Black ink = really really dark blue?

[jzmtl]

So after reading all these waterproof inks I decided to test out the few ink I have. I wrote on piece of notebook paper, let dry, and ran it under faucet for an hour. The Black Parker quink turned into blue, almost what freshly wrote blue ink looks like.

 

 

BTW for those of you who are curious, Waterman florida blue still have very light mark left. Parker quink black turned into blue but very visible. Mont blanc racing green is a little bit lighter. No name blue black from China didn't seem to be affected at all.

[ZeissIkon]

Most black inks are mixtures of other colors, often other colors already used by the same ink maker for other inks. In the case of the Quink you tested, most likely it's Quink Permanent Blue with other dyes added to darken it, and the other dyes are less water resistant than the core blue. The no-name Chinese blue-black might well have been an iron-gall formula -- many older blue-blacks were (and a couple modern ones as well).

[jzmtl]

The no-name Chinese blue-black might well have been an iron-gall formula -- many older blue-blacks were (and a couple modern ones as well).

That's probably the case, the ink is over 10 years old. It also has that weird iron smell.

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Paper chromatography is an easy and fun way to analyze inks.

 

1. Cut a strip of a WHITE paper towel or coffee filter (or laboratory filter paper, if you've got some).

 

2. Draw a line of the ink you wish to analyze across the width of the strip, half an inch to an inch from one end.

 

3. Hang the strip so that the end near the line is barely immersed in clean water, for a period of several minutes to several hours.

 

Because the different dyes vary in solubility, and/or in how firmly they hang on to the paper, they tend to separate as the water carries them up the paper.

 

You can also try running it in alcohol, acetone, or various types of oil.

 

Of course, you'd need methods far more sophisticated than simple paper chromatography to actually identify the dyes.

[Lloyd]

http://www.oakharbor.org/filemanager/Oak%20Harbor%20-%20decal.JPG

Should we be wasting an hour's worth of water to evaluate an ink? Why not leave it in the shower for a week or two instead?

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Who said anything about running water? Paper chromatography just requires a small glass, bowl, beaker, or petri dish of water.

 

(My assistant will now perform a high dive, not into a tank of water, not into a bucket of water, but into an ordinary drinking glass of water!)

 

In the time since my previous post, I did a quick run on the inks in all five of the pens on me, on a paper towel.

 

Blue (either Pelikan or Sheaffer) hardly seemed to move at all in only a few minutes.

 

Black (Sheaffer) seems to separate into a dark olive-green, which hardly moves, and a purple that moves a bit faster. With more time, the purple might very well resolve into a blue and a red.

 

Red (Sheaffer) looks like a single dye, fairly fast moving, although again, with more time, it might break down.

 

Green (Pelikan) has a blue-green dye that moves fairly quickly, and it appears to have a grass-green dye that hardly moves at all.

 

Brown (Pelikan) has an indigo dye that moves very slowly, a red or red-orange dye that moves somewhat faster, and a very fast-moving yellow dye.

 

In all cases, a combination of more time and better paper would likely produce more detailed results.

[Daosus]

Quink is a dark blue and yellow. If you're looking for blacks that are straight black, I suggest Noodler's Bulletproof Black (seems to be, anyway), and carbon-based inks (most of which are not FP safe).

[jzmtl]

Should we be wasting an hour's worth of water to evaluate an ink? Why not leave it in the shower for a week or two instead?

 

Well FYI I live next to a big river and if there one thing I have enough of it's water, the most recycleable material on earth. The tap was also only dripping so it used maybe 30 seconds worth what your lawn sprinker puts out.

 

P.s. there are free image resizing softwares on the net.

 

Quink is a dark blue and yellow. If you're looking for blacks that are straight black, I suggest Noodler's Bulletproof Black (seems to be, anyway), and carbon-based inks (most of which are not FP safe).

 

That makes sense, I thought I saw some yellow flowing out. I guess I'm just suprised to see the black ink was not actually made from black dye.

[ZeissIkon]

I guess I'm just suprised to see the black ink was not actually made from black dye.

 

A genuinely neutral black aniline dye is something of a rarity, and since aniline dyes generally mix well, it's usually easier to mix (and thus also be able to control the undercolor of the black) than to pay a research chemist's salary for a long while looking for just the right single-dye black...