Offset printing 1 Side with Letterpress On Other

I am working on business cards for someone who wants a large block of color (with no impression) on one side of their cards and the other side with a deep impression – and for the cards to be coaster weight.  Have any of you ever printed offset on Lettra?  Or would you print this project on another paper? 

 

Thanks!!

Katie

Hi Katie,I’ve never been able to get my local offset printer to print over 100# paper. They won’t touch Lettra, too cottony/textured and heavy they say.I’d love to hear if anyone has had luck with this.bestkathryn

I’ve had offset work done on lettra, but it’s rough. I think it’s actually pretty tough on the equipment–the last job I did, I received a stern warning that there would be upcharges on my next order. Good luck!

Why don’t you laminate/duplex the color your client wants?

I’m sure this has been discussed before but, do you send your paper off to be duplexed? And where?thanks!

Atlantic paper will laminate their own stocks–I’m not sure about sending your finished job to them, though.My local offset printer will run 110# Lettra w/o complaint, but there is a lot of spoilage–more than there would be with a lighter stock. They have run 220# for me as well, but the print area wasn’t huge.

Thanks everyone for all of the infomation!I contacted a local printer, and they said they will offset print on Lettra but won’t run anything over 130# — looks like I’ll have the go with 110# instead of 220#.

Have you considered running your solid colour on letterpress? To do this without showing impression you could print the solid from a wood or metal- based plate (.918 thous high from memory) leaving plenty of bleed around the edges so that the heavy edge of the blockprint is later trimmed off. The rest of the solid would then have no discernable pressure mark and (dare I say it) probably produce a stonger print than offset (thus matching your front side print).To print a solid on a letterpress platen machine can be tricky because the forme/inking rollers don’t really have adequate coverage for the amount of ink required. To get around this problem you can “double roll” the ink rollers to build up extra ink. The action of double rolling I’ll have to explain based on an automatic press but similar principle would apply with a hand-fed machine. On an automatic- platen type- machine your first sheet passes into the lays, the impression handle is pulled on and the print is taken. The minute the platen goes on impression for the first print the suction air on the feeder is turned off stopping the second sheet from going through to the lays. Then the Impression handle is thrown off as the first sheet goes to the delivery. Whilst suction and impression are off, the inking rollers return to the ink distributing drum for a second hit of ink thus producing twice the amount of ink as normal. It takes a bit of practice to get into the rythym of pushing buttons and pulling handles and if its a long print run you’ll swear your arms have ended up longer than they used to be but the print result can be well worth it. Because a lot of ink is being carried on the paper it is advisable to add either a paste drier or cobalt drier (depending on texture of paper/board) to your ink. It would be advisable to run sheets into the delivery in small piles using an anti set off powder to stop sheets marking each other or if no powder available rack the job out in single sheets on a drying rack/or bench.

Sorry to chime in a bit late here…

 

We offset Lettra 110 lb. frequently, often in combination with letterpress on one or both sides. The old Lettra formulation (before the line was bought out and reformulated) was difficult for offset — we had to clean the press blankets every 50 sheets due to linting. Now the paper’s changed significantly enough that we can do short runs without a hitch with fewer blanket washes. Lettra 220 lb. is too thick to wrap around the cylinders and can ruin a press blanket.

 

Lars.

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