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Food Dyes As Ink


dcwaites

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Have a read of this thread about Herbin inks. They use natural food dyes in their inks and are investigating some rare instances of mold and goo in a few bottles. I have to say I have a few bottles and have not had any problems at all.

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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

 

Both food colouring and (most) fountain pen inks are simply water-soluble dyes dissolved in water (with a few preservatives to prevent mold from eating your ink.) There's literally no difference, apart from the 10x price differential. ;)

 

For what it's worth, I found that Queen Pillarbox Red behaves identically to red Quink. No flow or clogging issues. Even works in inkjet printers! ;)

 

- Lewis.

 

EDIT: I also tried food colouring in dip pens. The "crustyness" you see is probably just due to the copious amount of ink that a dip pen lays onto the page; I see the same 'crustyness' when I use Parker Quink Blue for the same purpose.

Edited by lws

Li-aung Yip (Lewis)

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

http://lws.nfshost.com/pix/Laplace-Sig.pnghttp://img525.imageshack.us/img525/606/letterji9.png

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  • 2 years later...

Living in South Australia it's something of a desert for fountain pens and worse for ink.

Trialling Queens food colour as ink cheap and available, it seem to work well. Recently I eye droppered a Preppy and filled it with Queens food color 60% blue30% and 10% red. This has given a nice shade off blue, the pen writes nicer than its brother with Platinum ink. So two question?

 

1. Will it fade?

I have written on a sheet with several inks and queens color and taped it to window facing sun here in Australia the suns full of uv. Taken a pic and will do another in a month to see what happens.

 

2. Will it go bad in the pen, fungus etc the preppy has as eye dropper several months supply I think so will monitor that as well

 

Time will tell, if your interested in the result check back in a month ie: May 2013.

 

If all's good I will continue evaluation every month after. Will post a picture soon

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Also living in South Australia, I'll have to give this a try. I have ridiculous amounts of 'ink' in my pantry from the days when I used to make cupcakes every weekend. Now I make less cupcakes and I've got mostly full bottles of the stuff, might as well put it to use.

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Have you tried exposing it to any sunlight? Based on my experiments, I suspect it will fade out in about a week, but I'd love to be wrong.

Fountain pens are my preferred COLOR DELIVERY SYSTEM (in part because crayons melt in Las Vegas).

Create a Ghostly Avatar and I'll send you a letter. Check out some Ink comparisons: The Great PPS Comparison 

Don't know where to start?  Look at the Inky Topics O'day.  Then, see inks sorted by color: Blue Purple Brown Red Green Dark Green Orange Black Pinks Yellows Blue-Blacks Grey/Gray UVInks Turquoise/Teal MURKY

 

 

 

 

 

 

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  • 8 months later...

I needed to trim some space from my uploadings, so I have re-posted the original image.

 

fpn_1389329565__queenfooddyesscaled.jpg

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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Hi,

 

For those really curious, many common inks, especially those made in the EU are made from food dyes. Pelikan Brilliant red and Diamine Orange for instance contain Allura Red E129 (The orange contains another food dye to make it orange-the Brilliant Red is, per my last chemical analysis, entirely Allura Red). Brilliant Blue FCF E133 is used for most turquoise inks. It's basically the same stuff with all the biocides and fountain pen friendly stuff added for your convenience. Most EU non-permanent inks can be drunk in small amounts, but the biocide can cause stomach upset.

 

Dillon

Edited by Dillo

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I am just imagining Baystate Blue Cupcakes, or Lamingtons dyed with Quink Black...

 

Maybe Quink Black does taste better than Vegemite*

 

 

 

*Do a search on the FPN for Quink vs Vegemite.

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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Impressive colors!

Is it fair for an intelligent and family oriented mammal to be separated from his/her family and spend his/her life starved in a concrete jail?

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Almost anything tastes better than with Vegemite.

 

There, fixed that for you.

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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Anyone who doesn't like Vegemite is spreading it too thickly. It's not peanut butter, you only put a small amount on toast!

My Vintages:

Sheaffer Triumph, Saratoga, Targa Slim and Targa Standard; Waterman 3V and 52 1/2V; Mabie Todd Swan Self Filler x 2; Eagle Unbreakable in sterling silver; Eversharp Bantam; Parker Duofold Lucky Curve BCHR and Duofold in red hard rubber; Spors Co. glass nib pens x 4; Conklin 2NL and 20P.

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Anyone who doesn't like Vegemite is spreading it too thickly. It's not peanut butter, you only put a small amount on toast!

 

Shhhh, don't tell everybody!!!

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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dcwaites,

 

The Queen Food Colours kit I bought absolutely ages ago - even in an earlier box design - never got used, and I was thinking about using the dyes as ink too; thanks for resurrecting this thread - and in turn lws' thread too. Makes it sounds a bit like something of a Secret Australian's Business :lol:

 

Member phr4nkr4wk5 in the US created his blend with only 12% dye concentrate, but he used another brand of dyes. It makes me wonder if the Queen dyes are less concentrated that those, or he prefers inks to be less intense. Too bad that lws has not been active for some time, it would be interesting to know if he has conducted further tests.

No, I am not going to list my pens here.

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  • 7 months later...

Hope nobody minds my responding to an older topic, since it is a continuation of the discussion. I've some Queen dyes on hand and used one in an fp for a few weeks. The pen wrote fine although the "ink" wasn't as smooth as I like. Another issue is the smell. As someone with an above average olfactory organ, I could detect the dye having an unpleasant, slightly "stale water" kind of smell after a few days. Does anyone have the same experience? I'm now thinking of mixing the dye into cheaper, unexciting ink colours for the fun of it. Seems like a win-win situation!

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