Homemade U.s. Government Standard Iron Gall Ink

[Husar]

Yes, it is on Scribd too.

[Husar]

Hello friends, I bring some news of my experiments.

1. Ferrogallotannic ink is completely black. No matter what color you add him as a dye, it is always black. I tried many type dyes "azo", which did not generate precipitates, and completely dissolved in the ink. No clogging here.

2. To use colored dyes, you should follow the recipe of pgary's ink (ferrogallic, without tannic acid). This ink is more expensive because it must use more gallic instead of the tannic. Of course the combination of tannic and gallic acids is the best for archival inks.

3. For dyeing, can be used the food coloring dyes, and in all combinations of them, so you can give to your ink the colour than you want. Only have to check that your dye is "azo". You can find the list here. I don't know about the concentration of the dyes, but Pharmacist used 5[g]/[L] of indigotine (indigocarmine). I don't know where he find that concentration, maybe empirically. He said than Urkundentinte is most archival than colors inks, the colors inks doesn't have tannic acid, only gallic. It gives waterproofness but it is not like Urkundentinte.

4. You can make normal inks like Waterman, Montblanc, Quink, etc. using only: food colouring dyes, isopropylic alcohol (or HCl), glycerine, salycilic acid, and distilled water.

5. Yes, really ascorbic acid and citric acid can clean the iron gall ink from the pen. They works wonderfully.

So guys, start making your own ink. You can make 1 [L] of iron gall ink at 4 USD, or normal one at 1.5-2 USD. Save your money!

[Chemist]

 

Hello friends, I bring some news of my experiments.

1. Ferrogallotannic ink is completely black. No matter what color you add him as a dye, it is always black. I tried many type dyes "azo", which did not generate precipitates, and completely dissolved in the ink. No clogging here.

2. To use colored dyes, you should follow the recipe of pgary's ink (ferrogallic, without tannic acid). This ink is more expensive because it must use more gallic instead of the tannic. Of course the combination of tannic and gallic acids is the best for archival inks.

3. For dyeing, can be used the food coloring dyes, and in all combinations of them, so you can give to your ink the colour than you want. Only have to check that your dye is "azo". You can find the list here. I don't know about the concentration of the dyes, but Pharmacist used 5[g]/[L] of indigotine (indigocarmine). I don't know where he find that concentration, maybe empirically. He said than Urkundentinte is most archival than colors inks, the colors inks doesn't have tannic acid, only gallic. It gives waterproofness but it is not like Urkundentinte.

4. You can make normal inks like Waterman, Montblanc, Quink, etc. using only: food colouring dyes, isopropylic alcohol (or HCl), glycerine, salycilic acid, and distilled water.

5. Yes, really ascorbic acid and citric acid can clean the iron gall ink from the pen. They works wonderfully.

So guys, start making your own ink. You can make 1 [L] of iron gall ink at 4 USD, or normal one at 1.5-2 USD. Save your money!

 

 

Do you know anything about the ratios needed for making a normal ink (waterman, Quink, etc.) as mentioned?

[Husar]

I didn't make that ink, but you can see than the solubility of the food dyes is like 120 [g]/[L] ... so you can test with a lot of concentrations. What ink do you want to replicate? I want to do MB Toffee Brown.

[fiberdrunk]

 

Do you know anything about the ratios needed for making a normal ink (waterman, Quink, etc.) as mentioned?

 

Try this recipe by Pharmacist here. I don't have any experience with this particular one so I can't comment. My experience is more with iron gall inks and ink from plants. When I get my hands on the right kind of dyes, I'll give this one a try, too.

Edited October 12, 2014 by fiberdrunk

[Chemist]

I didn't make that ink, but you can see than the solubility of the food dyes is like 120 [g]/[L] ... so you can test with a lot of concentrations. What ink do you want to replicate? I want to do MB Toffee Brown.

 

I think I'd like to replicate Quink, mainly. It's just occurred to me that I could just use this recipe (Iron gall) as a base, but cut out the tannic and gallic acids and the iron sulphate and use aniline dye and food dyes instead!

