Ink Ink Ink

I am printing my own album pages. I read the topic Paper Paper Paper and thought it was great. That brings me to another question - which seems like it deserves its own topic.

Once you find good paper, what method do you use to print on this paper?

I guess what I'm really wondering is that if you use an inkjet printer, have people noticed any issues with the ink transferring to stamps, bleeding, fading, etc. etc.

I'm old enough to once have had an inkjet printer which printed documents that were not waterproof. I'm still gunshy.

Laser printer toner seems stable - but has anyone had any issues with that? By monkeying around I have noticed that not all laser printer and copier toners are equal - some dissolve in acetone, some do not. Certain color laser printers use a waxy ink.

I have always wondered about this.

People do use ink jet printers, but it is not recommended for album pages. The very term "ink jet" refers to a water soluble ink that will smear if it gets wet or even moist in the slightest way. It is also said that it cannot withstand the test of time as well as laser printers.

Of course, laser printers can be out of reach for some people. On the other hand, there is a definite cost factor in the expensive ink jet cartridges on some printers as opposed to toner cartridges that last several times longer with laser printers, so one argument could be that a laser printer will actually cost you less in the long run. It all depends on the volume of printing you plan to do with the device.

You can dump your album pages onto a disk and have a copy center (i.e. Staples, Kinko's, etc.) copy it for you through either a laser printer or toner based copier with good results, although the cost to do so may outweigh the value of just buying the album pages pre-made.

It all depends on your personal preferences, your long term storage plans, how "perfect" you want the end result album pages to be and, of course, your budget.

Bottom line: There are as many answers to this question as there are to the paper question!

The printing system I am currently using is pretty much: "bring disk to work, print on giant copier while no one is looking"

Not sure if that is 100% reliable. Especially since the bond paper I am using sometimes gives the printer indigestion.

I have printed at Kinkos a few times. That seems to work and its really not that expensive.

Its good to know that inkjet prints are still not stable. I won't even consider that.

I work in IT. A black and white laser printer broke and they let me take it home, rather than throw it out. I nursed it back to health. Another forum that shall remain nameless had this to say about toner:

"Also a comment on using laser printers to print your pages. Toner is plastic, pigment and IRON particles! How do you think it gets attracted to the transfer drum, heated up and stuck on your page? Long term I dont know, I'm still researching it as to how damaging aged toner might be to your stamps. I'd also assume that over time your toner is going to break down, no longer stay attached to the paper it was fused to and the now back to dust and plastic particles will have to go somewhere - hopefully not onto your stamps!"

Important topic and one I would like to weigh in on.

I own a print shop, with the latest digital equipment, and can therefore add a few observations to the discussion.

As others have pointed out, avoid ink jet printers, as the inks they use are most often water soluble. There are some better inks available that don't dissolve in water, but they are only available for a few commercial ink jet printers and probably not yours.
All albums used to be produced on printing presses, and most held up well because printer's ink was usually formulated to dry hard and to last a long time, as long as it was not exposed to light too much, which would cause it to fade over time. The paper they were printed on did not fare so well, which is why many old albums have that dirty, yellowed appearance. But as long as they stuck with black ink on white paper, you had a product that would fit the needs of most.

Enter digital printers, which many call laser printers (although all are not). I'm not sure if anyone prints albums on a press any longer and I'm almost positive that the newer ones with color images are all done digitally. Why? It is extremely cost effective compared to offset printing, especially for the small quantities of albums that are purchased these days.
So, is laser toner safe around our stamps?

Maybe, maybe not .............
First, you should realize that the archival qualities of modern toner have only been tested under simulated conditions. They haven't been around long enough to really evaluate the effects of time on toner, so the manufacturers "simulate" the effects of time and try to guess at the long term qualities of their products. Do they test every possible combination of machine, toner, and paper? Doubtful.

You also have to factor in the condition of "that machine, that day".
In other words, about a year ago we sent out a digitally printed piece in the mail, and one piece came back as undeliverable. We opened the envelope for some unknown reason and were surprised to find that several words had transferred from the printed side of the sheet to the back which was folded in onto it. This was printed on a $50,000+ machine and not on a cheap desktop model. The machine was in perfect repair, so all we can point to is this having resulted from the letter's contact with the post office sorting equipment. Oddly enough, there was no evidence of undue crushing pressure having been exerted, and we have been unable to re-create this problem on demand.

If I were generating album pages on a desktop laser printer, I would definitely run off a few samples and clamp them together, perhaps with a couple of boards and a C-clamp, to make sure the toner stays put. This particularly goes if you are using paper with high rag content --- we frequently had drying problems with rag paper on offset presses in the old days. We rarely use rag paper in printing any more, so I can't honestly vouch for how well it works with toner based printing. I would definitely give it the clamp test if it were me.

These comment hold true whether you're printing black & white or in color. Especially if you are printing full color. There is a huge difference between my $60,000 color digital printer and the average desktop color printer. I can modify my fuser temperature at will, to accommodate different types of paper. The fuser is the mechanism of the laser printer that melts the toner into the paper surface, and different types and weights of paper have different requirements. High end desktop machines also allow some control over fuser temperature, but the cheap ones so common these days do not.

I use an inexpensive Laser Printer. I get thousands of pages form one toner cartridge. I Paid under $100.00 for it and I have printed over 40 albums. I think my drum is starting to go and I need a new toner cartridge now so I have decided to buy a new printer because it's cheaper

Just my 2cents worth.

Dianne

I never thought of clamping pages together to test for transfer. Great idea.

Also the point that the black in black toner is iron (iron oxide/"mars black")...makes me wonder how well the plastic binder actually binds the pigment. I'm not enough of a chem guy to understand if black iron oxide can revert to red iron oxide and stain things. I'd hate to think of stray toner particles foxing all my stamps.

