Have You Ever Had A Bottled Ink Fade?

[amberleadavis]

I used a pain brush to sample each of the inks so we can see if the end result has faded. So here is the ink in the beginning.

 

http://sheismylawyer.com/INK/attachments/PICT2954_small.jpg

 

[amberleadavis]

Hmm... I guess the resized image didn't show up of the second stein in the window sill. Anyway, here is a small version

 

http://sheismylawyer.com/INK/images/_nb_mediaFrames/26476PICT2948_small.jpg

 

 

and here is the link to the larger image.

 

 

[Edwaroth]

For as much as we pay for ink I would hope they should not fade, separate or other wise break down, if they did so, it's back to the retailer or manufacturer.

[amberleadavis]

Alas, as reported above, some have broken down, separated or otherwise behaved badly.

[ShallowJam]

Moral of the story: Protect your inks from the sun!

[amberleadavis]

Moral of the story: Protect your inks from the sun!

 

NO!!! That is NOT the moral of this story. The moral is that you cannot make pronouncements without proof. This thread began as a quest for proof, and absent the proof, it has become an area to try and get the proof.

 

My hypothesis is that the bottled inks will not fade when exposed to ambient light, hence no need to keep your ink bottles inside the box. I do think the purple washes will evaporate long before they fade. So far, my personal experience shows that long term exposure to heat did not cause my inks to break down. In my fade experiments, the ink samples that had been exposed to water faded much faster. Thus, I expect the purple washes to be more prone to fading than the vials of brown ink, KTC and Luxury Blue. Also, I would expect the brown to fade faster even though it is in glass (a known UV filter) the Lux and KTC bottles are plastic. However, KTC and Lux inks in my other experiments did not fade once introduced to paper.

[mrcharlie]

if the ink doesn't fade once used on paper, i wouldn't expect to fade while still liquid.

 

wouldn't it be more interesting to test some inks known to fade on paper? those are the ones we'd be worried about.

[amberleadavis]

When on paper, the purple and brown are faders; the KTC and Lux are the known non-faders.

[amberleadavis]

After a mere three weeks, the unbottled ink had evaporated. The ink rings are showing some signs of fading at the top. I will eventually get around to taking and posting pics.

[PDW]

I've had a very old bottle of Pelikan blue-black go strange on me. It was opened once, many years ago, then left in the box until a few weeks ago.

 

It now writes as a sort of dark grey with hints of green, but lightens slightly to a mid/dark grey as it dries but is then highly waterproof. Maybe the dye has died, leaving some iron gall content undamaged? Certainly when smeared there are visible 'bits' of a type I've seen in images of swabs of iron gall inks.

 

Anyway, it works fine in a modern Indian eyedropper, but I'm not inclined to trust it in anything more precious .

Edited June 21, 2013 by PDW

[lapis]

Whoever is worried about inks fading... may I suggest you move to Scotland... IIRC it rains there 250 days a year...

 

http://i654.photobucket.com/albums/uu264/peli46/Scottishflag.jpg

[Paddler]

UV light is not necessarily the culprit. Some reactions take place in the presence of other colors. For instance, beer reacts to green light to produce a "skunky" flavor. Do Moosehead and Heineken come to mind?

 

[amberleadavis]

Hey, isn't it .... green .... in Scotland? I've seen green in ink samples, but we don't have a lot of it around here.

[lapis]

If somebody isn't all that hot about rain then maybe they should move to ♫ Southern California ♬. What was the colour of the ink named after that region?

[minibear453]

After a mere three weeks, the unbottled ink had evaporated. The ink rings are showing some signs of fading at the top. I will eventually get around to taking and posting pics.

 

Sorry, I don't understand what was the point of this? If you leave ink in an uncapped bottle, isn't it common sense that the water will evaporate? I'm not trying to insult anyone, and I'm new to this ink stuff, but from what I read, aren't we trying to determine if ink in its original container will deteriorate due to exposure to sunlight? IMO the best way to do this would be to buy two bottles of ink, leave one in the sun, store one in the cellar, and check with writing samples/color swaps periodically. For this, it would be prudent to utilize a good ink bottle, since lesser quality or plastic containers may allow evaporation or other variables into the experiment. I have no experience with this though, and with a large total of 3 bottles of ink, may not be the best person to listen to.

[lapis]

 

Sorry, I don't understand what was the point of this? If you leave ink in an uncapped bottle, isn't it common sense that the water will evaporate? I'm not trying to insult anyone, and I'm new to this ink stuff, but from what I read, aren't we trying to determine if ink in its original container will deteriorate due to exposure to sunlight? IMO the best way to do this would be to buy two bottles of ink, leave one in the sun, store one in the cellar, and check with writing samples/color swaps periodically. For this, it would be prudent to utilize a good ink bottle, since lesser quality or plastic containers may allow evaporation or other variables into the experiment. I have no experience with this though, and with a large total of 3 bottles of ink, may not be the best person to listen to.

Now that is sound sense! We scientists (if not everybody else) call this an A-B comparison. Two things compared, only one parameter open, all other identical . Meaning here, that also the temperature down in the cellar would have to be the same as it is out under the sunlight ... etc...

[amberleadavis]

Yes, yes.... I just haven't posted photos ... here's what the experiment contains.

 

 

Plastic vial - KTC - an ink known not to fade.
Plastic vial - Luxury Blue - an ink known not to fade.
Glass Bottle - brown inks - (inks with orange tones tend to fade)
2 giant glasses - ink waste water - purples.

[elevennx]

Um, it's been just over a year now. Has there been an update to this experiment? Would love to know the results.

 

I have some very nice looking bottles of ink sitting in their boxes, and I'd much rather have them out in the open on display. But my desk is usually either exposed to direct sunlight or to one of those daylight lightbulbs. Any chance the ink will fade in the bottles over a reasonably short amount of time, say a year or two?

[lynxcat]

i've had two bottles of Noodler's ink --- bulletproof black and upper ganges blue --- sitting on my desk for, well, the black's been several years now, i do so little writing. no change so far.

 

of course, they don't get direct sunlight. not that it'd matter, i'm in northern Michigan so even our "direct sunlight" probably counts as a moonless night down south... the nearest window faces east, too. still, no change that i've noticed.

[DRWWE]

Not sure if this applies here, but I recently found an old bottle of Waterman Blue in a drawer. I don't think it had been opened for 8 or 10 years. Looked OK in the bottle and flowed well from my pen, but it was no longer blue on paper. It was an unattractive metallic green.