Surfactants In Ink For Improved Flow...

[PJohnP]

B&H Photo out New York...$7.99 for 16 oz. Just checked...yup, they carry it. Enjoy!

 

16 ounces should supply even a mad scientist of ink experiments for a longish time, I'd say !

 

B&H is a great outfit - sometimes a bit brusque on the 'phone, but, hey, it's NYC - and their deliveries work well. I've ordered photo-gear from them for years, and would always make a stop there when I've been in NYC for business. In the photography world, it's like setting a kid loose in a toy store...

 

For anyone planning an order, do pay attention to the note on that website about the upcoming religious holidays, as B&H is an extremely observant location, and they're closed for the posted dates.

 

 

 

John P.

[madzaxmax]

I tried APSA-80. Half a drop in about 15 drops of ink for a no-name extra-fine chinese pen. Its a surfactant available from any Amway distributor. Dunno if its available (or what its called) outside India.

 

P.S. I have not read the entire thread, but I am assuming that surfactants should be used in two situations:

1. Where the pen is not performing as wetly as desired (regardless of the ink) - This was my experiment above, so the particular surfactant mixed ink is being used only in this particular pen.

2. Where the ink is not flowing properly, regardless of the pen. I have not encountered this yet.

[kb8dnr]

Amazon Prime has Photographers' Formulary Formaflo Wetting Agent (8 ounce size) at the following link:

 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0045Y1H1I/ref=ox_ya_os_product

[cybaea]

Did anybody ever try Tetenal Mirasol?

 

Tetenal Mirasol 250ml

250ml. Dilutes 1:400.

A very high quality product made in Germany and an ideal alternative to the market leader (Kodak Photo-flo). Contains anti-bacterial and anti-fungal agents. May also be used as a glazing agent for fibre based papers. Excellent value.

 

Highly concentrated; looks promising. Couldn't find the ingredients anywhere, though.

[PJohnP]

Highly concentrated; looks promising. Couldn't find the ingredients anywhere, though.

 

Haven't tried it, but I did find this discussion of the materials. These would seem to be similar to PhotoFlo surfactants, and so could possibly work with inks. One would need to run tests, of course.

 

 

 

John P.

[GHigley]

I plan to order some "Forma-Flo" and give it a go with P.R. Sepia. I'm hoping it will provide better ink flow and reduce start up issues. I'll report back with the results.

[GHigley]

I plan to order some "Forma-Flo" and give it a go with P.R. Sepia. I'm hoping it will provide better ink flow and reduce start up issues. I'll report back with the results.

 

I put one drop in a full bottle of P.R. Sepia and had no further issues in a Jinhao X750. Today I filled a TWSBI 580 with 1.1 mm stub nib that performed flawlessly with Diamine ink with the Forma-Flo treated P.R. Sepia and I'm having similar start-up/flow issues. I'm reticent to add another drop to the bottle for fear of increasing flow excessively in other pens. For now I'll see how it does in other pens.

[PJohnP]

 

I'm reticent to add another drop to the bottle for fear of increasing flow excessively in other pens. For now I'll see how it does in other pens.

 

You might attempt a minor dilution with some distilled water first. Excessive surfactant can make a pen "gush".

 

 

 

John P.

[GHigley]

 

You might attempt a minor dilution with some distilled water first. Excessive surfactant can make a pen "gush".

 

 

 

John P.

Thanks John. I haven't given dilution a try yet. I'll give it a shot. What ratio would you start with? 1:30? 1:50?

[amberleadavis]

From Sandy1

 

Hi,

Photo wetting agents come to market in very concentrated solution, which poses a bit of a riddle to those who choose to tune their ink.

Some Members have mentioned achieving the desired results using ad hoc means of measuring miniscule amounts, such as 'dip the head of a straight pin into the Kpf, then mix that into 5ml of ink'.

Along the lines of the approach mentioned above by Member bardiir, Ms Fussy suggested using progressive dilution. That approach brings both greater accuracy of measurement and dilution to the party, so a greater range of [repeatable] results can be achieved by working with an ink's flow rate in conjunction with dye-load per unit volume. Such was roughed-out in Post № 8 http://www.fountainp...soap/?p=2033015

We have the good fortune that Mod amberleadavis has cobbled things together into the more inclusive and far more amusing "Inky TOD - Improving Ink Flow" http://www.fountainp...lems/?p=3016908

Please be aware that dilute surfactant does not have the shelf-life of the stock solution, so some vigilance is required: when in doubt - throw it out.

Bye,
S1

[PJohnP]

Thanks John. I haven't given dilution a try yet. I'll give it a shot. What ratio would you start with? 1:30? 1:50?

 

There are two approaches on this, which are not mutually exclusive, dilute the surfactant for your next changes or dilute the ink to which you've already added surfactant. Amber's pointed towards Sandy's discussions, which offer some guidelines for diluting surfactant.

 

On the dilution of ink side, I've found that a slow and steady progression in tests has served me well. A 10% dilution (9 parts ink/1 part water) tends to work well, and in a few cases, I've progressed in dilution to as much as 7:3 level, but those were deeply saturated inks. Ink dilution tends to assist on several properties, one of which is ease of flow, but, as you could probably have intuited, one needs to progress slowly in small batches, as there are very few ways of "concentrating" over-diluted ink.

 

 

 

 

John P.

