What are you packing? How are you wiping?

I’m going to be setting up my packing from scratch & was curious what you use as your base under tympan packing?  I know everyone does it different.  Ive been told to level my platen to a Red, Blue & Tan press board base (with tympan) so i have room to move around between kiss & deep impressions.

And, I’m curious what you use for wash up.  Ive always used a large shared space with the ‘usual suspects’ Crisco, CA Wash, Mineral Spirits, Alcohol…rag service…etc.  I’m moving a new press into my home studio & wanted to be as vapor/toxic free as possible.  I’ll stick with my initial Crisco rubdown, but I’m looking for something other than the ‘usual suspects’ for my final wash up & wipe down.

What are your alternatives & how have they been holding up? I read one person uses baby oil…

One print guy I took a press maintenance workshop from uses concentrated Citra Solve.  Any of you ever try this?  (I Haven’t).

My rollers are rubber, my incoming press is an extra large she-beast of a table top platen.

For clean-up, I roll as much ink as possible off onto newsprint—put newsprint on the ink disk and let the rollers roll over that; change newsprint and do it again and again, until there is very little ink left to use a solvent on. I use mineral spirits on the press, but I use concentrated CitraSolv on my hands in the sink. That works very well.

For packing, use a piece of red press board, and above that, use paper with a smooth finish .  I used to use old xray film for packing but those days are gone.  Vegetable oil will work for cleanup if the ink doesn’t have a lot of dryer in it.  The next step up is WD40.  Ordinarily, I use ordinary paint thinner (oleum)  but don’t try that biodegradeable stuff.  I though that would be really cool, but it just made an awful smear of things, so I wasted my money.  Chuck Wendel

For packing, I place red pressboard under the tympan and then place packing under the red pressboard. I use a whole variety of paper and card, usually scraps of what I have around, but stick to the kind that’s smooth and dense. I also like Mylar – it comes in a few thicknesses, and is nice and hard.

I learned to wash up with mineral spirits, so I stick to it. I use the low-odor kind, and I specifically placed my press next to a window so that I can open up and put a fan next to it to get the air moving.

I normally use crisco but when I’m in a hurry I use a few sprays of goo-gone. Goo-gone is like magic compared to the crisco.

For packing, I use red pressboard and then paper that has it’s thickness printed on it. I think there are six thicknesses between .002″ and .16″ Knowing the caliper makes it easy when adjusting makeready.

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