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Metallic Gold Dip Pen Ink

jbb

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jbb

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Please do share more detail about why you don't like the Herbin silver?

It's been a while since I had the Herbin silver (I finally threw it out in frustration :gaah:) but I found it hard to get a smooth, controlable line when writing. It would blob on me. :ph34r:

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indigirl Extremely Rare

indigirl

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Please do share more detail about why you don't like the Herbin silver?

It's been a while since I had the Herbin silver (I finally threw it out in frustration :gaah:) but I found it hard to get a smooth, controlable line when writing. It would blob on me. :ph34r:

 

Bleah, that sounds like a drag! Thank you for the clarification. I just PM'd you.

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indigirl Extremely Rare

indigirl

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Okay, here I am reporting back on jbb's metallic ink: It's so easy & so much fun! I just want to sit around writing with it forever! :cloud9:

 

Following instructions not to inhale & just add water, I put the powder in a little sauce dish & mixed it up w/ a palette knife until it looked like ink. Dipped my pen in it & went to town! To think I could have unknowingly gone down to the ink store & dropped $10+ on a bottle of basically the same stuff except not as good... this is a much better experience. :bunny01:

 

It is hard to photograph though. & you do have to constantly mix the silver back up. You can kinda see in "silver ink" (ironically) where I am running low on silver.

 

This is w/o flash:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4068/4643919188_1b434a030d_o.jpg

 

w/ flash, in an attempt to get more sparkle out of it:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3437/4643919186_3b4baca748_o.jpg

 

In real life the paper is very dark & the silver writing just *pops* out nice & shiny. It looks more like the first pic, but with sparkle :)

 

Thank you again jbb!!! :thumbup:

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jbb Donor Pen

jbb

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Okay, here I am reporting back on jbb's metallic ink: It's so easy & so much fun! I just want to sit around writing with it forever! :cloud9:

 

Following instructions not to inhale & just add water, I put the powder in a little sauce dish & mixed it up w/ a palette knife until it looked like ink. Dipped my pen in it & went to town! To think I could have unknowingly gone down to the ink store & dropped $10+ on a bottle of basically the same stuff except not as good... this is a much better experience. :bunny01:

I'm glad you're enjoying the ink indigirl. :thumbup: You have beautiful handwriting. :cloud9:

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indigirl Extremely Rare

indigirl

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I'm glad you're enjoying the ink indigirl. :thumbup: You have beautiful handwriting. :cloud9:

 

Thank you! I've been working on it...

 

I do have a question about the little copper pot w/ the gold ink: when you poured the liquid ink in there was it full to the top? I filled it almost full w/ water, just leaving enough room for stirring, & as it softened up kept adding water drop by drop, but by the time it got to liquid stage it still seemed a little thick. It wasn't flowing in the pen as well as the silver one. Is it better to pour it out into a dish & add more water? It's kinda fun dipping the pen into the tiny pot! :)

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jbb Donor Pen

jbb

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I'm glad you're enjoying the ink indigirl. :thumbup: You have beautiful handwriting. :cloud9:

 

Thank you! I've been working on it...

 

I do have a question about the little copper pot w/ the gold ink: when you poured the liquid ink in there was it full to the top? I filled it almost full w/ water, just leaving enough room for stirring, & as it softened up kept adding water drop by drop, but by the time it got to liquid stage it still seemed a little thick. It wasn't flowing in the pen as well as the silver one. Is it better to pour it out into a dish & add more water? It's kinda fun dipping the pen into the tiny pot! :)

You might prefer transfering the gold ink from the copper pot to something slightly bigger. Generally I use little salt dishes, nut dishes or ashtrays. (BTW, this is a fun excuse to buy some nice old glassware.) Since the metallic powder settles to the bottom quickly a shallow dish works best. I frequently cross-dip metallic ink with different colors of ink in my inkwells and in that case the little copper pot works as you are picking up a bit of metallic and then a bit of regular ink. You can get the most wonderful glittery combinations.

 

Note for anyone new to this post: This information is for dip pen only. Metallic powder will clog your fountain pen.

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indigirl Extremely Rare

indigirl

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You might prefer transfering the gold ink from the copper pot to something slightly bigger. Generally I use little salt dishes, nut dishes or ashtrays. (BTW, this is a fun excuse to buy some nice old glassware.) Since the metallic powder settles to the bottom quickly a shallow dish works best. I frequently cross-dip metallic ink with different colors of ink in my inkwells and in that case the little copper pot works as you are picking up a bit of metallic and then a bit of regular ink. You can get the most wonderful glittery combinations.

