Jill and I were participating in the annual collaborative calendar project for the Chesapeake Chapter of the American Printing History Association and I thought a black & white photo would work nicely to show the production of my July 2016 effort. With pro bono work I always like to take opportunity to experiment with an idea that is floating around in my head so I'll be able to perhaps use it with a bit more knowledge and experience sometime in the future.
Working on the Stage 4 and Rest Day #1 posters for Tour de Lead Graffiti this summer we had experimented with disengaging the crescent which drives the vibrator roller causing it to move left and right, replenish and evening out the ink across the form rollers. With the vibrator roller in a single position the ink stays put as you can see in the image below.
The 7″ x 11″ sheet is fed from its left side.
Here are a few additional photo of the process.
Above: Removing the crescent. There is also a lock screw hidden in the shadow in the side of the vibrator that needs to be loosened with a hex wrench.
Above: Jill laying out the colors. We've cut thin strips of bookboard to act as ink knives to apply the ink.
Above: We made a jig so we could easily replenish any colors that needed it. We wrote the dates along the edge of the board to make sure we didn't corrupt any of the colors as much as possible. Once you've spread a color too far you pretty much have to live with it or start over.
Above: Just after engaging the rollers just as the ink is starting to spread around the rollers. There is essentially no spread sideways except for the band slowly widening all the way around to its widest point, wherever that occurs..
Above. This is just after we had moved the vibrator left and right about 1/8″ a couple of times just to spread the thick center blob of ink a bit and to allow the colors to touch each other. About 1/3 of the way from the left you can still see thin gaps between the colors. A few more jogs of the vibrator roller and those were gone.
It took about 4 hours to set everything up and print the 100 sheets for the calendar.