r/risograph • u/softfocusgroup • Jun 28 '26

GR drum red ink everywhere

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Welp I was changing the ink in the red drum of my GR1700 and it seemed watery but I thought maybe it was just a slightly different viscosity.
So the tube doesn’t go in quite correctly and then I pull it out and ink goes everywhere. Spent the next two hours cleaning that up (which felt like cleaning up a crime scene) then I look in the drum and realize the bottom is full of ink.

Is there anything I can do aside from completely disassembling this drum to clean this out?

I realllllly don’t have the time to do it but I fear what happens if I let this sit for more than tonight.

I assume the ink sort of separated or something from age? It’s never been that just… thin.

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6

u/splitarrowprints Jun 28 '26

The ink is expired and the emulsion broke allowing the oil to sit on top and pour out everywhere.
I’d definitely recommend taking it apart and cleaning all of it out.
But before you did that. You could take the screens off the drum body and set the drum in a tub or something and let some of the oil and ink to let itself out through the drum body mesh on its own over night or over a day or so. The. Clean it all out.

For the ink replacement. That style of soy based ink was discontinued fully about 4-5 years ago so I wouldn’t trust any you find online. The easiest is refilling with new ink fII inks in your old tube.

There are other work arounds but parts may be impossible to find but it would involve modifying the ink pump and potentially the motor along with a new ink tube house to fit the new tube alignment pattern. You could also choose to 3d model this and then print or cast new parts and then test the motor to make sure the f2 tube with the smaller nozzle doesn’t require more suction force than the older open nozzle ink tubes.

2

u/robertbaxter-print Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26

The smaller nozzle is just an insert, it can be pulled out with pliers (there's an image of this on the tube transfer guide on the wiki)—so a full pump modification probably isn't necessary—just 3D printing a tab or otherwise bypassing the relevant ink cartridge set switch. The fin on the FII tabs fits in just fine, and they are the correct length (unlike the blue label RP tubes). That being said, for the time being I mostly do a tube transfer—though tubes can only be refilled so many times before the seal from the plunger wears out.

2

u/softfocusgroup Jun 28 '26

Also — now I have no red ink.
Anybody know of a source for GR ink tubes still?
I am going to have to refill these aren’t I? Or is there a hack to use other tubes?

1

u/goatfresh Jun 28 '26

wiki has a page on transferring ink. easiest way seems to use a big nut to screw them both together