Determining Amounts of Ink Components

Mixing Additives into Screen Inks

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Prepared by L. Maybaum, Industrial Screen Ink Segment Manager

It is a regular practice for screen printers to combine ink colors or special effects, thinners, catalysts and other additives to an ink. Calculating the quantity of color components or additive(s) to include with the ink can be confusing. This document is to provide clarification of different calculation methods. Because of the diversity of components or additives, Nazdar typically recommends to measure by weight using a scale.

Total Components Equals 100%

The first calculation approach is to have the total component amounts equal 100%. This is most commonly used when making a ‘Color Match’ or mixing several ink color components together. When making a Color Match to use in print production, the total amount of ink is defined as a Weight converted from the Percentage.

The Weight of each ink needed is determined by multiplying the total by the Percentage of the component. Example with the total ink amount defined as 500g:

Adding to Ink: Percent to Weight

The next two methods start with a known Weight of ink and add the components to the ink. This method is most commonly used with additives such as thinners, catalysts or metallic effect powders.

Note: it is generally recommended that catalyst is added prior to adding thinners / reducers; it is likely that a catalyst will reduce the initial viscosity of the ink eliminating the need for further thinning or reducing.

First, the amount of ink needed is defined by Weight. In the example below, the amount is 500g. Additive 1 is recommended to be added at 10%; Additive 2 is recommended to be added at 3%. The calculation is to multiply each additive with 500g to define how much of each component to add into the mix. The end amount is 565g.

Adding to Ink: Parts to Weight

In some instances, the ink to additives recommendation is stated in Parts rather than Percentage; the Parts are still in reference to Weight. To convert Parts to Percentage, use the following formula:

Additive Parts ÷ Ink Parts = % Additive to 100% ink

The rest of the calculation would follow the same as above in ‘Adding to Ink: Percent to Weight’. Example:

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