Risograph ink shelf life? How long is it viable?

**filmplane** · 11-12-2014

Greetings,

My first post here in the forums. I am bringing a GR3750 back to life and when I purchased the machine, it had an ink cartridge in there from six months ago. The ink came from fastinks.com.

1) What are the shelf life's of Riso and Non Riso inks?

2) I want to test the machine but is this fastinks.com ink OK to continue to run thru the machine? Especially if it hasn't been used in six months. The tube is practically full.

I just spent a considerable amount of time cleaning the drum to test so do not want to create more problems. Thanks for the help and advice in advance!

**gillje** · 11-12-2014

OEM Riso ink is good for 2 years usually, I'm not sure about fastinks and other non oem inks... You can tell if it's gone bad if it's beginning to separate.

**filmplane** · 11-13-2014

Originally Posted by gillje

OEM Riso ink is good for 2 years usually, I'm not sure about fastinks and other non oem inks... You can tell if it's gone bad if it's beginning to separate.

Thanks so much for the info on OEM Riso ink. Regarding the separation. What am I looking for? Will it be visible just looking through the side of the tube or do I have to print something to find out? Thanks!

**Iowatech** · 11-13-2014

On the GR line, another sign of ink failure is when the ink bottle starts to swell. If there is unusual difficulty removing the bottle of ink from the drum, discard it.
As far as ink separation goes, if you are lucky you will be able to see a layer of carrier fluid above the pigment through the bottle. But from what I've seen the carrier fluid usually spills out of the bottle first, causing a mess underneath the Riso.
I was unlucky enough to have encountered separated ink in a bottle that had swelled to the point that I had to stick a screwdriver through the bottle so I could pull with both hands, and when the bottle finally came out a lot of the carrier fluid and a little of the pigment spilled out on the customer's new carpet. The carpet was tan, the ink was green. The ink was also less than a year and a half old. I have only seen this once, so it is very unusual. But it just goes to show that if the ink has been sitting unused for a while it is important to check it closely before using it.

**filmplane** · 11-15-2014

Thank you Iowatech and gillje - Very helpful information to gauge ink shelf life. Looks like the non OEM ink I have is in good shape, at least to get the machine up and running again. Cheers!