[Husar]

Yes, is the same thing than the iron gall recipe cutting the tannins and fe(ii)so4. By the way, I think than R&K Salix is made with gallic acid (not tannic) and brilliant blue FCF as dye. Royal Blue + gallic acid + fe(ii)so4·7h20. That's why it is not expensive.

[Husar]

Fiberdrunk, did you buy the dyes from the bakery store? Oh, I've bought 19 combinations of food colours. All of them are combinations of: indigocarmine, brilliant blue fcf, azorubine, allura red, tartrazine, sunset yellow and ponceau 4r. There is one called "caramelo"... same "encre caramel" of MB Toffee Brown, and "verde hoja" (leaf green) can be like R&K Alt-Goldgrün...

[Chemist]

Yes, is the same thing than the iron gall recipe cutting the tannins and fe(ii)so4. By the way, I think than R&K Salix is made with gallic acid (not tannic) and brilliant blue FCF as dye. Royal Blue + gallic acid + fe(ii)so4·7h20. That's why it is not expensive.

 

Just out of curiosity, what is it that makes you think that R&K Salix is made with gallic acid and not tannic acid?

[Husar]

Because the ink with tannic acid and gallic acid turns black using any dye (I've tested that), making it "archival". With the gallic acid you can make great colourful ink, like the pgary's ink. He upload a video mixing gallic acid and Fe(II)SO4. By the way, do you get any results in your experiments?

[fiberdrunk]

Fiberdrunk, did you buy the dyes from the bakery store? Oh, I've bought 19 combinations of food colours. All of them are combinations of: indigocarmine, brilliant blue fcf, azorubine, allura red, tartrazine, sunset yellow and ponceau 4r. There is one called "caramelo"... same "encre caramel" of MB Toffee Brown, and "verde hoja" (leaf green) can be like R&K Alt-Goldgrün...

 

Sorry, I haven't had a chance to look much at it yet. The link you provided looked to be a wholesaler, but I didn't get a second chance to verify. I haven't had a chance to look locally yet, either. Hope to soon.

 

eta: I've sent a message via their contact form, to see if they can mail order small quantities of dyes to individuals or not. Just waiting for a reply.

Edited October 15, 2014 by fiberdrunk

[fiberdrunk]

 

Just out of curiosity, what is it that makes you think that R&K Salix is made with gallic acid and not tannic acid?

 

I'm pretty sure all the commercial safe-for-fountain pen iron gall inks are of the gallic acid kind only. They are not as archival and they retain their dye color, instead of eventually turning black like the gallotannic version. Just like Husar said.

[Husar]

Hi Fiberdrunk! I hope than you might get the dyes, they are working very well with the ferrogallotannic solution, but they are useful only to see what you are writing, then, the colour converts to black (except when you mix 1 or more part of an ink with 3 parts of ferrogallotannic ink, like i show in older posts). But in ferrogallic solutions, it works great. I'm getting Isopropanol to make my toffee brown ink. I can't believe than I have spent a lot of money in inks, it is very cheap to do by myself. Here in Chile, we have only Parker Quink (most of the inks than people sells are this), MontBlanc (few, and expensive), Waterman (few) and a few months ago, some of Rohrer & Klingner (the owner of the shop goes himself to Germany to buy this inks, so it is like very few and rare to find R&K). I don't like Parker Quink, feathers even in Rhodia paper.

[Husar]

Food dyes... what about Walmart?

[Chemist]

Because the ink with tannic acid and gallic acid turns black using any dye (I've tested that), making it "archival". With the gallic acid you can make great colourful ink, like the pgary's ink. He upload a video mixing gallic acid and Fe(II)SO4. By the way, do you get any results in your experiments?

 

Well I never knew that!

Also, in my experiments, I always get 2 problems. Firstly, It always forms a scummy foam on the top of the jar/bottle. Secondly, it always drops too much sediment, either in the container as it's mixed, or over the next day. I'll be getting some hydrochloric acid soon as I need to clean some patio at some point (it's sold as brick cleaner in some places), which MIGHT just solve the problem, as I've got an inkling that the froth might be sediment-related.

