Some Questions On Ink Making.

[Inksmith]

I want to get in to making my own inks but i don't just want to follow recipes. I want to learn the basics of ink making. Like what can be used to make ink, how to make it the right viscosity, how to break up the surface tension so it doesn't glob up on paper, how to make inks that arent corrosive, ect. I'm mainly interested in how to make inks that will work in fountain pens and i will expand my knowledge after i get a good comprehension on what makes ink perfect for fountain pens.

 

This information is not coming easily to me so once i learn all i can i plan on making a comprehensive guide and youtube video on the process of making your own ink, not just a single recipe.

Edited March 15, 2015 by Inksmith

[musicman123]

To make inks like the big guys, you must understand the composition of a typical ink. A fountain pen ink normally consists of a mix of ANALINE DYES, not pigments. If you want to make a whole palette of colors, i recommend you get a Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow dye, which can be mixed (with CYMK) to make every color imaginable. Then next ingredient would be distilled water but that should have been obvious. With those ingredients, you have your basic fountain pen ink. However, the ink would probably not behave the best.

 

Next, you want ingredients to improve characteristics. If you want the ink to flow better (you do), you would need a chemical known as a surfactant which reduces the surface tension of the water. For your purposes, the surfactant could be many things, like glycerin, vegetable glycerin, dish soap, laundry detergent. They would all have the result of making the ink wetter. You should experiment for what works best. You need not worry about viscosity as the viscosity of water will be perfectly fine for fountain pens. Anything more viscose would cause gumming and clogs, and should only be used in a dip pen.

 

With analine dyes and surfactants, you will get a fairly neutral ink and you can get a world of colors by playing with the dye mixes. That is the basics to ink making from scratch. If you want more properties, like waterproofness, then add other small ingredients (I don't know what) to the ink.

[Inksmith]

To make inks like the big guys, you must understand the composition of a typical ink. A fountain pen ink normally consists of a mix of ANALINE DYES, not pigments. If you want to make a whole palette of colors, i recommend you get a Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow dye, which can be mixed (with CYMK) to make every color imaginable. Then next ingredient would be distilled water but that should have been obvious. With those ingredients, you have your basic fountain pen ink. However, the ink would probably not behave the best.

 

Next, you want ingredients to improve characteristics. If you want the ink to flow better (you do), you would need a chemical known as a surfactant which reduces the surface tension of the water. For your purposes, the surfactant could be many things, like glycerin, vegetable glycerin, dish soap, laundry detergent. They would all have the result of making the ink wetter. You should experiment for what works best. You need not worry about viscosity as the viscosity of water will be perfectly fine for fountain pens. Anything more viscose would cause gumming and clogs, and should only be used in a dip pen.

 

With analine dyes and surfactants, you will get a fairly neutral ink and you can get a world of colors by playing with the dye mixes. That is the basics to ink making from scratch. If you want more properties, like waterproofness, then add other small ingredients (I don't know what) to the ink.

 

You are a god among men! That post of yours just put together everything i have learned. Next time i'm out by a crafts store ill pick up the ink and ill start by using dish soap as surfactant. I think my first inks are going to be my own variation of blue black (of course) and a super dark crimson red.

 

A question though. What is CYMK? - Never mind i found out.

Also whats a good ratio of ink to water to surfactant?

Edited March 15, 2015 by Inksmith

[musicman123]

Actually, I do not believe craft stores sell Analine dyes. They are mostly found at online chemical companies or such. However, you CAN get into basic ink mixing, by using existing made inks, then mixing colors from there.

 

You do not need too much surfactant to get a desired effect. A very tiny drop should be enough. Too much and the ink will refuse to stay in the pen, dripping straight out of it.

 

CYMK is a color scale, like RGB. It uses Cyan, Yellow, and Magenta as a base, then lightness is controlled via the K value.

[Inksmith]

What chemicals would you use to keep fungus from growing, making it water proof, permanent, ect?

 

Again, thanks for the help.

[musicman123]

What chemicals would you use to keep fungus from growing, making it water proof, permanent, ect?

 

Oh right! Almost forgot about the mold aspect. To prevent fungus, you would need a chemical known as a "biocide," which kills bacteria and fungi. A common biocide used by some big ink manufactures would be "phenol." It is readily obtainable and can be very poisonous. Exercise caution with it.

 

I am actually not sure exactly what is used for permanence, but I do know that it reacts with the cellulose in paper in some way, allowing the ink to bind. You should ask some more professional ink makers in FPN, like kwzi or Kevin from JustWrite Pen Company for more info on that.

 

BTW did I see you on Reddit just a while ago?

Edited March 15, 2015 by musicman123

[Inksmith]

You have been a huge help! Thank you!

 

Now i'm just jotting in my notebook some cool ink bottle designs. I'm taking advantage of some physics i haven't seen exploited in ink bottles yet to make a very unique and simple bottle that makes it extremely easy to use up every drop of ink.

Edited March 15, 2015 by Inksmith

[musicman123]

You have been a huge help! Thank you!

 

Now i'm just jotting in my notebook some cool ink bottle designs. I'm taking advantage of some physics i haven't seen exploited in ink bottles yet to make a very unique and simple bottle that makes it extremely easy to use up every drop of ink.

 

Cool! Post your designs here! I wanna see them!

[Inksmith]

You don't happen to have pen dimensions handy do you? max nib length / max length that needs to be inserted for drawing in ink / max width of the insertable section of a fountain pen. Making it as close to 100% efficient as possible means making the feed as small as possible while still fitting all standard fountain pens. What i need is a model of a fountain pen that has the maximum proportions on all aspects.

Edited March 16, 2015 by Inksmith

[musicman123]

Well the ink must reach the breather hole of the pen so I must reach up to the junction between the nib and section. I'm gonna use the popular #6 nib and say that you shohld at least give a clearance of 1 inch or more in height. The diameter of the section of most my pens maxes at around 1/2 inch so giving a 1 inch neck diameter of the bottle should be plenty.

[kwzi]

I will post here message that I also send to Inksmith

 

 

Hi,

 

I want to help you, because I know that making ink might be a great fun But being honest it's hard for me to share information about what ingredients I use in my inks - some things took me many months of hard work of experiments, analyzing failures and finally finding the solution.

 

But I will give you few advices:

- phenol is not the best candidate for biocide - it in some systems it's not that effective and handling with it my end with pretty nasty health problems, in ink it is not much a problem, because concentrations used in inks mostly are not high enough to make any difference, but during making of ink you will either have contact with pure substance or solutions concentrated enough to cause some nasty things.

- you should learn much about theory of ink making - color theories, knowledge about rheology of liquids, a lot of chemistry - biocides, surfactants, flow modifiers, dyes and other additives, their compatibilities and ranges.

- magic component that simply binds dyes to paper doesn't exist - water permanency is achieved by many ways, but all of them use more or less sophisticated systems to first disperse dyes in water, and later made those dyes waterproof.

- work on good laboratory practice - be accurate in what you are doing

- there is no fast way, making ink you are working within a range of many very fine balance that determine either your ink will a joy to work with or horror

 

Konrad

 

There are many ways and even more different ingredients that can be used to make good ink. If someone want to make a good ink there is a plenty of different approaches.

 

I do not want to discourage anybody from making his own ink, but everybody should find his own way