Inks

Big subject. And there is a lot of new research being undertaken at the moment with all sorts of stuff going on. I am a country mile behind. So this section is more like a set of notes to provide me with some reminders of what is what.

In the mid 19^th Century, ink making was still something of a black art. Large scale ink manufacture was still in it's infancy with many printers still making and mixing their own inks. Perkins Bacon falls into that category, as we know that they were unofficially messing around with ink composition in 1857 and probably for some time after. However it should be noted that when Ormond Hill complained about "variation in the tint" in May of 1857, Perkins Bacon passed the blame for this onto their colour maker, a Mr J.H. Fisher. The colour of inks in the penny plate period seems to have settled down to a fairly consistent hue, so some buying of bulk manufactured ink in may have occurred. But I will leave that analysis to someone who collects those issues. In the lead up to this period printers had their own way of making ink, and many recipes were trade secrets. However, enough information has survived to have a good stab at a description. We don't know the full story, so a degree of guesstimation is unavoidable.

Fundamentally, ink can be split into two main components: the carrier and the pigment. The carrier or varnish in the case of intaglio printing was a thick oleo-resinous fluid. The pigment, either a liquid dye (or lake) or a powder that needed grinding, provided the colour.

Varnish - Oil

The base material used was linseed oil. Walnut oil was used for some printing, but it was more more common on the continent and was more expensive. That last point probably excludes it from Perkins Bacon's repertoire. The linseed oil was gently boiled until it thickened. Some accounts of ink making have the oil being burnt off for some time, rather like alcohol on a Christmas pudding, which would have accelerated the thickening process. Some of the oil would be drawn off part way through and used as light oil, for thinning the end product if needed.

Added to the oil was some form of resin, which had the property of making the ink dry through oxidisation. Different resins were used – see below. A common, almost universal practice was to add bread crusts and an onion to the cauldron as the oil was boiling, later to be removed when they had carbonised. This carbon probably absorbed some of the more complex fatty acids present in the oil, which if left made the ink greasy and likely to create an oily halo around the printing. An additional drying agent was sometimes added – see below. The boiling continued until the oil was thick enough to string between finger and thumb when it was allowed to cool. The resultant varnish was carefully stored with a lid of water for as long as possible. The best quality varnish had been stored for years before use.

We don't know what was put into the varnish that PB used. The following is a list of possibles. Alas, I am not a chemist. Apologies.

Varnish - Resins

Amber – Could be ground and then melted into the boiling oil. Expensive.

Asphalt – A fossil resin found around the dead sea.

Burgundy pitch – From the spruce tree in the Vosgres. Boiled in water then strained before use.

Canada balsam – Similar to above.

Copal – Another fossil resin. Dissolved in spirit of turpentine.

Mastic – Secretion from a shrub from the Levant. Dissolved in spirit of turpentine.

Rosin - The residue remaining after the distillation of turpentine.

Sandarac – From a tree in NW Africa

Spirits of turpentine – Distilled from turpentine

Turpentine – Product of several species of Pine

Varnish - Additional dryers

Copperas – Blue, green and white copperas correspond with sulphates of copper, iron and zinc. (FeSO_{4 - the iron version - Wikipedia)}

Litharge – An oxide of lead. Causes oil to darken. (PbO - Wikipedia)

Sugar of lead – This is lead acetate. (Pb(CH₃COO)₂ - Wikipedia)

Pigments – Black

Lampblack – Lots of different methods, but basically the product of burning pitch resin / coal tar / “the fatty and resinous parts of wood” / burning a wick in animal fat - you get the picture. The resultant substance was often calcined by heating over a period of time until any visible smoke had dispersed. Fine grinding was necessary. The addition of Prussian Blue was “standard practice” in the early 19^th Century, as it was claimed to give a depth and intensity to the black. This is a significant point.

Pigments – Red

Carmine – Dye made from the Coccus Cacti beetle (cochineal) was infused with alum.

Brazil wood lake / rose pink / Dutch pink – A red dye produced from the Brazilian tree Caesalpina Brasiliensis. One recipe calls for the wood to be boiled with cochineal added with calcined alum, arsenic and pulverised cuttlefish bones.

Indian Red – A natural iron ore. Could be made artificially by using an iron oxide containing a sulphate of lime or barium. (Fe₂O_{3 - Wikipedia)}

Red lead – Produced by heating lead oxide. A natural dryer. ( Pb₃O₄, or 2 PbO·PbO_{2 - Wikipedia)}

Vermillion / cinnabar – A compound of mercury and sulphur. Vermillion blackens in contact with lead colours. (HgS - wikipedia)

Pigments – Blue

Prussian blue /Chinese blue / Antwerpt blue / Berlin blue. - Ferric Ferrocyanide. Often added to black. A natural dryer which had to be used quickly. (Fe₄[Fe(CN)₆]₃· x H₂O or K[Fe^IIIFe^II(CN)₆] - Wikipedia. Too complicated for me to understand, I suggest you refer to the article)

Indigo - Similar to woad. Extracted from the Indian plant Indigofera Tinctoria.

