Simultaneous Measurement of Ink or Coating Tack and Gloss

The measurement of ink tack dynamics after printing is an important technique to characterize ink setting rate. A new micro-tack tester is described here. Some advantages of the new device are 1) a smaller device size, 2) short time between contacts, as low as 0.5 s, and 3) the ability to measure an ink film applied by a laboratory print tester. This new device allows us to measure the ink tack and gloss development right after the nip simultaneously. Its applications in studying ink-paper interactions and coating-paper interactions are presented in this paper. Some new insights into the relationship between the gloss and tack are discussed from these results.