September 1, 2003
BY MARK SMITH Heavy iron, a moniker for presses that conveys size and brute force, has been supplanted by talk of electronic controls, digital integration and computerization. Lest anyone forget, the real magic of lithography still happens when ink and water (fountain solution, to be precise) meet on the plate. Mechanical systems are what make a press, even if an increasingly more electronic face is being put on them. None play a more central role in the offset printing process than the dampening system. The fundamentals are the same for web and sheetfed press applications, but the solutions of choice tend to differ. Delta
