Since I didn’t go to school for art, much less printmaking, a lot of what I know comes from trial and error. One of the biggest frustrations I ran into I’ve only recently resolved which was how to print clean smooth prints–especially solid fields of color–without the paper dragging at the end and ruining the outcome.
This tends to happen from one or two factors: too much pressure and or the roller “jumping” as it comes on to or leaves the block. This is more pronounced in mounted blocks which is what I tend to work from as it makes registration alignment more precise and manageable.
For a long time I would just use a felt, but for my set up at least, this only led to other problems, but overall got me by for awhile (better than nothing).
What I eventually determined to work quite well was putting together runners from the same material I mount and print from (so 1/2 inch mdf with lino stuck to it using spray adhesive). I still found the paper to drag at times so ended up adding strips of hardboard raising the overall height a bit higher than the mounted blocks.
From there I “pack” on top of the inked block and paper with a combination of sturdy poster board (I used some 100lbs French paper) and some sheets of lightweight rives. Depending on the block size and detail I may add or remove a few sheets until I get a clean print going.
This approach has been going quite well and allows me to print with much more thin applications of ink than in the past. I’ll start with a test on scrap paper, if the image is spotty I likely need more paper of one weight or the other, and if the image looks like the paper dragged I’ll remove a sheet of one weight or the other.
I’ve been learning that many printers have different approaches to getting clean prints (and some certainly just don’t care as much as some of us) but for me this is the ticket.
If you’re struggling to get a clean print from your press maybe give this a shot.
