Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 September 1895 — PRINTERS’ INK. [ARTICLE]

PRINTERS’ INK.

Source of the Coloring Material of the Black Variety. Few readers of books and papers have any idea of the source of the black substance from which the ink used In printing is made. The general idea is that it is lampblack, the sort produced in burning resin, turpentine or crude oil with an insufficient air supply. Up to ten years ago this was the base of all ink used, but since the wide development of natural gas lampblack has been superseded in good ink by a very superior article known as carbon black. This is made entirely from natural gas in the gas regions of Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana. The factory for its manufacture is a very simple affair, consisting of a long, low, wooden building, through the whole length of which run double rowu of gas-pipe eight or ten inches apart. These have either holes drilled in them every ten to twelve Inches or small tips, such as are used in house jets, set in at about the same distances and from which the gas burns. Above each of these double rows of jets is placed a long, narrow, sheet-iron pan, about four inches deep. A stream of water covering the bottom of the pan is kept flowing steadily by means of pumps. The jets are lighted and the big flames play up against the pan, “smoking” it as a piece of cold tin held above a gas jet would be smoked. Very little air is slewed to enter, and as the water keeps the pan comparatively cool the deposit of soot is heavy. About every’ half hour a shet-iron car with a scraper above it is drawn under the pan its whole length, scraping off and collecting the carbon black. These cars work in pairs, the cans of two lines of jets being drawn by the same wire rope. As one goes to the lower end of the building the other comes to the upper end. The rope is wrapped around a drum operated by an engine.

When the car Is full It is emptied In,to a large trough, and the black, which is somewhat damp, is taken to the dryer, a broad, shallow pan with a fire beneath. When dry the lumps are crushed. The substance is then bolted or sifted, coming out as fine as flour, and is finally packed in barrels lined with paper bags to prevent sifting out The product is almost pure carbon of an intense black and very light. A barrel of it packed under a screw weighs only fifty pounds. It is so much blacker than lampblack, which has a grayish tinge, that it has two and a half times the value of the latter in producing a given depth of color. That is, one weight of It will produce the same depth that two and a half times its weight of lampblack will produce. It is also very free from the fault of packing or sticking together. To these last two properties it owes its great value as an inkmaker, producing a very brilliant black ink that runs freely and is less pasty and sticky than that from lampblack. Besides being used in inks, carbon’ black enters into the composition of black paints, varnishes and lacquers, gives brilliancy to stove-polishes and forms the body of the best shoe-black-ing. A large quantity—perhaps 50 per cent, of all that is made—is shipped abroad. The pyramids themselves, doting with age, have forgotten the names ot their founders.—Fuller.