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Food Dyes As Ink


dcwaites

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This is a scan of the four main Food Dye Colours made by Queen Fine Foods of Australia.

 

 

 

 

 

While most of it was written with a Brandauer Scribbler dip pen on Reflex Ultra White paper, the first three lines were done with a Perry Iridinoid 105 dip pen.

 

No, it's not my bestest handwriting. I'm off to hospital soon for a minor operation, and ran out of time for a good copy. If anybody needs a transcription, let me know and I will put one up in a couple of days. However, I think it stands for itself.

 

Enjoy.

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“Them as can do has to do for them as can’t.


And someone has to speak up for them as has no voices.”


Granny Aching

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That is AWESOME. I've mixed food coloring with water before, but I've never found any 50ml bottles of the stuff either.

I've gotta look for some of this.

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Very interesting, I'm going to have to try some of these food coloring "inks". I like the prospect of creating my own colors. There are infinite possibilities!

Thank you for sharing I hope all goes well for you at the hospital.

"Be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at the stars" ~Henry Van Dyke

Trying to rescue and restore all the beautiful Esties to their purpose.

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Very interesting, I'm going to have to try some of these food coloring "inks". I like the prospect of creating my own colors. There are infinite possibilities!

Thank you for sharing I hope all goes well for you at the hospital.

 

I've used food color to dye liquid soap for holiday colors (I made orange colored soap for halloween that we are using right now) but I never thought about putting it in a pen.

 

Still, there are things we can safely eat and drink (Coca Cola, coffee with cream, milk) that probably would not be too good for a fountain pen!

 

Greg

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dcwaites: For fun, have you considered grabbing some of the flavouring essences and mixing a few drops in? I have a bottle of Queen rosewater essence I've been mixing into a bit of red ink - hasn't done anything untowards to my pen, or caused any "stuff" to form in the bottle. I don't imagine it would do anything to food dye, either. :)

 

Coffee essence could be fun. The 50ml bottles are about $1 (same prices as the food dyes.) I'll have to pick some up next time I swing out to Stockland.

 

- Lewis.

Li-aung Yip (Lewis)

B.Eng. (Elec&Electronic) + B.Sc (Mathematics) James Cook University - MIEEE GradIEAust

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I think what has surprised me with these food dyes is how well they work out of the bottle, even with my Brandauer Scribbler dip pen, which is notoriously picky about the inks it will work with.

 

Now if only I can make blends that will duplicate Iroshizuku asa-gao and Parker Penman Sapphire, (and maybe Visconti Blue) I'll be right...

fpn_1412827311__pg_d_104def64.gif




“Them as can do has to do for them as can’t.


And someone has to speak up for them as has no voices.”


Granny Aching

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Sounds like an interesting idea. Will those who try it let us know how their pens are doing over the long term? I'd be particularly concerned with issues like staining ink windows, and of course gumming up the feed.

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long term?

I've used some for a few months and I haven't had any problems. Doesn't stain AT ALL. Behaves more like my Montblanc inks honestly as far as flow and lubricity.

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I've heard it said before that most fountain pen inks are concoctions of food colourings and water. In fact I heard this from the owner of a pen shop in the North of England.

 

It does lead onto the question of how ink manufacturers justify the proces they charge for the inks we buy.

 

Chris B.

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It does lead onto the question of how ink manufacturers justify the proces they charge for the inks we buy.

 

Well, they also use lovely bottles and packaging ...

Quan el centre del món no ets ben bé tu (per més que en tinguis la il·lusió),

si et desvetllaven enmig de la nit, no vulguis preguntar-te per què vius:

distreu-te rosegant l'ungla d'un dit. [I beg your pardon, Salvador Espriu]

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my major concern would be SITB, as I'd assume there are no biocides in the food coloring.

 

Maybe add a drop or two of SterilInk or similar to the mix?

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Very safe preservatives for food dye ink are sodium benzoate and salicylic acid. For both you will need 1 gram for every liter of ink. The only thing is that you slightly acidify the ink (add some citric acid or similar edible acid). Both preservatives are harmless if the ink is swallowed, since these two preservatives are used for preserving food and beverages. Pure glycerol/glycerin to modify ink flow is also edible and completely safe and actually taste very sweet. Note this is NOT to be confused wit the toxic (di)ethylene glycol used in anti freeze solutions !!!

 

However most food dyes are not very stable and will fade very easily. You can use cochenille red (made from lice), indigocarmine (greenish blue), nigrosine (black), anilin blue, methylene blue, vitamin B2 (yellow): all of these dyes are relatively safe. Both anilin blue and methylene blue are used as indicators and actually injected and used to colour capsules to give it a nice blue look.

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my major concern would be SITB, as I'd assume there are no biocides in the food coloring.

 

All the Queen food dyes I have tried have preservatives 202 and 211 listed on the label. These are potassium sorbate and sodium benzoate.

 

The colours used are --

 

102 tartrazine

122 carmoisine

123 amaranth

124 cochineal

133 brilliant blue FCF

 

I am assuming that the names are correct. These were from a website that declared that everything artificial (like caramel) was bad and would make your children grow a second head, and that everything that was natural (like carotene) was good and would make your children beautiful, brilliant and well-behaved...

fpn_1412827311__pg_d_104def64.gif




“Them as can do has to do for them as can’t.


And someone has to speak up for them as has no voices.”


Granny Aching

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sounds like fun, I think I'll give it a try....

Pelikan 120 : Lamy 2000 : Sheaffer PFM III : Parker DuoFold Jr : Hero 239 : Pilot Vanishing Point : Danitrio Cum Laude : Esterbrook LJ : Waterman's 12 and an unknown lever-filler : Lambert Drop-fill : Conway Stewart 388

 

MB Racing Green : Diamine Sapphire Blue , Registrar's : J. Herbin violet pensée , café des îles : Noodler's Baystate Blue : Waterman Purple, Florida Blue

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  • 5 weeks later...

Oooh... >___< that recipe was a mess... I typed it in a hurry, sorry. After trying to edit the original post and delete multiple posts, ... well that turned out to be too cumbersome so I'll just post the fixed-up version here:

 

88 parts water

11 parts red

0.6 parts green

0.4 parts blue

 

This recipe might be hard to put to practical use, I apologise, but that's only because I originally started out formulating this mixture by getting a large mason jar, filling it with a little water, and adding drops of red/blue/green and keeping tally on a sheet of scrap paper... I ended up with a ratio of "drops"... I then attempted to standardise it to a 100 parts scale, which resulted in the above recipe.

 

The food dye I used was pretty concentrated, so I only had to use enough to make the ink consist of about 10% dye.

 

The colour is supposed to be a red-brown, leaning more towards red. It shaded when I tried it with a glass pen.

Edited by phr4nkr4wk5

The above shall not be construed as legal advice under any circumstances

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  • 2 weeks later...

I was too lazy/broke to go buy real ink today so I picked up a bottle of red food coloring and filled up my 616 with it...

 

Happiness followed.

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You inspired me and as I am preparing to do Christmas cards and haven't had a chance to order any of the Noodlers red's ink, I decided to buy some Queen Red Dye and when I tested it works great. Nice deep red. I think it's going to look great on the cards.

 

I'm not sure about putting it into a fountain pen, I think it's ok for a dip pen, but when used in a fountain pen I think its going to clog it. I put a thick coating on the paper and it dried a little crusty, so my impression is that it will become crusty inside the pen assembly. I might try it in Hero 616 I'm about to order soon and give it a test.

 

 

Regards,

 

Roved2101

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