Cleaning Wood Type
OK, so I just purchased a font of 30-line French Clarendon (smile) and I am looking for some suggestions on how best to clean both the face and the counter, which on each character are quite dirty. Some ink, but mostly dirt and grime. I tried to research the topic here on Briar Press, but came up empty. Perhaps there’s a thread buried in some other discussion subject, but I struck out.
I’m prepared to roll up my sleeves and scrub, but I don’t want to harm the type. Any suggestions on what to use to remove grime and crud, the random build-up of dried ink, and any caveats, from other wood type aficionados would be tremendously helpful!
Thanks,
I don’t think you want to make it look like new to display in your parlor. You want it clean so it will print well. I think part of the beauty of old wood type is a bit of ink and discoloration. It is like me. It shows it has been used.
Wood type was sealed with shellac when made. Alcohol is the shellac solvent. Stay away from alcohol. Wood and water do not mix well.
That leaves solvent, an old toothbrush and a pointy thing like a knife blade. The latter to be used with care as scratches are not attractive. I would start with mild solvent like simple mineral spirits.
Show us a photo of before and after, please.
Get some ink on your shirt, and the type.
I’ve found kerosene to be more potent in removing old dirt and ink from my wood type. If you’re going to print right away, though, wipe it down with a clean rag and let it dry for a few minutes. Kerosene doesn’t evaporate as quickly as mineral spirits and will affect ink laydown.
Kerosene would be my cleaner-of-choice for wood type, though I use it on metal type too. Another advantage in addition to what jonsel has stated is that the kerosene will leave a very thin oily coating on the type when it dries. This also helps to prevent your wood type from drying-out. This oily coating also prevents oxidation on lead type as well as cuts.
Rick
After I posted this new topic, I Googled “cleaning wood type” and lo and behold it took me to at least six discussion threads on Briar Press, all with the same title as this one.
Funny that, at least for me, the Briar Press search engine didn’t come up with them.
Thanks for the advice so far. I took the plunger can down to the gas station and got about two dollars-worth of kerosene, and I’m planning to wear out more than a few toothbrushes once I start. The weather is finally warm enough to work outside again.
I’ll send “before” pics along in a couple of days, after I finish my latest pieces (eight of them, double-sided) for the April APA bundle.
Until then….
Can you give us an update, Armchair Detective? My husband just surprised me with 4 large trays of beautiful, but dusty, wood type. I want to clean and condition them to prevent them from drying out further. I definitely plan to display them, but not sure if I’ll ever actually use them on a letterpress.
IMG_20130907_100658.jpg
Which kerosene do you mean with kerosene?
When I search for the translation in german I either get lamp oil or jet fuel.
But I think it is the lamp oil?
Chemically they are probably much the same. To me, jet fuel smells like kerosene. An old American term for kerosene was coal oil.
Get lamp oil.
Lamp oil is usually colored and scented. Opt for Kerosene that is clear or slightly yellow. It is often sold for use with space heaters.
There is regular kerosene and then there is “white kerosene” that most people use in their space-heaters simply because it is a little more refined and does not have as much odor as the regular stuff. My shop is in my basement and I have been using white kerosene for decades, with no complaints from the wife upstairs.
I also get my white kerosene at a country gas station and simply have them refill my 2-gallon can from their pump.
This may come as a revelation to most urbanites, but out here is “farm country” a lot of the independent little gas stations also have a kerosene pump, usually off to the side or behind the gas station. Some old tractors burn kerosene and LOTS of farmers have sheds that are heated with kerosene heaters when they are working in them in the winter.
Rick
Minburn, Iowa (not the end of the world, but we can see it from here!)
Heater Kerosene is usually classified as K-1.
Kerosene may be called parraffin in Germany, at least it is in the UK.
I’ve got a very old border that is quite worm and has decades of crud in the shoulder of the border (see pic). I use Kero on a daily basis to clean type. My question is can I soak the border overnight or will the wood just drink up the Kero? The thing is I have two shoe boxes of border.
Pic attached show where I have ticked away ink using a scalpel under a loupe. Not an ideal or sensible solution. Thoughts?
image.jpeg
The kerosene probably won’t hurt the wood, but if I were you I would do a test first. Fill a small can or jar with about an inch of kerosene. Then stick the end of a piece of border in it and leave it in overnight (or as long as you want to). Then see if the kerosene has damaged the piece. Also see if you can then get the dried ink off with, say, a toothbrush, or the usual 2 X 4 inch printer’s brush with hair bristles (don’t use a brass or stainless steel bristle brush). Wear goggles and gloves.
