[OtterNZ]

ZeissIkon, on 14 October 2009 - 12:56 AM, said:

Funny how quickly I've gotten out of the habit of carrying cash when a store that doesn't take debit is a rarity...

Debit (EFTPOS) cards have been the norm here for the last 15 years. I've barely ever needed cash in my life time.

Wait, off topic. I've tried the 5 drops of Quink blue and 1 drop of quink black. It looks nice, but I'm worried about how long it will last.

[pgary]

Hello ToasterPastry,

Thank you for your comment!
I wrote about the dye reagents that I used to make my homemade inks in this topic's #224.

1. Direct Blue 1 (Chicago Sky Blue 6B, Pontamine Sky Blue 6B)
2. Acid Blue 92 (Acid Blue A, Anazolene Sodium)
3. Food Blue No.1 (Brilliant Blue FCF)
4. Food green No.3 (Fast green FCF)
5. Food Yellow No.4 (Tartrazine)
6. Food Yellow No.5 (Sunset Yellow FCF)
7. Food Red No.2 (Amaranth)
8. Food Red No.40 (Allura Red AC)
9. Food Red No.102 (New Coccine)
10. Food Red No.106 (Acid Red)

I mixed above ten kinds of dyes and can make a wide variety of colors.
Above ink's No. 1 and 2 are used in the manufacture of inks (printer or ballpoint pen) in Japan.
Especially, direct blue 1 was used for Parker blueblack ink's old recipe.
No. 3 to 10 inks are used as food dye in Japan.

Best regards,

ToasterPastry, on 11 October 2009 - 03:21 AM, said:

This thread has really taken off. I wish the homemade inks part could be separated from the mixed inks.

ZeissIkon: I don't want to take too much credit for this, but I was wondering if my 'sun-ink' recipe posted awhile back had provided you any inspiration. It looks like you have really developed it. I have not tried to put my ink into a fountain pen as I'm certain that the Arabic gum would 'gum' up the works.

PGary: I'm wondering what dyes you use to create your ink. Are these standard vegetable dyes or analine commercial dyes (fabric dyes)? I have been tempted to use Rit (clothing) dye and start with that as a base, adding ferrous sulfate and gallic acid.

[JeanManuel]

Hello, could someone help me?

I would like to create a black ink with a red glow/shine to it. Is there going to be a bad chemical reaction / precipitation if I mix:
1) Waterman red + Waterman black.
2) Waterman red + Pelikan brilliant-black.
3) Waterman red + new sheaffer skrip black.

Does someone otherwise have a good recipe to produce a very dark, very opaque warm black ink with a warm red shine?
Thanks,
JM

[dizzypen]

oops!

This post has been edited by dizzypen: 22 October 2009 - 04:27 PM

[dizzypen]

I'm really loving this mix!

[penspouse]

Dizzypen - I Like that color! I'd love to see it in person.

[dizzypen]

penspouse, on 22 October 2009 - 05:27 PM, said:

Dizzypen - I Like that color! I'd love to see it in person.

That can be arranged.

[Martti Kujansuu]

Worrell, W. H. 1947. Isis Vol. 37: Note on modern Coptic inks.

"In the Spring of 1936 Bistauros Wagim, a peasant of Zenia near Luxor, described to the present writer the preparation of the inks which he used in making such manuscripts. [...] Bistauros takes an ounce of the pigment, two ounces of gum (samg) and half a pound of water, and boils this."

[ZeissIkon]

Long term update on my ink making experiment. Last night, I baked some cornstarch into dextrin (two hours at 400º F, that'd be 205º C, with turning/stirring every 20 minutes to prevent scorching), and I'm now adding it, a little at a time, to the ink, trying to see how much is needed to get the ink to settle less, or at least less rapidly.

This was prompted by trying the ink in an improvised ink well (a glass candle holder I got at a local thrift store). After stirring up the ink, as I've been doing before each use, and transferring a quantity to the inkwell via disposable plastic pipette (which I've been reusing for several years for photographic chemicals and the like), and writing a couple pages with it, the ink in the well had left a black residue on the bottom: the iron gallate pigment that's supposed to be suspended in the ink, making it write black. The fact it settled out this badly in a few minutes finally convinced me that my ink needs some gum to keep this stuff in suspension -- and dextrin is a gum that's easily and cheaply made at home (as opposed to spending twelve bucks on a tiny bottle of liquid gum arabic).

