Introduction Printing ink is so much more than just the black stuff that you put on a page. It has been around for thousands of years, and it's been used in everything from newspaper presses to digital printers. As you can see, we're not talking about offset printing ink which is oil based. I want to have a little fun and talk about how you can make your own ink for your printer. At home! Ready? Ingredients You will need the following ingredients: Soot (5 tbsp) : This is as purest as it gest. You can make the soot yourself by holding a glass up to a flame. This will allow you to slowly accumulate the soot. Water (2 tbsp): For the base of your ink, use distilled water so that you don't introduce any impurities into the mix. Distilled water is also easier to clean up than tap water because there are no minerals or residue left behind from tap water. Alcohol (2 tbsp) (grain alcohol): This ingredient works as a preservative for your ink and allows it to last for several mo
We recently adopted a 5S program in our pressroom. What is 5S ? It turns out that it was one of the tools in the arsenal of Toyota that helped bring the american car industry to it's knees. It's written about in detail in a book entitled, The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World's Greatest Manufacturer . I highly recommend it. You will start swimming with ideas about how to improve productivity on your offset press. It's a simple program that is part of the lean manufacturing technique adopted by thousands of companies around the world. Quite simply, it's 5 Japanse words: seiri, seiton, seiso, seiketsu, and shitsuke. Translation: sorting, set in order, systematic cleaning, standardizing, and sustaining. The philosophy is that the cleaner and more orderly your work environment is, the leaner your manufacturing will be. Not an easy connection to make for management sometimes. The thinking can also be translated into quality as well. I