[GHigley]

Th

 

 

There are two approaches on this, which are not mutually exclusive, dilute the surfactant for your next changes or dilute the ink to which you've already added surfactant. Amber's pointed towards Sandy's discussions, which offer some guidelines for diluting surfactant.

 

On the dilution of ink side, I've found that a slow and steady progression in tests has served me well. A 10% dilution (9 parts ink/1 part water) tends to work well, and in a few cases, I've progressed in dilution to as much as 7:3 level, but those were deeply saturated inks. Ink dilution tends to assist on several properties, one of which is ease of flow, but, as you could probably have intuited, one needs to progress slowly in small batches, as there are very few ways of "concentrating" over-diluted ink.

 

 

 

 

John P.

 

Thanks John, I'll use that as a starting point. I appreciate the info.

[DavidCampen]

B&H Photo out New York...$7.99 for 16 oz. Just checked...yup, they carry it. Enjoy!

 

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/28195-REG/Kodak_1464510_Photo_Flo_200_Solution.html.

And, 4 years later, still only $7.99.

 

I don't have any Photo-Flo but I do have "EcoAdjuvant Spreader-Emulsifier", that I use when preparing sprays to be applied to plants (my orchids). The active material in this is a nonionic surfactant just like Photo-Flo. I added 2 tiny (pin head size) drops to 20 ml of MontBlanc Royal Blue. The ink flows very smoothly and nicely. I will have to find a pen with a dry and scratchy nib to try this with.

[eharriett]

And since someone else resurrected this topic, I'll add my contribution too

 

I finally settled on my daily work ink, which I was extremely. Happy with, until I put my daily work ink into my daily work pen (up to then, I was trying out with a tester throwaway Jinhao. Didn't want to risk my VP on an ink that I couldn't clear out). When I put the two together, I got a slightly drier result than I preferred. So I went looking through this site and found this thread a few weeks ago. Did a little more searching and found a bottle of Organics Studio Cuddles Flo, which seems to be the stuff talked about in this thread, but made for fountain pens. Don't know if I got part of the last of old stock or not, but I don't see it on Organics site anymore, so I may have lucked out. Got it from Vanness, if anyone is interested.

 

Put one drop in the c/c then filled the rest with the ink and it solved the flow problem without sacrificing that ink color I so wanted. Don't know if that turned out to be too much, but it seemed to work well for my purposes.

[Budzynski]

Is there anyone in the UK or Europe who would like to share with me or sell small amount of wetting agent? Buying 500 ml of this stuff doesn't seem justifiable to me...

[virgilio]

The original poster is obviously a serious researcher on this topic. I tried Photoflo some years back in Quink Black, and the result was unpleasantly greasy ink that actually reduced ink flow. However, as I recall I used a lot more than just one drop, so perhaps I wasn't using it properly.

 

I also read in another thread that somebody tried glycerine as a surfactant and found that it actually reduced ink flow. Not too surprising, given that glycerine is pretty thick, isn't it?

 

I still have the bottle of Photoflo, so I may do some more experiments.

 

However, I do NOT agree that dish detergent is a poor choice for making ink wetter. True, it makes the ink foam, but that is irrelevant to the ink's writing characteristics. In fact the foaming is a useful indicator for how wet the ink is... I HAVE noticed that some dish detergent works better than others. Ivory dish detergent is almost pure, and seems to work best.

 

Frnak Dubiel, the famous pen guru, reported years ago that one of the big ink fabricators (it was either Parker or Sheaffer) used all sorts of surfactants to make their ink flow properly, but apparently their favorite was none other than... dish detergent. When they ran out, they just ordered a big industrial-sized can of the stuff...

[PJohnP]

Heh. I'm deeply flattered to be referred to as a "serious researcher" !

 

As a scientist and an engineer, I'm both an experimenter and (hopefully) a practical person.

 

My original objections to dish detergent were because of the variability in various brands, and, sometimes even within a brand. I would imagine that this wouldn't be as much of a problem in the old days where brands' formulae weren't being constantly tinkered with for new markets, not to mention getting the detergents by the barrel ! For me, Photoflo had the very attractive feature of highly predictable concentrations without any other unknown materials complicating the tests.

 

But if someone can get good results with dish detergent, I'm by no means going to condemn that approach, but rather to celebrate that the user has adulterated the ink to achieve a smooth luscious flow ! Good-oh for anyone who can make the process work for their inks.

 

Insofar as the use of Photoflo goes, for the "average dry ink", I've found that the smallest amounts have had pretty dramatic effects. The use of larger quantities such as "a lot more than just one drop" would have, let us say, less than desirable results...

 

... but you already know that. <warm smile>

 

 

John P.

[lovemy51]

i use Dawn dish washing soap -it works for me.

[virgilio]

You have given me new hope that my purchase of Photoflo was not in vain. It WOULD sort of be nice not to have my ink froth and foam quite so much...

[virgilio]

I recall that years ago when I tried to use Ajax dishwashing liquid, the results were rather unpredictable, and the ink had an oily feel to it that I disliked. Obviously the less perfume and other additives in the detergent, the better.

 

I like fine points that write very wet, and I mostly just use Hammermill Ivory copy paper, since as a professional writer I can't afford to buy the very best paper; I use up a ream every two months or so; I buy 10 reams at a time off of amazon. Hence my long-term interest in making ink wetter.

 

It is amazing how one can take a very dry, scratchy ink like say, Cross Black, and make it wet and smooth just by adding some extra surfactant.