Gloss Tester | How to Increase Ink Gloss?

1. What does ink gloss mean?

Water-based ink is a raw material commonly used in the printing industry. Its water resistance or gloss is always the key to the quality of color printing. In order to accurately evaluate the gloss quality of ink, you can use a gloss tester to measure it.
       The ink gloss here refers to the characteristics of the ink layer's reflection, refraction and diffraction of light after its printing is dry. Gloss refers to the ability of water-based inks to reflect light in the same direction at a specified geometric angle. It indicates the brightness of water-based inks after drying on the surface of substrates. When the light is irradiated, due to the different surface conditions of the ink layer, the strength of the specular reflection is different, resulting in a difference in gloss. In order to measure the gloss of ink, a gloss tester is generally used for detection.

2. How to increase ink gloss?

The main factors affecting the gloss of water-based inks are: the nature of the pigment in the ink composition, the size, shape and dispersion of the particles; the permeability, leveling and drying properties of the ink; The printing ink layer thickness and the number of times the ink is printed.
       The pigment content is too high, the oil absorption is large, which makes the gloss of the ink itself poor. The proportion of pigments in ink and water blending needs special attention. Diluents that evaporate too quickly and diluents that evaporate too slowly will affect the gloss of the ink, so process parameters for ink printing need to be strictly controlled.

3. Ink gloss detection with Linshang LS192 portable gloss tester

Linshang LS192 portable gloss tester can be used to test the surface gloss of paints, coatings, inks, plastics, paper, tiles, ceramics, stone, metal and electroplated products. It is a 60 degree angle gloss tester with a measurement range up to 1000GU The test data is comparable to the German BYK gloss tester. At the same time it has the following characteristics:
● Ultra-compact design that fits in your pocket for easy portability.
● Wide measurement range that can be up to 1000GU.
● High accuracy, which can ensure that it can pass the test of any Chinese authoritative metrology institute and meet the standards of national level working machines. 
● The instrument has a self-diagnostic function for the standard board fouling to ensure that measurement deviations will not be caused by the standard board fouling.
● It can measure the gloss of the tested material in real time. During the measurement, the current data can be recorded and stored by pressing the power button shortly.
● The instrument displays the real-time value, maximum value, minimum value, average value and standard deviation value at the same time. The number of statistics can be up to 99 groups.
● The gloss tester supports the USB data transmission function and comes with operating software. After connecting to the computer, the instrument can operate and complete the test report.
● The gloss tester has a temperature compensation function and the value is stable, allowing long-term calibration.
● Built-in rechargeable battery. The gloss tester can be used continuously for more than 48 hours on a single charge.
       Using Linshang LS192 portable gloss tester to measure the gloss of ink, you can accurately control the quality of ink gloss.