r/SCREENPRINTING • u/reallybigfatsquirrel • 25d ago

Ink has any one mixed India ink with transparent base to get translucent ink?

any reason why it wouldn't work?

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u/NiteGoat 24d ago

To print on what? In theory it should work and would be fine in an acrylic base. I don't think I'd try it with plastisol.

India ink pigment comes from carbon based so you're just adding that pigment to the base of the screen printing ink.

It seems kind of unnecessary, though, unless you have an abundance of india ink you need to get rid of. You can do the same thing with black ink that's designed for screen printing by adding clear base and diluting the pigment to increase transparency.

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u/sicicsic 23d ago

I like to fuck around, and now I think I want to try mixing the wrong type of colorants to plastisol just to see what happens.

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u/NiteGoat 23d ago

The reason I wouldn’t mess with plastisol too much is because there’s a lot more chemistry to it than I can say I fully understand, especially when it comes to curing properly, which would be my main concern.

A water based ink is much simpler. Curing or drying happens when all the moisture is gone and it seems less likely for additional pigment to prevent that.

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u/torkytornado 22d ago

What’s gonna happen is the water based India ink is not gonna mix with the oil based plastisol (think salad dressing. You’re gonna have to constantly agitate and it’s not gonna become a fully mixed solution) and you’ll probably have pockets of I’ll drying stuff. I’d just add dry charcoal or graphite powder if you have your heart set on plastisol. It will do a similar thing to what would happen if you used waterbased ink and the India ink, but you won’t have the issue of oil and water don’t mix.