Follow-Up to How “Clean”…
Recently I added a post the thread How “Clean” do you
clean your Rollers.
Mentioned that a local roller recovering firm suggested using Toluene to wash up rollers. My sense was that they meant as the regular solvent. I always had the idea that Toluene was pretty heavy duty on the toxicity scale. Not to mention I have no clue what this chemical would do as far as roller life span. I want something that will get the newly recovered rollers clean to prevent swelled up ends but don’t know if Toluene is an extreme means to try to achieve clean rollers. Anyone have any experience with this solvent as a roller cleaner?
dont use toluene if you want to preserve your roller more than a few times that is a very strong and epensive solvent used when doing plottering for example to clean heavy residual stuff works even on grafittis.
Querosene works fine not that agressive and will give you many years to come i would say at least 10.
phase4
Thanks for confirming my gut reaction on the
Toluene idea.
Querosene is a new one to me; will investigate.
Perhaps phase4 meant to write “kerosene”. It is a good solvent for washing rollers, although it does leave an oily reside on the surface. It is good for composition rollers as it leaves that oily film which helps to keep them from absorbing moisture as readily and helps eliminate the rollers drying out. For standard rubber rollers produced these days, I would recommend mineral spirits as a good solvent for cleaning. Of course everyone has their favorite solvent which has worked for them, but mineral spirits (white spirit, for Brits) seems to work well in my shop.
I think straight toluene would be a glaze remover rather than a general roller wash: something to be used infrequently, and sparingly, to remove the buildup that milder solvents leave behind.
Solvent (as opposed to abrasive) glaze removers have been discontinued by most suppliers. I still have some old pint cans of it and it is extremely fast-drying, could be toluene or even something more volatile.
If solvents worry you, remember to use gloves, VOC respirators, and always have adequate ventilation.
And when looking for information, you should realize almost everything you find on the web refers to cleaning lithographic rollers, which also must be cleaned of dampening solution not used in letterpress (hence water-miscible washes), and assumes a standard wash-up unit on the press. The printing industry has no institutional memory of hand-scrubbing a C&P.
Kerosene as jhenry corrected is what i use on a 4 color offset press with new roller as well been doing this for many years as it is a bit oily it also prevents for the machine washer to be sucked into the press and also avoids damage on gears etc if it gets spilled or whatever if you then want to remove the residual oiliness a little spray of water or gasoline to dry out depending if you have a washer or not.
Querosene is just Kerosene’s unique cousin.
Hehe youre right on that HavenPress