks for the replies. This forum rocks.

5150pressman THANK YOU. I ran a pretty big job today on Finch instead of Cougar and the difference was huge. Cougar used to be a good sheet, as was Carolina, but both brands took a nose-dive about two years ago; at least from the mills making the paper sent to me. "Domtar", whoever the hell that is, now makes Cougar and it seems that when that label went on the box the quality went to ****.

RichardK...the problem I see is that the stock sent to me has already "sucked water" before it comes out of the box....and I never get to see it before it's cut. And even if I were to see this hideous **** they wouldn't let me send it back because, of course, we live and die by the schedule. If I were to convince the bureaucracy to order and cut the stock a couple of days ahead of time would it flatten out if left unwrapped? Or should it sit in the boxes? And if it should, for how long?

 

[RichardK]

he problem I see is that the stock sent to me has already "sucked water" before it comes out of the box.

You need to reject this as sub standard, no way would we accept it from a professional supplier. Photograph it, save the box or wrapper and give your supplier grief.

would it flatten out if left unwrapped?

Depends on the difference in RH between your pressroom and the stock. Sword hygrometer required to check RH of paper and one of those weather stations for your pressroom would be handy. Usually if the wave is slight then the stock should come to equilibrium within a day or so, you need to shake the stack up to let ambient air pass through the middle of the sheet.

If it's really bad (wavewise) you can look forward to misfeeds, creasing, doubling and misregister between colours/printings.

As no sort of consolation we had a flash flood yesterday which left us under 3 inches of water. Lucky for us we don't carry much stock, but what there was unwrapped now has beautiful wavy edges and will have to be replaced.

Good luck.

 

[pressman57]

You need to reject this as sub standard, no way would we accept it from a professional supplier. Photograph it, save the box or wrapper and give your supplier grief.

Truer words have seldom been spoken. I spoke with the buyer today and proposed we order the stock at least a day in advance so it can be inspected before we wack it in half. I've been way too easy on the supplier over the years, coming from the "I'm a pressman I can feed anything" school of printing.


Thanks again