The
Blue Wool Scale measures and calibrates the permanence of colouring
dyeA dye can generally be described as a colored substance that has an affinity to the substrate to which it is being applied. The dye is generally applied in an aqueous solution, and may require a mordant to improve the fastness of the dye on the fiber....
s. Traditionally this test was developed for the
textileA textile is a flexible material consisting of a network of natural or artificial fibres often referred to as thread or yarn. Yarn is produced by spinning raw wool fibres, linen, cotton, or other material on a spinning wheel to produce long strands...
s industry but it has now been adopted by the
printingPrinting is a process for reproducing text and image, typically with ink on paper using a printing press. It is often carried out as a large-scale industrial process, and is an essential part of publishing and transaction printing.-History:...
industry as measure of lightfastness of ink colourants. Normally two identical dye samples are created. One is placed in the dark as the
controlWhen an experiment is being conducted to investigate the effect of a single variable of interest on a particular system, a scientific control is used to minimize unintended influences on that system. Such unintended influences include researcher bias, environmental changes, and biological variation...
and the other is placed in the equivalent of sunlight for a 3 month period. The amount of fading is then measured by comparison to the original colour and a rating between 0 and 8 is awarded.
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The
Blue Wool Scale measures and calibrates the permanence of colouring
dyeA dye can generally be described as a colored substance that has an affinity to the substrate to which it is being applied. The dye is generally applied in an aqueous solution, and may require a mordant to improve the fastness of the dye on the fiber....
s. Traditionally this test was developed for the
textileA textile is a flexible material consisting of a network of natural or artificial fibres often referred to as thread or yarn. Yarn is produced by spinning raw wool fibres, linen, cotton, or other material on a spinning wheel to produce long strands...
s industry but it has now been adopted by the
printingPrinting is a process for reproducing text and image, typically with ink on paper using a printing press. It is often carried out as a large-scale industrial process, and is an essential part of publishing and transaction printing.-History:...
industry as measure of lightfastness of ink colourants. Normally two identical dye samples are created. One is placed in the dark as the
controlWhen an experiment is being conducted to investigate the effect of a single variable of interest on a particular system, a scientific control is used to minimize unintended influences on that system. Such unintended influences include researcher bias, environmental changes, and biological variation...
and the other is placed in the equivalent of sunlight for a 3 month period. The amount of fading is then measured by comparison to the original colour and a rating between 0 and 8 is awarded. Zero denotes extremely poor colour fastness whilst a rating of eight is deemed not to have altered from the original and thus credited as being lightfast and permanent.The
UltravioletUltraviolet light is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than that of visible light, but longer than x-rays, in the range 10 nm to 400 nm, and energies from 3 eV to 124 eV...
(UV) radiation in light is responsible for ink fading. As the intensity of UV radiation differs from place to place, the ink fading also depends on place. It will be more in areas with more UV radiation and vice versa.