 

Note for anyone new to this post: This information is for dip pen only. Metallic powder will clog your fountain pen.

 

oooh cool! Sapphire silver ink, here I come! You are a gold (silver? copper?) mine of metallic inspiration jbb! :bunny01:

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indigirl Extremely Rare

indigirl

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Another question for my metallic ink guru jbb: where do you get your powdered gum arabic? I was at Dick Blick & they only had liquid. TIA!

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jbb Donor Pen

jbb

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Another question for my metallic ink guru jbb: where do you get your powdered gum arabic? I was at Dick Blick & they only had liquid. TIA!

 

Here's a good price on powdered gum Arabic:

Gum Arabic on Ebay

 

P.S.: I got your beautiful gold ink letter! Thanks.

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indigirl Extremely Rare

indigirl

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Another question for my metallic ink guru jbb: where do you get your powdered gum arabic? I was at Dick Blick & they only had liquid. TIA!

 

Here's a good price on powdered gum Arabic:

Gum Arabic on Ebay

 

P.S.: I got your beautiful gold ink letter! Thanks.

 

 

Thank you for the link! Who knew it had all those other meanings & uses? Cool... :eureka:

 

If the color scheme of that letter seemed a little 80s, it's because the paper was on my desk from this thread & also just happens to be the only dark colored stationery I possess! Fun how all things FPN work out that way :happyberet:

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jbb Donor Pen

jbb

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Regarding gum Arabic: If you ever mix up a batch of metallic ink that smears you just need to add more gum Arabic. It also improves dip pen ink that is feathering. Powdered gum Arabic seems to take a little bit of time to fully mix into the ink -- sometimes the day after I mix it into my ink it's perfect... but not right away.

 

Please post about any particularly good dark papers that you find.

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jbb Donor Pen

jbb

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Does the metallic powder stay on the paper for a long time after the gum becomes dry?

Yes, as far as I know you only get smearing when there's not enough gum Arabic.

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indigirl Extremely Rare

indigirl

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I haven't had any smearing with either the gold or silver, so jbb you mixed them perfectly! :cloud9: Do you measure the amounts w/ measuring spoons or by weight? (Hoping you say measuring spoons since I don't have that kind of scale :rolleyes: )

 

As for paper, I'm using these inks on big sheets of Canson Mi-Teintes Indigo Blue & like it so much that I might want to cut it up into smaller pieces for stationery go & buy some of the letter-size sheets they sell, conveniently, $10/25 sheets @ dickblick.com. Fortunately, I've never been too attached to envelopes matching what's inside them, so that part's not a problem for me....

 

Edited to add: I found gum arabic powder at my local herb store. & I'm going to try mixing up some ink w/ interference blue powder! Hope it turns out...

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jbb Donor Pen

jbb

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I haven't had any smearing with either the gold or silver, so jbb you mixed them perfectly! :cloud9: Do you measure the amounts w/ measuring spoons or by weight? (Hoping you say measuring spoons since I don't have that kind of scale :rolleyes: )

 

As for paper, I'm using these inks on big sheets of Canson Mi-Teintes Indigo Blue & like it so much that I might want to cut it up into smaller pieces for stationery go & buy some of the letter-size sheets they sell, conveniently, $10/25 sheets @ dickblick.com. Fortunately, I've never been too attached to envelopes matching what's inside them, so that part's not a problem for me....

 

Edited to add: I found gum arabic powder at my local herb store. & I'm going to try mixing up some ink w/ interference blue powder! Hope it turns out...

I use demi-tasse spoons and little salt cellar spoons. I've got some interference blue and interference green but I haven't used them in a while. One of the coolest of all the metallic powders I've tried is LuminArte Scarab Beetle. It shifts from red to green metallic depending on the light.

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kudzu Vintage

kudzu

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jbb turned me onto metallic dip pen inks, too. They are gorgeous, especially with her handwriting. A word about gum arabic. I bought some of the liquid, used a very small amount, and within a couple of weeks, the bottle was growing mold. So the powdered gum arabic is the way to go.

Kudzu

 

"I am a galley slave to pen and ink." ~Honore de Balzac

 

Happy Pan Pacific Pen Club Member!
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jbb Donor Pen

jbb

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jbb turned me onto metallic dip pen inks, too. They are gorgeous, especially with her handwriting. A word about gum arabic. I bought some of the liquid, used a very small amount, and within a couple of weeks, the bottle was growing mold. So the powdered gum arabic is the way to go.

Powdered gum Arabic is so much less expensive too.

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