Quote:
Originally Posted by Jantz
I used to work for a retail chain years ago and part of my job was mixing paint. If you added so much as one drop more of tint to the base white paint, it would throw the color completely off. The same can be said if you didn't add the correct amount of tint the recipe called for.
I have no clue how the inks were mixed to print these cards. Maybe Steve B. can comment on that.
Jantz
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Mixing the ink is a lot like mixing paint, except there's no base. There are recepies for colors, Stuff like 1 blue,2 white, 1/4yellow. The pressman (Or woman these days-very few of them on the 70's, fewer in the 1910 era)
Takes a bit of ink of each color and puts them on a piece of glass and mixes the ink till it's one color. The overall quantity is done from experience based on how many sheets are needed or how many can be made in a day.
The ink is very sticky and thick. Thicker than paint, maybe like an artists oil paints.
So the actual color can vary from day to day. If it needs to be precise the press operator can weigh the inks before mixing. I only saw that a couple times since modern presses are quick enough to do most jobs in a day.
The ink then gets spread into a tray that allows it into a series of rollers that eventually ink the plate. If the ink is getting too dry or is slightly off the operator can add color in that tray. 70's presses had controls to allow more or less ink to the rollers as well. I'm not sure about presses in 1910, but they probably had similar controls.
So the operator has a lot of control over the color and density of the ink that reaches the paper.
And it really wouldn't be unheard of for an operator to add some dark blue to a tray of black if they were running low very late in the day.
Steve B
For those of you who appreciate industrial practical jokes - One common bit of hazing is when a non-pressman watches ink being mixed they tell the new guy that they know it's mixed enough when it heats up. "Here see for yourself" And when you put your hand over the ink a quick slap puts it into the ink. Which is hard to wash off.
I only ran a press for a week, but got to be on both ends of that one