This is going to take some time to quantify; so far, I've put in two teaspoons of the dextrin powder, and I'll try the ink in the well tonight. If it's better, but not quite there, I'll add more dextrin. If the ink becomes too viscous before I conquer the settling, I'll add some of the batch I separated off and tried to make wet enough to flow in a "tester" fountain pen (I now see what cause the pen to clog after it sat a few hours -- this same stuff that's settling out); that stuff is way too wet for a dip pen, and a small percentage should restore flow if the gum, well, gums things up too much. When I'm done, I should know how much dextrin and how much wetting agent is needed -- though at the rate I'm using this ink, it might well be a year before I need to make another batch.

[Nitesiter07]

chemgeek, on 28 January 2007 - 04:32 PM, said:

<b>Magic Midnight Mix</b>

PR Midnight Blues has a faintly discernible teal shading, while PR Black Magic Blue definitely tends toward purplish. (See attached image, in which this should be visible if your monitor is reasonably well-calibrated.) A 1:1 mix of PR Midnight Blues and Black Magic Blue yields a rich blue-black with more purely blue shading.

Cheers.

Very nice... Thank you for the pic! Love the color and think i'll be getting the Black Magic Blue to add to my PR Midnight Blues

[Martti Kujansuu]

Original in "Encyclopedie methodique. Arts et metiers mecaniques [...]. A Paris [...] M. DCC. LXXXIII [1783]. Translation by translate.google.com and me.

Encre rouge.
Il faut avoir quatre onces de bois de Bresil, un sou d'alun de Rome, un sou ou six liards de gomme arabique, & deux sous de sucre candi: on fera d'abord bouillir les quatre onces de bois de Bresil dans une pinte d'eau, pendant un bon quart d'heure; puis on y ajoutera le reste des drogues que l'on laissera bouillir encore un quart d'heure.

Red ink
Take four ounces of Brazilwood, a penny of Roman alum, a penny or six liards gum arabic, and two in sugar candy: we will first boil four ounces of Brazilwood in a pint water for a quarter of an hour, then add the remaining substances that they boil for fifteen minutes.

[dcwaites]

Faux Parker Penman Sapphire, another version.

After some discussion with OcalaFlGuy here is another recipe for a replacement for Parker's Penman Sapphire --

Private Reserve American Blue - 40 units
Waterman Green - 8 units
Parker Quink Blue-Black - 5 unit.

This version is a little wetter, and perhaps a little closer to the original Penman Sapphire than my last effort.

[Tortoise]

AlaskanWriter, on 31 July 2009 - 12:50 PM, said:

Got bored, had a pen half full of Noodlers' Whale Sepia, and some Noodlers' Nightshade on hand... so...

I call it Whales' Nightside.

1:1 nightshade and whale sepia

It goes on purplish when wet, but dries a nice dingy brown.

took the sepia from a dull brownish grey to a dull milky brown- I expected a purple tinted grey, but now that I think about it, purple is rather close to the red side of brown....

Anyway, a browner sepia than the whale starts as.

Sheer luck on my part, but its Perfect! (since I was not really enamored with the sepia as it was(milky grey) ) This mix is my definition of sepia; A dull faded milky brown.

Have no idea how this effects the fancy properties of the Whaleman's Sepia... or how it will effect FPs. I have it in a brush pen(water pen filled with ink..).

Gary.

sepia_improve.JPG

Does this mix flow any better than unmixed Whaleman's Sepia? It's one of my favorite colors, but it will only work in a few pens -- clogs up most of them.

[PauloC]

I made a very nice brown by mixed equal parts of Quink green and Quink red. I have several bottles of 20 oz of each color and I can easily buy some more at store near me that still as it at very good price (given the amount of ink...) I think I'll have an endless suply of brown ink...

[Renzhe]

This is an ink I like to call Xuan (玄, pinyin: xuán). The character 玄 (xuán) means "black with a bit of red" (source).

To make this,
1. Concentrate Diamine Vermillion to a ratio 2:1. I recommend doing this by putting it in a container with a constant cross section area, and leaving it open to air until the volume is half of what it was at first. You can put something over it so that dust doesn't get in. Don't microwave it unless you want a mess. You can try boiling it (with a Bunsen burner, not your stove), but I haven't tried it so I can't tell you if you'll succeed without making a chemical change. Diamine Vermillion flows very well and even feathers after concentration. This is essential.
2. Mix the concentrated Diamine Vermillion with Sailor Extreme Black (極黑, Hepburn: kiwaguro) in a ratio of 1:1.

What happens is that the Diamine Vermillion (a dye-based ink) tends to feather with wet writers and/or feathery paper, while the Sailor Extreme Black (a suspension) doesn't move. The result is a black "core" with a vermilion border. It looks like this:


You can use more Vermillion and/or less Extreme Black to make it more red. I'd estimate this to be 1:7 Extreme Black to Diamine Vermillion:

(written with a quite wet fine-tipped Pelikan M600 on an Apica notebook)