 

P.S I made a batch about eight months ago, which was my first batch (it made about 50mls of ink), and after doing something, which I forget what it was, it might have just been filtering and ageing, the ink stopped forming that scummy layer. It was a good ink.

[Husar]

 

Well I never knew that!

Also, in my experiments, I always get 2 problems. Firstly, It always forms a scummy foam on the top of the jar/bottle. Secondly, it always drops too much sediment, either in the container as it's mixed, or over the next day. I'll be getting some hydrochloric acid soon as I need to clean some patio at some point (it's sold as brick cleaner in some places), which MIGHT just solve the problem, as I've got an inkling that the froth might be sediment-related.

 

P.S I made a batch about eight months ago, which was my first batch (it made about 50mls of ink), and after doing something, which I forget what it was, it might have just been filtering and ageing, the ink stopped forming that scummy layer. It was a good ink.

 

OK

 

1. I have read the book of the ink manufacture and... it says than :

 

1.1 you actually can make iron gall ink with fancy colours using dyes... what dyes? look the book, but it shows blue-black iron gall ink (like salix), violet-black ink (scabiosa), red-black ink (Pharmacist's Sang Real), Green-black ink (Pharmacist's Darkening Absinthe) and a lot of more. The book also says than you can use indigotin (indigo carmine) to dye the ferro-gallo-tannic ink. Note than it uses Ponceau red, and this is a food colorant. So in the early XX century they used that dyes and then we are using the same thing to colouring food. (p.97)

 

1.2 there is a list of dye-stuffs suitable for writing ink, and yes, there are food colours.Tartrazine, fast yellow, indigo carmine, soluble blue T, ponceau scarlet, etc.

 

2. The foam is not a problem. remove it with a spoon.

 

3. Use only the quantity of HCl indicated in the recipe, or you'll get pH too low. My ink has pH=2. Yes, muriatic acid is the brick cleaner (it's cheap). After leave the bottle for 2 days, move the ink to another bottle, filtering with a coffee filter or paper towel in a funnel, leaving the precipitate in the old bottle. The precipitate, says the book, is insoluble in water, so don't care about it, just leave in the old bottle and then clean it.

[Husar]

1.2 is in p.117.

[Chemist]

 

OK

 

1. I have read the book of the ink manufacture and... it says than :

 

1.1 you actually can make iron gall ink with fancy colours using dyes... what dyes? look the book, but it shows blue-black iron gall ink (like salix), violet-black ink (scabiosa), red-black ink (Pharmacist's Sang Real), Green-black ink (Pharmacist's Darkening Absinthe) and a lot of more. The book also says than you can use indigotin (indigo carmine) to dye the ferro-gallo-tannic ink. Note than it uses Ponceau red, and this is a food colorant. So in the early XX century they used that dyes and then we are using the same thing to colouring food. (p.97)

 

1.2 there is a list of dye-stuffs suitable for writing ink, and yes, there are food colours.Tartrazine, fast yellow, indigo carmine, soluble blue T, ponceau scarlet, etc.

 

2. The foam is not a problem. remove it with a spoon.

 

3. Use only the quantity of HCl indicated in the recipe, or you'll get pH too low. My ink has pH=2. Yes, muriatic acid is the brick cleaner (it's cheap). After leave the bottle for 2 days, move the ink to another bottle, filtering with a coffee filter or paper towel in a funnel, leaving the precipitate in the old bottle. The precipitate, says the book, is insoluble in water, so don't care about it, just leave in the old bottle and then clean it.

 

I've tried removing the foam with a spoon, but if you agitate the ink at all, it just comes right back. Any suggestions?

[Husar]

I think than it is because you added glycerine. Not a trouble.

[Chemist]

Just another suggestion, a possible pH lowering agent which could reduce sediment and act as a biocide is citric acid. This can be found in a lot of places, either as a food additive, or as a specific kind of dishwasher de-scaler (make sure the package specifies that it is citric acid, otherwise you'll end up with something that could ruin your ink, or even worse, the pen it's contained in!). This might be a good ingredient to use, as it's less acidic than hydrochloric or sulphuric acid, so you can 'fine-tune' your recipe properly.