Fine Letterpress Ink

As a letterpress printer from the 1960’s and still printing now, why worry about special ink. Litho ink is perfectly ok, bearing in mind that the litho process works with a thinner ink film and the colour was stronger to compensate. The only thing that might be necessary is to shorten the ink slightly for platen use on coated surfaces.

I totally agree with the above comment. I have been using litho ink for all my letterpress printing over the past thirty years, and have found that it prints beautifully on many kinds of stock. I would use nothing else.

I totally agree with the above comment. I have been using litho ink for all my letterpress printing over the past thirty-odd years, and have found that it prints beautifully on many kinds of stock. I would use nothing else.

On the other hand, I and many of my associates have been using Hanco https://hancoink.com/letterpress/ for many years and find the dense blacks great.They also have colors but I am not sure if they do PMS colors.
Mike

Oldham Ink Group makes very good ink. They ship and maybe one in your area.

Oldham Ink Group makes very good ink. They ship and maybe one in your area.

Thank you Mike for that suggestion—I’ve not used Hanco or a soy based ink, but I’ll give it a shot. I like that they have a warm black ink.

https://hancoink.com/collections/letterpress-ink/products/hanco-sable-bl...

I see that Cranfield has some letterpress inks as well.

https://shop.takachpress.com/cranfield-traditional-letterpress-ink-carbo...

For everyone else—I’ve printed on nearly everything under the sun that’s commercially made—I’m just curious about what else is out there.

I’ve used all kinds of inks, including inks formulated for offset lithography. It really depends what you are trying to do and what kind of press and printing surface you are using, but it is easy to get into your own head about these things and overthink it. But you do have to think about how the properties of the various elements (paper, ink, printing surface, press style) are interacting and work with the brute facts of how the elements you have are interacting.

And I don’t think you ever stop looking for the ‘perfect’ black. Grass is always … blacker … on the other side of the fence.

I used to use Graphic Chemical’s Albion Matte Black quite a bit, but that company seemed to have had a lot of trouble (with fulfilment, customer service and with quality control) during and after the pandemic. After almost two years trying to get ink out of them, they sent me three useless tins of black slime that bore no resemblance to the ink I had ordered, and I gave up on them. Maybe it’s better again now. I don’t know.

Hawthorn Printmaker Supplies, a small UK company that makes inks for printmaking, makes a great line of oil-based inks formulated for letterpress. They stay open well on the press and have good body. I’ve had good luck with it. They have some good blacks. But I particularly like their opaque white ink — it’s the best I’ve ever used. Nice people, great service. Their checkout may not work for North American customers, but I always just send them orders by email and we sort it out.

https://hawthornprintmaker.com/inks/letterpress-inks.html

I agree with Frank and Kenneth above about using commercial litho ink. For another thing, I think commercial ink is much more likely to be non-toxic. A lot of commercial ink is used for food packaging, and the commercial ink makers learned long ago that they might as well just take all the toxic elements out of their ink and then they can sell it for any use and won’t have to worry about toxicity. The reason artist/printmaker ink suppliers may still not have done that is that toxic heavy metal pigments make great colorants, and I haven’t heard of any instances where artists have stopped purchasing them even though they are poisonous. One thing which needs to be watched in commercial inks, though, is that sometimes the pigments they use are not light fast, so if you want to print something which doesn’t fade, be sure to get light fast ink. It is available.

Blue Press Ink is making letterpress and relief inks specifically with fine printing in mind. We work in small batches and can adjust body, tack, transparency, drying and color strength depending on the press, paper and the type of work being printed. Our hybrid formulation is designed to stay open on the press while drying hard on the sheet, which has been well received by many letterpress printers.

We also mix custom Pantone colors in smaller quantities, including 5 oz tubes, so printers don’t have to purchase several pounds of a special color. For printers who have worked with us before, we’re always glad to fine-tune a mix based on how it performed on press.

I’d also be interested to hear what private press printers are finding in the overseas inks that they feel is missing from currently available American inks—whether it’s pigment load, stiffness, transparency, drying behavior, or something else. I think those conversations are how we continue improving, and I believe we’re getting very close to offering exactly what many fine printers are looking for.

BPI,

Thanks for chiming in here and being in this conversation. We run your ink for all of our custom Pantone mixes, and you helped us fix a tricky letterpress situation a few months back.

Thank you for also being open to talking about this. Let me run some tests, and do some research and I’ll follow up. I’ll reach out via email, but I’ll also post back here as well so the public can see that conversation as well.

Andrew, regarding Hawthorn Opaque White, I see they have “Opaque White” and “Stiff Opaque White”. Which one do you prefer? I am always in search of a good version of this.
Matt

Hey Gerald,

Thanks for responding—I knew I recognized your name!

Thank you for trusting us with your custom mixes, and for any feedback you can give us. One of the nice things about being a small, true ink manufacturer is that we can formulate and adjust inks to fit our customers’ needs. We don’t just repackage off-the-shelf products. And once we dial in a formula that works, we can lock it in so you get the same ink every time you order.

I really appreciate you taking the time to test and share your results publicly. I love this business and the letterpress community. My goal isn’t just to sell ink—it’s to build relationships and make products people genuinely enjoy printing with. There are a lot of great people in this community, and I’m grateful to be a small part of it.

Charley