Ink - Fountain of Darkness, Source of Light.

". . . as well as laborious to the Body, as noysom and ungrateful to the Sence, and by several odd accidents dangerous of firing the Place it is made in."

-on the making of ink - Joseph Moxon, Mechanick Exercises, 1683

Writing ink was the forerunner of printing ink and was made and used by the Egyptians and Chinese as early as 2,600 B.C. These early inks were made of chimney soot mixed with water, vegetable oils and and animal glues. The soot, or carbon black was excellent in its ability to mix well and it would not fade. Early color inks were made from indigo, tannin and earth colors, and the galls of oak and nut trees. The inks secreted by octopus, cuttlefish, and squid were also used.

Natural ink colors were subject to fading and not very bright. To make a bright, color fast ink was very difficult using the organic pigments available to the early ink makers. It would not be until the discovery of coal tar colors that true color printing would be possible. However, some printers made better ink than others. In the Gutenberg Bible, the red ink was so bright that Faust and Gutenberg were accused of using blood.

Ink to be used for printing demanded more than ink that would merely be applied with a quill or a brush. A printerís ink had to be thick enough to adhere to the type, transfer to the paper, dry to touch, and bond the pigment to the paper. The secret was to have a thick oil based varnish.

The process of making the varnish or vehicle to carry the pigment involved boiling linseed oil for extended periods at just the right temperature. This is what Joseph Moxon was referring to when he described ink making as laborious, smelly, and a fire hazard. Many printers went to an open meadow far from town to boil the varnish.

Today, we take the existence of abundant vegetable oils for granted. Before modern extracting and refining methods, precious little oil was pressed from great quantities of seeds, and fruits. A fire during refining was not only a hazard, but it could also be an economic disaster. Most printers gladly began to purchase ready made varnish from suppliers when it became available.

Benjamin Franklin, began to make his own ink and soon was in the business of selling supplies to other printers. In 1747 he received an order from an Annapolis  printer named Jonas Green. Green required some varnish and 4 or 5 Pound of Lamp black. This was enough ingredients to make about one-third of a barrel of ink.

Franklin would have sent the ingredients to the printer unmixed. It was the apprentices duty to do the mixing or rubbing of the ink. A better impression was obtained when the ink was rubbed the day of the printing. Combining the stiff varnish with the pigment was a wrist breaking choir that Franklin listed as one of his duties when he was a young printerís devil.

An early practical joke played on young apprentices took place during the first ink rubbing lesson. The apprentice was told to mix the compound faster and faster until heat could be felt coming off the mixture. He was shown how to check it by holding his hand over the ink. When the novice printer took the bait and put his hand over the pile it was pushed down into the ink. This sophomoric joke was an initiation and a right of passage into the ranks of the printing chapel.

Printers had their own secret formulas and additives that they would rub into the ink. Tar, pitch, and soap were a few of the additions. The first instance of the sale of ready made ink was in 1792 in Germantown,Pennsylvania. Justus Fox began to sell ink by the keg to Matthew Carey.

These wooden barrels of ink were honored in an 1889 poem, Ode to an Empty Ink Keg by W. P. Root   Root called the ink keg the Fountain of darkness, Source of light! and wished Let wisdom, virtue, harmless fun, Forever from my ink-keg come. 

In Praise of an Empty Ink Can by Frank Granger

 

Its contents spent,

And sides all bent

And ready for the pile.

 

This empty can.

The servant of man?

I ponder for a while.

 

With power and force,

Its given voice

To good and noble thought.

 

With idea and heart,

Its developed art,

From that which was nought.

 

Good and great

Can now create,

Lasting thoughts of word.

 

Youth and age,

Can read the page,

And see never having heard.

 

With freedom it sings,

Just as Liberty rings,

There was power in that can!

 

To fill our needs

And extol our deeds,

It is truly servant of all man.