Pigments - White

White lead / flake white - Poisonous and made by placing lead in the fumes of boiling vinegar. Darkens with age, though can be bleached by exposure to sunlight (perhaps one of the causes of WSS). Used to lighten dark or drab colours. (2PbCO₃·Pb(OH)₂) - Wikipedia

Example recipes

We do not have any written records of what Perkins Bacon put into their ink, though research going on at the present time will undoubtedly bear fruit. [We do. See below] We do have some recipes, though most seem to be for typographical inks. Some examples:

"Ink was made from linseed or nut oil. Take 10-12 gallons and place in a pot which would then be half full. Boil and stir. If it does not light itself, ignite with a paper. Simple boiling not enough. Burn for half an hour. Then extinguish. Then give gentle heat until it gives right consistency. Crusts, onions and turpentine are added by some but these are secret. Such additions enable the ink to adhere better to wet paper. For copperplate varnish, do not boil so much or it difficult to wipe off." Article "Ink", The London Encyclopedia, London, 1829.

This is useful as it confirms that up to the period in question, much of the knowledge was commercially secret. It also tells us that ink made for typography was thicker than that needed for copperplate printing.

"A fine printing ink prepared from the best ink of commerce (first made 1808).

• Backwell's 5/- ink 1 lb

• Best Prussian Blue 1 1/4 oz

• Mastich varnish 1/4 oz

• Balsam of Capivi 1/2 oz

These ingredients are ground together on a slab with a muller." Savage, On the preparation of printing ink, London 1832.

"A printing ink for general purposes, superior to that sold at 2s 6d a lb.

Put 6 quarts of linseed oil in a kettle on a lively fire and boil until smoke arises. Put a lighted paper in the smoke, and when flashes occur, which clears away the smoke, take the kettle off the fire, set light to the oil and keep stirring with an iron spatula. Test for threading. When the treads are about half inch long it is ready. Extinguish and stir until froth has disappeared. 6 pounds of amber rosin or black rosin should be added gradually to the oil and stirred in. Then add 1 3/4 lbs of dry brown or turpentine soap of the best quality, cut into slices. Do this with care as it causes much frothing. When the soap is all in and the frothing ceased, replace on fire until it boils again.

Take 5oz of the best Prussian Blue or indigo, or equal parts of both and place in an earthen pot. Then add 4 lbs of best lampblack and 3 1/2 lbs of good vegetable lampblack. Add varnish and stir all the time until no lumps remain. Grind with muller." Savage, On the preparation of printing ink, London 1832.

Prussiate of Potash seems to be a staple ingredient. Lampblack could be made by burning mineral oil (lampblack, in this case) or vegetable sources, such as resin (vegetable lampblack).

A recipe for copperplate ink:

"The ink for fine ornamental work is based on the finest Frankfurt black. it is ground on the stone and mixed with weak burnt linseed oil, until it is like a thick paste; a little strong burnt oil is added, which is composed of small portions of litharge, white copperas and sugar of lead. These are well pounded with the muller before addition to the varnish. A small portion of the best Prussian Blue may be added, but care should be taken that it is well triturated, otherwise it is liable to make the best work smear. The blue is ground up by itself with weak oil; to this the dryers are added. This mixture is ground again and added to the black, and the whole ground for a further 10 minutes.

The inks for common work are prepared in the same way except that the Prussian Blue is not used and that common English black is substituted for that of Frankfurt. T.C.Hansard, Treatise on Printing, London, 1841.

It is clear that Prussiate of Potash (Prussian Blue) was not only expensive, but it was also difficult to use. It had the propensity to dry quickly. Whilst intaglio printers would have had an easier time of it than typographical printers, since the ink was removed from the plate with every sheet rather than collect around the typeface, it still had to be used quickly.

This is not an exhaustive list, and if it were, there would be a lot of duplication. The aim is to give a general view of ink making and how Perkins Bacon might have dealt with the issue, and not send the reader to sleep.

Perkins Bacon recipes.

Note to self: Read Bacon more!

Appendix C (98) gives a list of inks sent to R Phillips in 1839 who recommended to OH recipe G No.16 later adopted, which reads as follows:

2 Ib. Pink .. .. .. . . 1 s 4d (Presumably Rose Pink)

2 Ib. Prus. of Pot. .. .. . . 6 s 0d

1/2 Carbonate of Potash .. .. . . 0s 6d

1/2 Cochineal .. .. . . 4s 6d

2 1/2 Oil .. .. .. . . 1s 0d

Total 7 1/2lb for 12s 4d

or 1/8 per lb

What strikes me about this is the relative amounts. That is a lot of POP. Also cochineal is three times more expensive than POP. Stamps from the earlier plates tend to be a good zingy red that fades as time progresses. By the time we get to plate 100 the colours have became muted and more yellow. They must have been filling out the colours with something else such as indian red made from an iron ore. This would have made the pigment much cheaper and made the ink go further.

Notes

Vermillion (MgS) blackens when combined with lead. End of 1856 perhaps.

Red lead fades in sunlight.

Were more dryers used in winter? Pop?

What pigments were being used for the foreign contracts?

AP May 2015 - 2022