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Leather, Ink, and Miscellaneous: Remove

To Remove Oiliness from Ink. If the action of the air causes ink to become oily, ropy, or stringy, add a little oxgall or vinegar.

Printer's Ink is a carbon ink mixed with oils or resins. The carbon is usually lampblack or ivory black mixed with a little indigo or Prussian blue.

The oil is usually boiled linseed oil or nut oil. Other ingredients are rosin, turpentine, balsam of copaiba, and yellow soap. Great care is required to produce the finest grades of ink, and printer's inks vary greatly in quality and price. The methods of preparation are trade secrets, and printers rarely attempt to make the better grades of ink for themselves.

Colored printing inks are made by using various colored pigments in place of carbon.

Bronze and other metallic effects are produced by printing with a nearly colorless glue size, and sprinkling the metallic powder on the surface while it is sticky.

Printing Ink. - Grind in a paint mill or with a marble mortar and pestle 9 ounces of balsam of copaiba, 4 ounces of finest lampblack, 1 ounce of powdered indigo, and 3 ounces of hard, dry yellow soap. Heat a quantity of linseed oil in an iron kettle until it begins to boil. Remove from the fire and kindle the escaping vapor.

Allow it to burn until the oil becomes stringy when lifted with a stirrer.

Then add to each quart of oil 1 pound of pulverized black rosin. Dissolve with gentle heat and stir in 4½ ounces of dry yellow-soap shavings to each quart. Melt these together with gentle heat. Measure for every pound of rosin employed 1 ounce of indigo, 1 ounce of Prussian blue, and 18 ounces of lampblack. Pour the melted mixture over these pigments, mix, and grind in a paint mill. - Dryers for Printer's Ink. One ounce of beeswax, 1 ounce of gum arabic dissolved to a thin mucilage with acetic acid, 1 ounce of japan, and ounce of asphaltum varnish.

Add the above to 1 pound of printer's ink.

Lithographic Ink. - Melt together with gentle heat 3 ounces of shellac, 4 ounces of castile soap, 2 ounces of white wax, and 2 ounces of tallow.

Add 3 tablespoonfuls of gum sandarac dissolved in 3 tablespoonfuls of alcohol, and stir in ivory black or the best lampblack to color.

To Remove Ink Stains. -The article to use depends entirely on the nature of the ink. For a logwood ink stain, use dilute muriatic acid, 1 part of acid to 10 parts of water.

This removes the stain, first turning it red; but it converts the stain of red eosin ink to an insoluble brick-red substance, and a nigrosine ink stain to an indelible blue-black dye.

For an iron-gall ink, use oxgall or mineral acids, as muriatic, sulphuric, and the like. These decompose the black tannate of iron, but have no effect on the indigo and aniline blues which are added to most modern inks, especially the blue-black writing fluids.

Hence the first step is to find out what the ink contains. If convenient, this may be done by putting a few drops on a piece of cloth, and testing with that; meantime taking measures to prevent the stain from spreading.

First dry the sample and attack it with water. If the ink contains nigrosine, it will dissolve in water and the stain will spread. In that case use an alkali, as baking soda, covering the stain thickly and moistening it with water. If the ink does not run, it is probably iron-gal or logwood ink, hence an acid may be tried, but if the acid does not succeed, try soda or other alkali.

On white fabrics, the best way to remove ink stains is to cover the spot with chloride of lime and moisten with dilute muriatic acid. This sets the chlorine free to attack the stain. Nitrate of silver stains may be removed by cyanide of potassium, but this must be used with great care, as it is very poisonous.

For colored fabrics pyrophosphate of soda may be tried. Fabrics should be immediately washed with clear water after the stain has been removed.