Several of the leading printing ink manufacturers are now making a special gold ink which gives a close imitation of gold bronzing. The Sleight Metallic Ink Company, of Philadelphia, is supplying an excellent gold ink which is particularly adapted to glazed paper. This ink is furnished in the form of a liquid and a bronze powder, and the printer mixes a fresh quantity of the gold ink for each job.
Printing in gold ink is done in the same way as other printing, with the exception of having rather a light impression, and the inking apparatus must be absolutely clean before the gold ink is put on. Rollers containing traces of regular printing ink, oil or grease, will seriously affect the quality of the gold ink. Heavy impression will cause the subject to press deeply into the paper, and this in turn will cause the gold ink to present a “ragged” appearance at the edges of type characters, rules, borders, etc. A light impression allows just the right amount of gold ink to transfer to the surface of the paper.
When printing a long run of paper with gold ink, the rollers and other inking parts of the press should be washed about every two hours. Fresh color is then put on, and this helps in keeping a bright color.
GOLD LEAFING FOR BOX WRAPPERS
Gold leafing for printed designs on box wrappers may be done with the aid of a platen press as follows:
First, a special size, made especially for gold leafing, is required, and this size can be obtained from any of the leading printing-ink manufacturers. This size is used on the press in the same way as size for bronzing.
The gold leaf layers, as they are called in the trade, work on a table arranged near the press on which the printing is being done. As the printed sheets are laid on the table, single sheets of the gold leaf are “shaken” from the books containing the gold leaf, and the leaf is laid over the printed detail so accurately that all parts of the printed design are minutely covered. When one sheet of gold leaf is not large enough to cover all of the detail, another sheet is used to complete the work.
After the gold leaf has been applied to the wrappers, some workers employ a common clothes wringer in making the gold leaf adhere firmly to the printed detail. The wrappers are simply run through the rollers of the clothes wringer under heavy pressure.
Loose portions of the gold leaf are not rubbed off the wrapper until after the printing is thoroughly dry.