Why isn’t my red ink drying?
I printed some business cards in red and black ink, on two different kinds of paper.
On one paper both the red and black are fine. But on the other paper, the red ink continues to smear a bit when rubbed with a finger, more than 24 hours after printing. Is this a problem with the ink, with the paper, with the interaction between the two? Is there anything I can do about it?
Lexikon,
2 questions, Paper type coated/uncoated, and ink type oil or rubberbase? Coated papers the ink dries by oxidizing on the surface, if rubberbase is/was used it will probably never dry. Oil based will dry by oxidization (surface) rubber (absorbtion) if you check a job that was run in the past with rubberbase ink hold it between your thumb and finger let it get warm 5-15 seconds you could smudge it, oilbase won’t. I hope this helps.
I gave up on rubber-based inks after I printed some business cards, went to trim them two weeks later and they still offset onto the adjacent card. I print with oil-based and usually leave overnight and they’re good and dry the next day.
I once used oil-based printing ink to paint a Christmas ornament. It only dried by Valentine’s day. Never again.
On the page, the oil-based ink usually dried in 24 hours, but if it’s a heavier layer (numerous coats or over-inking) can take a whole week.
Heard of (rubber-base printed) newspaper pages staying smudgy for decades.
Newspapers weren’t printed with rubber-base ink; news ink used mineral oil as vehicle.
I had a similar problem recently - partially coated paper impacting on drying time, coupled with layering one print colour over an other. I used cobalt driers added to the ink to increase drying time.
I hope this helps - best wishes Carl
How old is the ink? I have a can of green that is decades old. Seems it’s lost all it’s driers as I printed with it, oil base on offset stock, and even a year later it was not dry.