Scratch Recipes? (Not Mixing Premade Inks?)

[simko]

Hi Everyone

 

does anyone have any ink recipes "from scratch" ie, not mixing pre made inks? Preferrably something dark and water resistant/ tough

[bass1193]

I'd recommend Googling iron-gall ink. It can be made with household products and things you find in nature, many recipes and tutorials available around the internet. Also, you can go even more old-school and make some Sumi-type ink with lamp black and a resin, though that wouldn't be good for fountain pens.

 

On the other hand, it would be interesting to look at natural dyes extracted from plants along with a mordant. This is how fabrics were dyed in ancient times, and still are. This is basically how cellulose-reactive inks work. It's great when two or more hobbies can align nicely like that 😄

[simko]

Thanks for the heads up!

 

I decided to start experimenting and made up a quick batch of 5%w/v methylene blue mixed with 5% w/v nile blue dyes.

 

I started adding different concentrations of glycerol to help with lubrication and flow. The highest concentration of glycerol was 12.5% and honestly it seems to flow well out of a very thin pipette tip, not sure how it would function on a fountain pen nib and feed.

 

I should probably look into a cheap fountain pin to test these inks.

[bass1193]

Yay inksperiments! Yeah, probably a good idea to "invest" in a Jinhao from ebay. They cost, generally, $0.99-$4.99 US for their X450 and X750 models on eVilbay and are really good quality given the price. Great wet writers that are perfect for testing ink in, because they're so easy to disassemble, examine, and scrub down.

[bass1193]

Also, pictures! At least a swab. I'm really curious what they look like mixed up and put on paper!

[simko]

Inks https://imgur.com/fpngallery/9duvJ9G

[Corona688]

I'd recommend Googling iron-gall ink. It can be made with household products and things you find in nature, many recipes and tutorials available around the internet.

If you want results you can actually depend on, get ingredients instead of trying to make your own. I filled a thread with my own trial-and-error, and never got results I was entirely happy with. Tea is not a good source of gallate, steel wool and vinegar makes an ugly brown mess of random ferrics, and too much boiling/concentrating makes permanently brown organic stew which won't darken. (I'm more optimistic about starting from logwood, but have let that project lie for now.) Besides, modern ingredients will be much lower in residual acid, better on pens and paper. Edited August 1, 2018 by Corona688

[bass1193]

Inks https://imgur.com/fpngallery/9duvJ9G

 

Wow, that mixture is a nice dark blue! I'm going to have to play with the methylene and nile blues too!

 

 

If you want results you can actually depend on, get ingredients instead of trying to make your own. I filled a thread with my own trial-and-error, and never got results I was entirely happy with. Tea is not a good source of gallate, steel wool and vinegar makes an ugly brown mess of random ferrics, and too much boiling/concentrating makes permanently brown organic stew which won't darken. (I'm more optimistic about starting from logwood, but have let that project lie for now.) Besides, modern ingredients will be much lower in residual acid, better on pens and paper.

 

Good points! And a good reminder that a researcher should always do a literature review at the start of a project, which in this case is looking at older threads on FPN