Activities and products

• Introduction
• Hydroscope
• Lithoscope

Introduction

In an offset press, the fountain solution is used to separate ink from the image and non-image areas on the offset plate. This is why ink on a full size running offset press is seldom "dry", but an emulsion of ink paste and fountain solution instead. A good ink/fount combination is like a "living animal" in the dynamics of the full size press. In order to be able to simulate this phenomenon in the laboratory requires a dedicated procedure to maintain stable conditions for printing. Hydroscopic measurements provide the basis for these conditions.

HydroScope

The Hydro-Scope offers a procedure for the preparation of printing emulsions, which correlate with the state of such emulsions on a full size press. 

 Lithoscope

 The Lithoscope is Testprint's latest innovation in the field of ink/water-balance testing and it fosters a technology which is very complimentary to the other methods which are discussed on this website. The Lithoscope simulates the 'water window' of a given ink/fount combination on an offset plate at high speed rotation.