Purpose of printing the gutter

[CES020]

I think I should just put "I'm new to the printing side of the business" in every post I make because they all seem to start off with that sentence. Having said that....

I've heard mention of printing the gutter a number of times and I had a guy telling me one day that he was living on the edge, not printing gutters on jobs, just to get through some issue he had at the time (I had no idea what he was talking about at the time so I didn't ask any more).

I've got it turned on now, but was curious on what exactly it does, other than just make sure everything fires in every pass. Is there a time to use it or not use it? Does it only become necessary on color critical tiling jobs or large jobs where colors have to match exactly across panels? Or is it just a good general practice to use it all the time?

I'm trying to learn good habits from the start.

 

[boxerbay]

Ours came with it on but we turned it off. If it on we cant print a 60" banner on 63" and it the gutter ends up on the part that folds on to the backside hem.

Back in the day when running hard solvents it was a good idea to have it especialy if you ran a long job with only one color. The theory was that if you are only running black the other color will dry up in the head from not firing.

We print full color all the time so we dont need it. Also, not many hard solvent machines anymore.

 

[MikeD]

Even the new Seiko M wants you to use the gutter for the above reason. I didn't want it interfering with my print width and talked with a tech about turning it off because I'm using all chanels when printing, but they advised against it. I turned it off, and still have good test draws but the printer is still new and has not had much use.

 

[nashvillesigns]

gutter printing

Gutter printing is designed to do three things:
1. check quality control to make sure your inks are flowing.
2. waste ink = spend more
3. make it's owner drink scotch.


Personally i love the challenge of squeezing ink on a 24" roll of reflective material and getting a FULL print with my jv-33
of course, THAT is a trade secret!!!

 

[HIGHSPEEDGRAPHIX]

Spring is here! Well almost in VA. But make sure you gutters are clean!

 

[jfiscus]

Well then I must be new to the printing industry, heck I've only been in it since '03 and I've never heard of a gutter besides on here...
Never printed them before, don't see why you'd need to. If you have a proper color management process and know how your printers operate (and what quirks each have) you're gonna know how stuff should be coming off of them.