I'm pretty sure that I'm overthinking this whole issue, but my second paranoid notion...

In a different hobby - model airplanes, I transfer laser printed images to wood using acetone or blender pens (tolulene or mek, not sure what is in those things). I have noticed that toners are not equal. Different toners are soluable in different solvents. Color toner seems especially erratic.

Also I have had toner transfer to plastics - toner on the first page of something in a binder sticking to the vinyl of the binder. I'm guessing this has something to do with plasticizers in the vinyl covering on the binder(??).

Again, I'm pretty sure that I'm overthinking this whole issue, but I want to do a couple of experiments to put my mind at rest. I'll report back.

peterc4:
You don't sound paranoid at all to me --- cautious, perhaps.

You might want to read this regarding the iron oxide issue:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/i...01530AASUl5c

I sounds like the danger of rust from toner is minimal. I'm pretty sure it is static electricity and not magnetism that causes toner to adhere to the transfer drums of laser printers.

I've had the same concerns regarding toner that you have and have solved my uneasiness by removing all words and images that come into direct contact with my hinged stamps. In other words, I use Adobe Illustrator software to remove everything inside the little stamp borders before I mount my stamps and then I know that none will ever transfer to them. It is time consuming but I think worth the effort and peace of mind.

Very Informative, I never thought of. Most of the time I keep my Stamps in Showgard Sheets.
Though some of stamps Mounted on Laser printer formatted pages using mounts. I will have to look
into this carefully.

tikithindi

Agreed that this is not ideal, but I do it anyways - the printer I already own is an ink jet and I don't want another piece of equipment on my desk. If I find a great deal on a laser printer, I may eventually switch. The savings on cartridges alone would probably be worth it.

I don't worry about water soluble inks. Why don't I worry about water soluble inks? The amount of moisture it takes to smudge a dried page from my printer would ALSO cause my stamps to mildew. If the stamps are ruined, who cares about the pages? Is there any other reason these inks would damage my stamps??

Also, I am not particularly concerned with the value of my albums. If I buy a used album, it is just to rip out the stamps and add them to my own collection. Besides, I don't plan to get rid of my stamps until I'm dead!

RAINCITY - where is your shop and are you hiring?? ;-) ;-)

I'm back,

I did a few tests with a laser printer which I commandeered from work - a beast of a thing - a 4000n which is a pro-grade printer, but pretty old.

I wanted to do some abrasion tests and try folding and clamping laser printed pages to see if I could get the toner to transfer.

The big shocker for me was that my particular example of toner is partially soluable in Ronsonol (?!).

In the past I have transferred laser printer toner to wood with acetone and lacquer thinner, but I always thought that Ronsonol (actually Naptha I believe) was milder than those solvents. Full disclaimer: toners are not all equal. Some are partially resistant to acetone and lacquer thinner (whatever that stuff really is).

Anyway...here are the results:






Paper is Hammermill copy paper.

Box #1 Rubbing page with folded paper (same as printed sheet) 50x very vigorously

Box #2 Rubbing page with folded paper (same as printed sheet) lightly...trying not to generate heat and melt the toner.

Box #3 Wetting page with Ronsonol and rubbing lightly

Boc #4 Fold page over and press in a book press (really clamp it down good) Hold for 1 hour.

Box #5 Fold page over, wet with Ronsonol and clamp for 1 hr as above.

I dont think anyone would be nutty enough to mount a stamp when sopping wet with Ronsonol but it surprised me that you could get toner to transfer with the stuff.

I want to repeat this with cotton bond paper...stay tuned.

I've worked in copy centers for about twenty years, and for fourteen of those years was employed by a major manufacturer of copiers and digital print equipment. These are the problems I'd watch for.

On a laser printer, or a machine that uses toner, you need to make sure the fuser is working correctly. If the image is properly fused, the toner should stay put when you rub your hand across the page. If there is a problem with the fuser, the toner will smear, and the image will wipe away: this will be immediately apparent.

(This problem could be also caused by using heavy stock that can't be sufficiently heated by the fuser, or by printing heavy stock on a regular paper setting.)

Another problem is that xerographic images do not like vinyl. A xerographic image directly in contact with a vinyl binder will transfer the image to the vinyl surface. This doesn't happen immediately, or on contact, but will happen over weeks or months. If I put anything in a vinyl binder, I always make sure to put a piece of blank paper or cardstock between the vinyl surface and any printed image. I have never seen any damage to the pages that are in a three-ring binder, only to sheets inserted into the cover and/or spine of a binder, or the front and back pages in direct contact with the covers.

Be careful putting sheets printed on a laser printer through a copier or other laser printers. A former employer didn't want to buy letterhead from an offset printer, so she brought me a piece of the letterhead and told me to copy it using a color copier. When she later went to print her letter on the "letterhead" I copied, the image unfused and transferred to the laser printer. The "letterhead" was ruined, and the client's printer had to be cleaned. Attempts to print the letters on the copied "letterhead" caused similar problems on digital copier/printer/fax machines, requiring the replacement of the fuser unit.

(While I wrote about attempting to print a letter on a "letterhead" made on a color copier, I could see this being a problem with pre-printed album pages made on color copiers or laser printers, and then fed through a second copier/laser printer.)

In general, color copiers put a fairly heavy coating of fuser. Black and white machines use a much lighter coating, and should not present a problem.

You might also want to be careful about using older machines. Some early color copiers and laser printers produced images that proved not to be durable over time. However, I only recall seeing this on pages produced by machines that were used in the 1990s.

Basically, toner only sits on top of the paper, and vigorous rubbing will damage the image.

peterc4,
Why go to all this trouble when stockbooks are so versatile and smart?