Rowena Crowe
May the 7th I begin my residency at Frontyard. My main quest is to do a cross stencil project between my Gestetner 120 a manual duplcator from the 1950's and the 1980's Risograph which lives next to the library at Frontyard. Today I start as a first time Riso user and already had several moments when the Riso said 'no'. So let this page be a log of tips and tricks with keeping the Riso printing for future Riso users.
Riso Terminology list:
- Master ----> this is the stencil that is created when you scan an image on the Stage Glass. The master wraps around the drum and because of this becomes a one colour master. When you want to use the colour drum of another master your master is wasted in the machine.
- Stage Glass ----> I put this here because I think it is a cool name but I think you know what it is.
Paper notes:
Here is a little paper guide to thinkness. Note Riso only prints on paper without a coating.
- 35gsm to 55gsm: very thin paper used for newspapers.
- 80gsm to 100gsm: thickness of standard office paper.
- 120gsm to 170gsm: used for printing documents like letterheads, and low-cost budget-style leaflets and posters.
- 200gsm to 300gsm: approaching card and would be best suited to producing magazine or booklet covers and promotional flyers that need to be a little sturdier and better quality than normal.
- 350gsm to 400gsm: This is essentially card, and can be used for business cards, high-quality invitations and document dividers and covers.
Never Do's:
- Don't use paper that has been rolled in the machine (it will get caught up).
- Don't use paper that has been crumpled (as above).
Successes:
I thought I would put my learning curve success notes here...
Day 1 .
- scanned text,
- enlarged text several steps by using the enlarging function and then creating a new master from this and enlarging again.
- placing a transparent image apon the stage glass with white paper as a backing and then placing a black book over the top a created a new master and then printed this stencil over the enlarged text.
- tried a few different colour drums... suspicious that green gives the machine problems. The most reliable is the black drum so far.
- Placed a large A3 drawing on the stage glass and successfully reduced this to A4.
Day 2.
- made a print on my Gestetener scanned this and then printed a grayscale to scan and copy on the Riso, hoping the line work of the Gestetener image and the filled in blocks of grey scale would line up in the Riso. The Riso image once made can be shifted horizontally and vertically, it's very finacky but I was able to get an image I was happy with. Doing this today a succeeded in one of my main goals to make a workflow using both the Gestetener and the Riso.
Problem log;
- "T3 error call service" my suspicion is that this is a clamp error during master making (googled the error) which means the trouble is because either the master won't come off the drum or won't go onto the drum. The solution is to remove the drum press reset and re-try. This worked sometimes. Other times I opened the latch of the master roll and had a look in there. Sometimes the master was not flat having folded into one of the rollers I straighten it up. I am not sure which of these methods truly solved the problem because sometimes it required a combo of these things. You can also manually pull the master off the drum and empty the drum of masters which also seemed to resolve problems as I went along.
- "Paper under drum error" The Riso seems to have very clever sensors that can tell you what the problem is. Sometimes you do them and the problem is fixed and it continues to print or make a master. Other times you can see for example there is not paper logged under the drum. To resolve this problem press the 'reset' but and the machine is able to print again.
Video tutorials list: