What is the RISO?
The RISO is a stencil duplicator similar to silkscreen printing and photocopying. The RISO can produce colorful, textured prints great for zines, posters, comics, illustrations, and so on.
RISO began in 1946 with a single mimeograph, a duplicating machine that produces copies from a stencil. Founder Noboru Hayama sought to create Japan’s first affordable emulsion ink, which had only been available through expensive importing processes.
He found that the soy-based ink he’d created didn’t need additional heat to set the color on paper, meaning he could create a printer-duplicator that could print high quantities in short amounts of time. In 1986, the Riso Kagaku Corporation released the RISOGRAPH 007. The RISOGRAPH was a bulky electronic machine that integrated all functions required for master making and printing into a single unit.
How does it work?
Original monochromatic images can be scanned or digitally sent to the machine; separate layers must be input as separate images.
Temporary stencil sheets called “masters” are then created on thermal plates by tiny heat spots burning voids in non-white image areas.
The master is then attached to a cylindrical drum of ink. Ink is forced through the voids in the master. Paper loaded into the tray will pass between the rapidly rotating drum(s) and create an image. The machine can print between 50 and 10,000 copies within minutes.