how to maintain your base
If you ever get ink on your base, clean it immediately with any press wash: you want to try and remove ink from your base before it’s dried on the base. If ink has dried on your base, get a good pair of solvent resistant gloves and a solvent-soaked shop rag. Scrub the surface vigorously. If the ink refuses to budge, you’ll need more abrasion: try a 000 Scotch Brite pad. Soak the Scotch Brite pad in a solvent and gently rub the surface in a circular pattern with the scotch bright pad. Don’t scrub too aggressively – try and let the solvent take the ink off instead. The Scotch Brite pad will not damage the grid of the anondized surface of your base.
Keep your base clean. Remove all dirt and debris from both sides of the Boxcar Base before and after use.
Gauge pins and grippers do not treat your base well, so make sure they never hit the base if you’re using a platen press.
Don’t drop your base.
If you do drop your base, use a metal file to work down any burrs that might have developed.
How to maintain your plates
If you’re not planning on reprinting your plastic-backed photopolymer plates, then clean them with any normal press wash. Most solvents will not cause swelling or marring of the polymer surface. Do not use ethyl or methyl alcohol. But if you’d like your photopolymer plates to last indefinitely, you need to use the proper treatment and proper storage. Here’s what we recommend.
Use water-miscible solvent: Aggressive solvents that can clean lead type often dry out polymer plates, causing them to crack a few months later. Printers who want to keep their plates should consider a water-miscible solvent such as Scrub-a-Dub Press Wash (which Boxcar Press stocks). Keep solvents away from plate edges so that the solvent doesn’t contact the film adhesive. If you find pleasure in dousing your plates with solvent, you may want to cover the edges of the plate with scotch tape to prevent solvent from leaking under the plate and damaging the film adhesive. We recommend using solvent more sparingly, however.
Don't use excessive abrasion: The polymer is difficult to damage through scrubbing, but you should treat it like any typographic surface and not use too much abrasion when cleaning. Normal shop rags or synthetic printing cloths work well for cleaning the plate surface.
Store properly: To preserve your plates, the manufacturers recommend storing your plates in a constant humidity between 50% and 60%. In the very least, avoid extreme fluctuations in humidity. You can maintain a constant humidity by storing your plates in a ziplock bag. Keep your plates away from ultraviolet light that will crack your plate. At Boxcar Press, we store our plates in our basement flat file. None of our plates have ever gone bad while being stored this way.