The Gall Of That Person!

[quilluser]

Hi Guys

 

I've been re-enacting the medieval period as a scrivener for many years using quills and my own iron gall ink.

 

Oak galls (about 12 oz) slightly bruised not crushed. Pour hot water over the galls and leave overnight. Strain off the liquid and add, to this, some tincture of myrrh (optional for the smell) and gum arabic and then add iron sulphate. The mixture turns black immediately. Store in a tightly closed container. Full instruction on my site at this address http://thescriptorium.co.uk/showfact.php?id=13

 

Steve

[Dmact]

So on rare occasions i do illuminated manuscript work for people with STUPID amounts of money (read: once)... The recipies i found that were actually period were similar to what quilluser posted however the galls were left to soak for WEEKS loosly covered in an environment that encouraged mold, once the mold did its thing and died off the mixture was strained and the resulting liquid (a rich chocolate brown stuff) was the ink base. To use it was heated to the point bubbles formed but NOT boiling then an iron rod was tossed into it.

 

 

Mine failed miserably. What DID work insanely well was buying gallatannic acid and iron sulfide from the local chemical supply store (after explaining what on EARTH i was up to with such small quantities of such odd chemicals).

 

What worked pretty darn well was what quilluser recommends but paying attention to the TYPE of galls used... You want the BIG oak galls that grow 1"+ and are a little on the soft side... Oft called "Oak Apples". Other species are roughly 1/2" and VERY hard and are basically useless for this.

 

Interestingly the recipies i found call for "unhatched Oak Apples" which means the insect larve that is inside of (and responsible for) them hasn't yet burrowed out. Oak galls are a product of the oak tree reacting to an insect (called a Gall Wasp) having injected an egg into the bark of the tree, he egg/larve secret a chemical tbat triggers the tree to produce the gall around the young critter and one chemical the tree pumps into the gall is tannin... Different wasps prefer differnt verieties of oak and the combinations of wasp/tree determines how much tannon gets dumped into the gall.