r/risograph

This is less of a gear-specific question and more of a general facilities, training, accessibility, and "is this a viable idea" question. I run an unrelated lab at this college, but have been looped in for a potential project.

Some Context (skippable): The faculty that own this Riso have been rightfully defensive of the machine in the past and access has been super limited. Now, they'd like both A: Funds to grow the facility and B: To have the operation and maintenance to be someone else's problem (and also C: to still retain control over it and have it only be accessible to their own chosen student body, but that's an internal institutional politics thing I don't need to address here....).

The tradeoff/proposal is that myself and a few other FT staff would relocate the equipment (including a guillotine cutter, perfect binder, and other bookmaking equipment) to a new location, write "Lab" SOPs and training guides, lay a roadmap for gaining access to the machines, provide departmental funding and maintenance, and partially staff the Lab and run trainings. The lab would be opened up to anyone in the college, given proper training.

Years ago I printed on this machine often, and I'm well aware of how finicky and problematic Riso machines can be, especially in the hands of uneducated users. I'm not interested in it becoming a free-for-all, I do fear that these machines just won't hold up to more opened-up access.

I'm a little rusty on my printing nowadays, so I'm interested in what others think of this idea. If this was going to happen one way or another, what stipulations and hard lines would you draw? What would crucial Riso training look like and how would someone prove/earn their independence? What other equipment should we purchase to make having this lab worthwhile? Is it better to run this as a self-service print lab with special training, or more of a job shop where users simply submit files? What else should I look out for?

Has anyone tried printing on handmade/recycled paper using riso? Is the texture of this type of paper too rough to print on? I’m thinking of getting it done this way for tags for my small clothing brand.

I recently acquired a Riso Gocco PG11 and I only have 1 screen. Finding screens has proven to be really hard, really expensive, or a combination of the two.

Has anyone figured out a way to successfully create DIY Gocco Screens at home?