Clean Up For Inks, Brayers, & Knives

As you work:

-  Assume that your hands have ink on them. Look at them before you touch anything. It helps to wear gloves while you’re mixing inks. You can use baby wipes to wipe your hands and to wipe your gloves off to keep them clean for multiple uses.

-  Use the least amount of ink needed, your plates will print better and it will be easier to clean up. Any excess ink, you can save by folding it up in aluminum foil or wax paper and storing it in your storage bin.

-Don’t leave inked up brayers out for longer than 1 hour. The ink will dry on the brayer and make it hard to clean. Try to ink up your brayer only when you are fully set up to begin printing. Go ahead and clean off the brayer if you take a break.

IMPORTANT-The brayers are color coded for different kinds of ink, the chart is on the wall by the brayers. There are Brayers for AKUA(Blue tape on handle), Brayers for traditional oil ink(Tan tape on handle), Brayers for water clean up oils like Charbonnel and Caligo(Yellow Tape on Handle). Using the same brayer for multiple oil contributes to sticky brayers.

CLEANING UP OIL BASED INKS

1.  After you’ve made your last print, run the plate through the press with some scrap paper a couple of times. This will get the excess ink off of it and make it easier to clean.

If this is an intaglio you’ll need to use some vegetable oil to get the ink out of the incised lines. If this is a relief print you could just put the block away at this point.

2.  Take the brayer and roll off the remaining ink onto phone book pages. Keep doing that until almost no ink comes off. It should only take two or three pages.

3.  Use the razor blade scraper to scrape the glass as thoroughly as possible to get up as much ink as you can. Wipe the scraper clean on a phone book page. Minimize the use of paper towels, recycling phone books is environmentally friendly and cheaper.

4.  Where you had your ink rolled out, put out a nickel sized dollop of oil. Take the brayer and use it to spread the oil to cover the same area that the ink covered. You should begin to see ink

coming off of the glass and off of the brayer and becoming suspended in the oil. Go over the area thoroughly.

Roll the brayer onto a phone book page. Keep doing that until almost all of the ink is gone. Again, this should take maybe three pages.

Use the scraper again to push the ink and oil mixture into a pile. Mop up the oil with a paper towel. Try to get all of the ink and oil picked up off the surface of the glass.

5.  Your brayer and ink knives will probably still have a little ink on them. Put a bit more oil on the plate and wipe off any remaining ink from the ink knives. Roll off any remaining ink from the brayer and take to the kitchen to wash off oil with dish soap and water. Dry and put back on the shelf.

6.  Spritz the entire piece of glass with 50/50 mix of vinegar, this will cut through the remaining oil on the plate. Wipe up remaining residue and finish with Seventh Generation or Simple Green. Take a paper towel and scrub off the whole piece of glass. Repeat this step a couple times until class is clean and not oily to the touch. Wipe off ink knives and put them back in the drawer.

7.  Now that everything looks clean, finish by wiping over the glass surface with a clean paper towel to get any remaining oily haze off.

There are different varieties of WATER CLEAN UP INKS.

AKUA brand inks are soy based and clean up with soap and water.

CALIGO and CHARBONNEL AQUA WASH are oil based emulsions which clean up with soap and water.

1.  After you’ve made your last print run the plate through the press with some scrap paper a couple of times. This will get the excess ink off of it and make it easier to clean.

If this is an intaglio you’ll need to use some soap and water to get the rest of the ink off the plate. You’ll need to wet your plate and then pour a dollop of dish soap directly onto the plate. Spread it around with your hands and let it penetrate, giving it a few moments to sink in and break up the ink. Rinse with clean water and repeat if necessary.

If this is a relief print you could just put the block away at this point.

2.  Take the brayer and roll off the remaining ink onto phone book pages. Keep doing that until almost no ink comes off. It should only take two or three pages.

3.  Use the razor blade scraper to scrape the glass as thoroughly as possible to get up as much ink as you can. Wipe the scraper clean on a phone book page. Most of the ink should be gone.

4.  Where you had your ink rolled out, spritz with 50/50 vinegar water mix or plain water. Take the brayer and use it to spread the 50/50 over the same area that the ink covered. You should begin to see ink coming off of the glass and off of the brayer. Go over the area thoroughly.

Roll the brayer onto a paper towel or a phone book page. Keep doing that until almost all of the ink is gone. Again, this should take maybe three pages. Minimize the use of paper towels.

Use the scraper again to push the ink and 50/50 mixture into a pile, as much as it will. Focus on getting any remaining ink off of the scraper blade as you do this.

Mop up the mess with a paper towel. Try to get the area dry.

5.  Lightly spritz the entire piece of glass with water or Seventh Generation or simple green and wipe the haze off the glass.

Take the brayer to the kitchen sink and use a dime size bit of dish soap and water to wash off remaining ink from the brayer.

6.  Now that everything looks clean, take a clean paper towel and rub it over the glass. Wipe off any haze.

DO NOT USE SIMPLE GREEN, SEVENTH GENERATION, BIO SOLVE, OR BABY WIPES

ON BRAYERS, they make the brayers sticky.