By Andrew Pang, Director of Sheetfed Service & Consumables, and Malcolm Riddle, Senior Technical Sales Support Manager, KBA (UK) Ltd.

As with any press, to successfully make the switch to alcohol-free printing on a KBA press that is currently printing with IPA you need to create a different philosophy. The results are excellent, but the press far less forgiving it if doesn't get the right amount of attention- you therefore need to build time into your production schedule for maintenance, cleaning and resetting rollers.

Specifically, you need to make time to:

• Clean the rollers thoroughly. They need a lot of care and attention, and should ideally be deep cleaned and reconditioned once or twice a week. Think about getting the nap of the roller, allowing it to hold water much better.
• Reset rollers. They should be reset to the manufacturer's specification and checked regularly, as the tolerance for deviation from this is much lower when running without alcohol.

Filtration is also important to keep the fount absolutely clean. If buying a new press, specify with an extra filtration system for the dampening system. For existing presses, KBA do offer retrofitting of additional filtration systems for this purpose. When running without alcohol, you should be looking at 3-stage systems, and there are several to choose from. Reverse osmosis should be used for water if at all possible in order to stabilize the dampening solution.

Further press features to consider are:

• Ink temperature control for the inking system, which will maintain a constant operating temperature. This is especially important for working in cold or very warm workshops.
• A high tech cooling and circulation system for both the ink temperature control and water circulation system
• Rubber Inker and dampener rollers with specific shore hardness and a covering specifically for zero alcohol

Printing successfully without alcohol is a collaborative process. You need to involve your press manufacturer and talk to them about the correct settings; to include your fount supplier and your ink people to ensure compatibility; and of course, your print teams.

Using recommended fount solutions and additives to match the ink type you use, and choosing one of the inks that perform well without alcohol, all help with the success of the transition. Your printers will need your support as their skill will be put very thoroughly to the test: running alcohol free reduces the window of the ink/water balance on the press.

The rewards make all this well worthwhile, not only environmentally, financially and in terms of health and safety, but also for the quality of work achieved. Some types of work can be more challenging, for example printing metallic inks, uv inks and some other specials, but it can be done - and the industry is working on making it easier.