Lord of the nerds Posted May 24, 2016 Share Posted May 24, 2016 Does anyone know how to remove ink from paper? Or if it is even possible? The reason I ask is we got our yearbooks today and another kid took mine and drew some... Not so asexual things on it. I am going to report it tomorrow (it happened at the very end of the day) but getting someone in trouble won't remove the drawings. But I am hoping household chemicals might. P.S. It was a 207 Signo pen, which is a gel ink pen, if that makes a difference Link to post Share on other sites
Rabidbutterfly Posted May 24, 2016 Share Posted May 24, 2016 I actually spilled ink on white shoes recently so I may be able to assist.. Terrible sadness for the year book. Rubbing alcohol will help with it as will nail polish remover. I know this will saturate paper but most year books are made of that shiny gloss or matte paper so it might do the trick. Link to post Share on other sites
Busrider Posted May 25, 2016 Share Posted May 25, 2016 Nasty! These pens feature acid-free, fade and water resistant ink that helps prevent check washing (a common form of check fraud). ... So I guess you are facing a major challenge. - The yearbook paper might be indeed coated, but I'd guess its unlikely they went through the nightmare of producing it on cast coated gloss paper (Chromolux claim marketleadership in that field), so the inks used in printing and drawing are enabled to dry by penetrating (at least the coating layer of the paper), besides drying by oxidation which will happen too. Its not unusual today to inlite clearcoat everything offsetprinted with a waterbased clearcoat. for handling convenience. In case the book was laserprinted (makes sense for short runs of less than 300 copies) it will be coated with some fuser oil. Offset ink is pigments dissolved in mineral oil. Industrial paper bleaching is done with peroxyde these days. The cheaper and dirtier way used chlorides <- both found in household bleach. It might make more sense to battle the drawings mechanically by wasting a pencil eraser on them. Most convenient way to solve the problem might be ordering a new sheet of wrapper from the print shop. If the print shop went over the top and cellophane coated the outer wrapping of the book you could be fine and free to dabble with wildest chemicals. Acetone might do the trick but is likely to damage the printing ink too (we use it to clean long term stained machinery parts) Alcohol is usually quite helpful against some pens, but that seems to demand a closed surface, where the pen's ink can't penetrate something like paper coating. Toluene might be worth trying but is a really messy and hazardous substance. OK those were the printing industry insider's ramblings. - I hope something is useful... Link to post Share on other sites
Lord of the nerds Posted May 25, 2016 Author Share Posted May 25, 2016 Thank you, but (I probably should have mentioned this before) he did it on the one sheet that wasn't glossed, as it was meant for autographs, but thank you anyway, I am sure I can use one of these anyway, (I am just concerned about eating through to the other side of the page). Oh, and thank you Busrider for the interesting information of printing and how it's done. Would you by any chance be able to answer a question I have about cardstock coloring methods?... I remember reading about something on the topic for a project years ago, but have long since forgotten most of it. Thank you all again. Link to post Share on other sites
Lord of the nerds Posted May 26, 2016 Author Share Posted May 26, 2016 Update: the school has given me a new year book. Because of the fact that there is a removable mini-booklet for signatures that everyone used except that one kid, I didn't lose my friends' signatures, so everything turned out all right. However, since they let me keep the old yearbook, I can still experiment with those chemicals. As for the kid who did it, he got in plenty of trouble. He had to go to the VP's office, who is one of those VPs who are really nice unless you break a rule, in which case they turn the polar opposite. Long story short, he got what was coming to him. Link to post Share on other sites
Busrider Posted May 26, 2016 Share Posted May 26, 2016 Oh oh, you caught me on the wrong leg. If you want to color a coated stock, it seems cheap to simply wash a press down insert 2 plates turn of dampening and smear the ink on. Solid colored cardstock, even uncoated, is usually rather expensive, but of course the manufacturing process is to blame. Gmund (big in that business) claim to be among the most environment friendly mills worldwide and operate one of the oldest paper machines in Europe, which translates to small capacity, slow and cost intense production. - They separate scrap paper (leftover when cutting to sheets) according to its color and recycle it straight ahead. I'm not deep into the chemistry but sure they color their fiber before they start making paper from it. For homemade paper or cardboard you can try inks or anything waterbased according to DIY websites. If you are cooking your fibre (some hobbyists seem to do that, the industry prefers the give it time and mechanical treatment approach) anything ever intended to dye clothing could be used too. Sorry, I've never seen a paper mills inside either and must confess that my English is too bad to google deep into the process Depending on the purposes you are intending for the results, paper making becomes quite the science... and it gets taught as a college major. Link to post Share on other sites
Lord of the nerds Posted May 27, 2016 Author Share Posted May 27, 2016 Thank you again Link to post Share on other sites
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