I make a mix that I use every day and have now decided that i would like to mix a bit more than a cartridge fill at a time.
Does anyone know where I might be able to buy small empty ink jars ?
\Thanks !

Edited to add photo of the ink - it is a bit more green-gold than it appears here

If there's a Michael's Arts & Crafts store near you, check their paint dept. for 3/4 oz. cylindrical glass jars. They essentially are ink bottles -- the cap is even exactly the same as the one on Noodler's bottles (albeit made in Taiwan).

-- Brian

I saved this website a while ago, haven't ordered yet, but looks good from here.

http://www.specialtybottle.com/index.asp?P...Custom&ID=4

So what's your mix?

Dan

If there is a Container Store (not affiliated) near you, in the travel section they have 1 oz and 2 oz nalgene bottles for under a dollar each. I purchased some to store ink, and to blend. Haven't used them yet, as my time seems to be running away from me, but it is a great value, and seems to be purpose made for those of us who use ink.

Donnie

Why not old ink bottles? Recycle some bottles. xD

Those look nice . . . they also have 1/2oz (4 dram) containers on the 'Vials' page that have a slightly different shape.

Any idea on the width of the neck on the 1/2oz bottles? I wonder if they're wide enough to dip (for example) a M1000 deep enough to fill it . . .

I don't have any empty ones!

Three words: Baby Food Jars.
Find someone with young kids, and ask them to save them for you. I have about eight that I use to mix colors and store the new creations.

Nope, I wondered that myself. I have been using the Kcat vials mentioned earlier, and they do work well for this. They are a little tippy, so I have a small block of wood that I drilled a hole partially through which will accept the vial, and provides a non-tipping base.

Dan

Dan, a "block of wood with a hole"??!! As a fellow turner I am appaled at this!

Here is what I use for the vials. When I make my ink cabinet, I plan to make a little box with maybe 20 vial holder holes in the top to hold the vials nice and neat. I am thinking 1/4" oak sides, 1/4" oak top with the holes sitting just about 1/4" under the top lip and the corners box jointed. This will match the ink cabinet whick will also be made from oak.



The wood is Goncalo Alves with felt on the bottom. Works very nice for filling pens via vials. I also use a vial in the holder and fill it to clean & flush the pens.

If the OP is anything like me, he doesn't have any empties yet!

You can buy ink bottles on eBay- lots of time with ink still. Not as cheap as baby food bottles or ink vials, but bit horrible. The old Skrip bottles are about the coolest thing around. I got 3 bottles of Skrip BB, two full and one evaporated, which was like $5 per bottle after shipping. The Tip-Well in them is great, esp when you are mixing inks. I have one for Jet Black I'd be happy to send you if you send me a couple ink samples, unmixed or of you favorite mix in return.

I just washed out a little two ounce glass jar that held pimientos. It or similar jars might be an inexpensive way to accumulate some extra jars for mixes or travelling if you do much cooking.

Pendemondium had some small jars for sale a couple months ago. I grabbed a few. Might check with them if you can't get baby jars or pimientos.

You can get four small glass bottles with PR's Ink Mixing Kit as well!

Well, you got me there Lee, but I've been too busy working on a kitless pen to mess about with fancy schmancy vial holders! At least the humble fixture I did make was of purpleheart. I have another that's about a foot long, and holds seven vials in the back row, and a half dozen of Partridge sample bottles in the front . It matches my purpleheart and brass knockout block. One of these days I'll get back into flatwork, and make some accessories, like an ink cabinet, paper trays, and such. At that point, I'll upgrade my vial holders. That will probably be out of cherry.

Nice job on the one you made, by the way.

Dan

For reference, here are the bottles from Michael's that I mentioned in post #2:

Click to view attachment

Incidentally, even though, for some reason, the caps look bigger in the photo, they're directly swappable with the Noodler's cap.

-- Brian

I don't really have a source for empty bottles, but I find that any random bottle of ink you end up finishing is a good container. Well-cleaned, empty poster paint bottles work rather nicely too, as they don't usually come in a wide shape.

I've found the 2 oz. nalgene bottles that have been talked about on FPN to be perfect for mixing and storing batches of ink. If you go to http://www.nalgene-outdoor.com/store/Searc...px?CategoryID=6, it's the bottle in the middle of the page. $1.80 - can't beat the price!

At the local Container Store, I got little plastic bottles in the travel section made for transferring small portions of liquid (shampoo, etc) to carry on. They are cheap and liquid-tight, and the size you want.

For mail order, check this place.

How about saving empty bottles from ink that you purchased and using those?

Found some of these 3/4oz. bottles at my local craft store the other day, along with 2oz. bottles with the same Noodler's style cap. At mine they weren't in the paint section but back by the airbrushing equipment.

I'd been looking for something like the 2oz. for breaking the giant 4.5oz. Noodler's eyedropper bottles into something more manageable and these fit the bill, thanks for the suggestion... though they are a little expensive.

How do you think the nalgene bottles will do for long term ink storage?

Mike

Model shops (e.g., model airplanes) that carry paints also carry small bottles for mixing and storing.

If you can manage to get off the island and make it to the Seattle pen club meeting in Bellingham this coming Saturday (Oct 18th) I'll bring a couple bottles that may work for you.

second that one!

Another possibility:

IKEA kitchen spice jars. Good screw top lids, clear glass. Four dollars for 4 jars. One problem, they are 150 ml jars; which is no problem if you want to make lots of ink.
Baby food jars are great, except the lid does not screw down as well as these jars.

<<Enclosed: Edited IKEA (Swedish) catalog>>

-Wayne
(San Diego)

The little Nalgenes aren't as air tight as I thought. I had ink crust on the inside of the cap and my ink level looked a bit lower after a few months

Empty medicine bottles (the kind for cough syrups and kids' vitamins) should work. Rinse well and re-label to be safe. I'm planning on reusing the screw-top bottles from my cats' vitamins- I'll just have to get the label off so no-one give it to the cats by mistake.

Thanks for this. I was in my local art store yesterday and picked up a couple. I've been wanting to 'decant' some of my Noodler's highlighting inks so I can use them with a dip pen. These are perfect! I wouldn't have thought of them without your post.

Well, I broke down and placed an order from this site. I was looking for small bottles, since I don't see myself mixing huge batches of custom colors . . . it's more for trying out some different ideas. So I ordered a variety of clear bottles from the 'vials' section:

• Two 4 dram with standard lids
• Two 4 dram with eyedropper
• Two 2 dram with standard lids
• Four 2 dram with eyedropper
• Two 1 dram with eyedropper
• Two 5 dram with cork

I figured the 2 dram would be my favorite size for small batches, so I ordered more. I tried the 5 dram vials because they appear to have wider mouths so they might be more likely to allow me to fill a piston filler from the bottle.

Total cost was under $14 including shipping, which works out to under a dollar per bottle. I don't think that's too bad considering eight of them come with built-in eyedroppers . . .

Just to chime in with nothing new, every art store I've been in has had similar jars to these, in a variety of useful sizes. I also carry one of these around all the time (Sailor converters are too small and I write too much) in my bag, wrapped in a paper towel and sealed in a ziplock, and have never had any leak of any kind.