If you do this and it does hurt the border, at worst, you will only have lost a small piece. Kerosene is volatile, and will slowly evaporate, so even if the wood does absorb a lot of kerosene, it should evaporate eventually. As part of the test, (after you have taken it out of the kerosene), you might want to observe the test piece over a few weeks or a month to be sure there aren’t any long term effects to the border.
A good plan I think. Will let you know how it goes. It!s a very shallow relief that is glugged up so hopefully it will come loose easily.
Thanks
Matt
No joy ink sat steadfast fast. Hmm
I have cleaned metal type quite successfully with paint remover. I had the type locked up in the chase and brushed the paint remover on with a toothbrush, then scrubbed after letting it sit for a few minutes, then wiped it off and scrubbed with a damp toothbrush rinsed and reapplied several times. The ink came off clean as a whistle, but it was metal type. Paint remover can lift grain of some woods when stripping furniture if applied liberally, so it would be well to test a small area, as advised with the kero.
Bob
I’m not sure if there’s an equivalent product in the US, but in the UK there’s a company called Ultrachem who sell an ‘ink stripper’ that’s perfect for cleaning dried ink.
Our group does printing as historical re enactment.
For years, we used mineral spirits or kerosene.
We use both wood and metal type, depending on the event.
2 of our crew are slowly developing chemical sensitivity.
We CANT lose their expertise.
We also had a glazing problem on the Gordon presses.
I got permission to test some vegetable based products.
This year, people commented on how nice the shop smelled.
The orange oil was working well.
We hadnt tried it on wood type, yet.
One night, some was spilled on some filthy furniture blocks.
They returned to “blond oak”.
That stuff has been working well for everything in the shoppe!
I cant believe orange oil could do anything bad to wood type.
Coal oil, paraffin oil, lamp oil, Kerosene, Jet fuel are all close to the same thng.
Jet fuel is high octane kerosene, likely to melt your lamp or heater.
Its a decent cleaner, although expensive and carries quite a scent.
The others are various purities and smoke factors.
For lamp use, try and get the stuff thats distilled a half dozen times.
Doesnt small and doesnt smoke.
I have a friend with a MASSIVE collection of great old cuts. He has been spending much of the past few years cleaning them. After much trial and error he has settled of spraying the cuts with Scrubbing Bubbles. Let the stuff do its magics and then remove with a toothbrush. His cleaned cuts look fantastic.
Decades ago an old antique dealer told me to use Efferdent (denture cleaner that bubbles) to clean old watch chains and things like that. Works like a charm!!!!!!!!!!!
Rick
Interesting Rick. Scrubbing bubbles a brand name I assume. Will check this out. M
Has anybody dealt with caked mud (as in flood damage)? I was given a whole bunch of wood border, but the counters are filled entirely with mud. Surprisingly, the border did not warp (except for one piece).
Oh my god! The dried silt that coats things that were submerged in floods is the WORST possible crap to try to remove. It has been decades since I tried to clean this off of things that had been flooded and then salvaged after everything had dried out. This was back in the early 90s. The only reason I even attempted this was because there were some rare metal fonts in the group.
The first reasonable thing to d would be to soak the material to get the dried mud (super-fine silt) t loosen up and hopefully powerwash or rub off. No such luck. For whatever reason this stuff is like baked clay and refuses to loosen up easily. I litererally had to use a stiff toothbrush, after a lengthly soaking, to painstakingly remove that crap from all the surfaces on each piece of type My only consolation was rescuing some nice type.
If you soak the wood borders, one way to minimize the chance of them warping when they dry back out is to make sure they dry out SLOOOOOOOOWLY.
Rick
Wood type in a flood ?
(Blood curdling scream)
“Scrubbing Bubbles” is an aerosol bathroom cleaner that
forms a mat of fizzing foam.
Ive found it a tad caustic.
Paint remover often has caustics in it as well.
If you use paint remover, make sure its ONLY solvent and NO CAUSTICS.
I dont think I would “soak” wood type.
A hot damp rag should get you down to the typeface pretty quickly.
The counters, will be quite another matter.
Once you know the outside of the glyph, you can approximate the locations of the counters.
A very bright light set up on the bench and one of the long arm magnifiers to go with it should be set up.
Work a bit of moisture into the clogged counter and follow up with a dental pick.
Obviously, caution is advised.
Oil the wood type as soon as you are done cleaning it.
Consider using oil in place of water to loosen the mud.
For gunked up metal type, Ive got a new one.
Dampen a rag with xylene.
The non caustic carb cleaners are mostly xylene and work well.
Read the can labels!
Lay the xylene saturated rag in a galley tray and lay a small chase with the gunked up type in it over the rag.
Do this in a well ventilated room.
Breathing xylene fumes is NOT a good idea.
If this is a block cut, you can use a similar process, but as soon as you get it clean, oil it QUICKLY!
I have not yet seen gunked up ink that xylene wont lift.
