QTR-Quadtone RIP

Hi,
I have an Epson stylus 870 and want to print onto Kodak premium photo 
paper. I have mot got the MIS ut2 inks yet as my son is bringing them 
over from the US this week with his B&W negs. My problem is I will 
have to generate the curves and print the photes in the 2 days that 
he will be with me. The problem that Roy or Tom can help me with is 
that on page 15 of the manual Tom talks about Quadtone inks re 
comparing each lighter ink with the next darker ink then converting 
its density realive to black.
My Problem: does the blackest ink always remain as the base line 
against which all the others are compared in turn as you move down 
the grays?
From the manual I can read a possibility of moving down pairs of 
grays and compairing max gray against each other then some how 
relating that back to max black from the black ink.
Second query: In  an attempt to resolve this I looked at the .qidf 
file for an Epson photo paper for the Epson 1270 which has, I 
believe, the same print engine as my 870 and shock horror Max black 
does not appear to be used.
Help as it is along way from Boston to get here next week and have no 
prints