The Vault
Troubleshooting guide
Why is material piling up on my offset blanket — ink or paper coating building up so print quality drops during the run?
Posted by the SuperPrinters team · 7/26/2026
Ink or white paper coating and fiber accumulates on the blanket in image or non-image areas, causing progressively weaker, blurry, or mottled print until the press is stopped and the blanket is washed. Most often caused by image-area piling: over-emulsified or short ink, poor ink/water balance, or ink diluted by paper debris and stray pigment, among other possible causes — a full step-by-step diagnostic and fix follows below.
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