The trick is to make sure that it does not attack other things, such as the essential oils in wood backing.
Wood type in a flood ?
(Blood curdling scream)
“Scrubbing Bubbles” is an aerosol bathroom cleaner that
forms a mat of fizzing foam.
Ive found it a tad caustic.
Paint remover often has caustics in it as well.
If you use paint remover, make sure its ONLY solvent and NO CAUSTICS.
I dont think I would “soak” wood type.
A hot damp rag should get you down to the typeface pretty quickly.
The counters, will be quite another matter.
Once you know the outside of the glyph, you can approximate the locations of the counters.
A very bright light set up on the bench and one of the long arm magnifiers to go with it should be set up.
Work a bit of moisture into the clogged counter and follow up with a dental pick.
Obviously, caution is advised.
Oil the wood type as soon as you are done cleaning it.
Consider using oil in place of water to loosen the mud.
For gunked up metal type, Ive got a new one.
Dampen a rag with xylene.
The non caustic carb cleaners are mostly xylene and work well.
Read the can labels!
Lay the xylene saturated rag in a galley tray and lay a small chase with the gunked up type in it over the rag.
Do this in a well ventilated room.
Breathing xylene fumes is NOT a good idea.
If this is a block cut, you can use a similar process, but as soon as you get it clean, oil it QUICKLY!
I have not yet seen gunked up ink that xylene wont lift.
The trick is to make sure that it does not attack other things, such as the essential oils in wood backing.
http://briarpress.org/43495#comment-64242 I clean everything with this removes old dry ink in every crevise
Jet fuel, AKA JP4 & JP8 has gasoline mixed in it to avoid flameouts in military jets. Sucks to have no power with what amounts to a flying brick aerodynamically.
Years ago, an Iraqi filled my traditional kerosene lantern with white gas (distilled gasoline). Not sure if he didn’t know about the danger or wanted to see an American blow himself up.
I’ve used JP4 in such lanterns… its all I could get in Northern Iraq at the time. While it would probably remove ink and accumulated crud, I’m not at all sure what it might do to human skin. A soldier I once soldiered with took an inadvertent bath in it and was not able to get to enough water to wash with for a while. She ended up with a pretty uncomfortable rash. From what I gather, she bathed in a creek despite possible prying eyes of the enemy… and perhaps fellow soldiers ;)
I use K1 kerosene without any dies or scents. Charcoal starter and low odor mineral spirits AKA “paint thinner” will also work fine. I’ve also used traditional wick-type lighter fluid on a rag to do a quick wipe down.
Most any petroleum distilate will work… assuming that the ink used was an oil-based product and not a latex product.
Just closed our print shop and been digging thru things. I have about 25 trays of wood type that need a good cleaning after sitting idle since the 1980’s. Looks like kerosene, rags and soft tooth brushes should do the trick.
Lots to comment on here.
First on JP4 - Kerosene
Kerosene lanterns traditionally use wicks.
Gas lanterns usually have a tube that vaporizes the gas
and the vapor burns to heat the mantle which in turn glows.
Burning gas in a wick is usually very tricky.
Burning Jp4 or 5 in a wick can be done it its been turned way down, but this will likley smoke too.
I saw a kerosene heater on jp5.
The fireball was about 6 ft diameter.
If I had to use JP4 or 5, Id thin it down with some sort of oil
so it wouldnt overheat the lantern.
Im surprised that they didnt have paint thinner/mineral spirits/stoddard solvent, which are closer to hexane.
OK on to Orange oil:
Citrusolve is what we went to.
DONT use it on photopolymer! It tends to disolve it.
At the moment, I use rubbing alcohol on photopoly.
Its great for cleaning rollers, but dont soak them in it.
It tends to swell nitrile, and its taken 2 year for the swelling to go down.
We were trying to deglaze with it.
People love the small of our shop and Don isnt keeling over anymore.
Another group I print with recently adopted it because THAT group ALSO has hydrocarbon sensitive team members.
When I pull the chase with poly plate on it, I lay it on the stone.
I moisten a blue papertowel (mechanics type) with rubbing alcohol folded over a few times.
Then i lay it over the poly and go over the top with a clean breyer.
I lift up my “paper towel proof” and its lifted most of the ink of the poly.
Sometimes thats enough.
I usually spritz a bit more “alkie” with a brass mister and follow with a soft type brush.
Then I press a nother damp (alkie) towel to finish up.
Works a charm.
Rollers, I leave on the press, parked on the ink table.
I spritz a bit of Citusolve on the ink table above the top roller and run the machine a few cycles.
By the time the ink table makes a revolution, the ink is ready to drip off of it.
This also gets rollers really ready to clean.
With new rollers, ink them first time with opaque white.
You dont even have to print anything.
This will leave a slight white behind so that future cleanings you will know how close you are.
Anybody got really grungy furniture and reglets?
A short soak in citrusolve and a wipe.
This restores the oil in the wood and black furniture has turned blond.
Just dont soak it too long at a time.
Lots to comment on here.
First on JP4 - Kerosene
Kerosene lanterns traditionally use wicks.
Gas lanterns usually have a tube that vaporizes the gas
and the vapor burns to heat the mantle which in turn glows.
Burning gas in a wick is usually very tricky.
Burning Jp4 or 5 in a wick can be done it its been turned way down, but this will likley smoke too.
I saw a kerosene heater on jp5.
The fireball was about 6 ft diameter.
If I had to use JP4 or 5, Id thin it down with some sort of oil
so it wouldnt overheat the lantern.
Im surprised that they didnt have paint thinner/mineral spirits/stoddard solvent, which are closer to hexane.
OK on to Orange oil:
Citrusolve is what we went to.
DONT use it on photopolymer! It tends to disolve it.
At the moment, I use rubbing alcohol on photopoly.
Its great for cleaning rollers, but dont soak them in it.
It tends to swell nitrile, and its taken 2 year for the swelling to go down.
We were trying to deglaze with it.
People love the small of our shop and Don isnt keeling over anymore.
Another group I print with recently adopted it because THAT group ALSO has hydrocarbon sensitive team members.
When I pull the chase with poly plate on it, I lay it on the stone.
I moisten a blue papertowel (mechanics type) with rubbing alcohol folded over a few times.
Then i lay it over the poly and go over the top with a clean breyer.
I lift up my “paper towel proof” and its lifted most of the ink of the poly.
Sometimes thats enough.
I usually spritz a bit more “alkie” with a brass mister and follow with a soft type brush.
Then I press a nother damp (alkie) towel to finish up.
Works a charm.
Rollers, I leave on the press, parked on the ink table.
I spritz a bit of Citusolve on the ink table above the top roller and run the machine a few cycles.
By the time the ink table makes a revolution, the ink is ready to drip off of it.
This also gets rollers really ready to clean.
With new rollers, ink them first time with opaque white.
You dont even have to print anything.
This will leave a slight white behind so that future cleanings you will know how close you are.
Anybody got really grungy furniture and reglets?
A short soak in citrusolve and a wipe.
This restores the oil in the wood and black furniture has turned blond.
Just dont soak it too long at a time.
Lots to comment on here.
First on JP4 - Kerosene
Kerosene lanterns traditionally use wicks.
Gas lanterns usually have a tube that vaporizes the gas
and the vapor burns to heat the mantle which in turn glows.
Burning gas in a wick is usually very tricky.
Burning Jp4 or 5 in a wick can be done it its been turned way down, but this will likley smoke too.
I saw a kerosene heater on jp5.
The fireball was about 6 ft diameter.
If I had to use JP4 or 5, Id thin it down with some sort of oil
so it wouldnt overheat the lantern.
Im surprised that they didnt have paint thinner/mineral spirits/stoddard solvent, which are closer to hexane.
OK on to Orange oil:
Citrusolve is what we went to.
DONT use it on photopolymer! It tends to disolve it.
At the moment, I use rubbing alcohol on photopoly.
Its great for cleaning rollers, but dont soak them in it.
It tends to swell nitrile, and its taken 2 year for the swelling to go down.
We were trying to deglaze with it.
People love the small of our shop and Don isnt keeling over anymore.
Another group I print with recently adopted it because THAT group ALSO has hydrocarbon sensitive team members.
When I pull the chase with poly plate on it, I lay it on the stone.
I moisten a blue papertowel (mechanics type) with rubbing alcohol folded over a few times.
Then i lay it over the poly and go over the top with a clean breyer.
I lift up my “paper towel proof” and its lifted most of the ink of the poly.
Sometimes thats enough.
I usually spritz a bit more “alkie” with a brass mister and follow with a soft type brush.
Then I press a nother damp (alkie) towel to finish up.
Works a charm.
Rollers, I leave on the press, parked on the ink table.
I spritz a bit of Citusolve on the ink table above the top roller and run the machine a few cycles.
By the time the ink table makes a revolution, the ink is ready to drip off of it.
This also gets rollers really ready to clean.
With new rollers, ink them first time with opaque white.
You dont even have to print anything.
This will leave a slight white behind so that future cleanings you will know how close you are.
Anybody got really grungy furniture and reglets?
A short soak in citrusolve and a wipe.
This restores the oil in the wood and black furniture has turned blond.
Just dont soak it too long at a time.
One more thing
Going to alcohol on photo poly was suggested to me by a company that makes photo poly plates, so I feel safe doing so.