Washing up liquid

[Lugworm]

I have recently come to learn, that if you have a dry ink in your pen.  Adding the tiniest of tiny specs of washing up liquid to the cartridge and giving it a shake turns the ink into a very wet ink.   Sometimes too wet.

It is very easy to spoil the ink if anything more than a pin head sized amount of soap is used.

 

Can anyone tell me what is going on with the ink when soap is added.  And is there a better way of making the ink wetter. 

Thanks

[Easigraf]

That sounds risky, but obviously you are using it sparingly. Though being new to the hobby, I found out that soap reduces surface tension, acting as a lubricant, resulting in a wetter flow. From what I have read, there are no apparent side effects. Another method is adding glycerin, I believe it has the same effect. About 3 to 4 drops of pure glycerin for every ounce of ink is a good proportion, according to FPGeeks. I might just have to try this myself- thanks.

 

Good luck! 

 

- Easigraf

[XYZZY]

37 minutes ago, Lugworm said:

I have recently come to learn, that if you have a dry ink in your pen.  Adding the tiniest of tiny specs of washing up liquid to the cartridge and giving it a shake turns the ink into a very wet ink.   Sometimes too wet.

It is very easy to spoil the ink if anything more than a pin head sized amount of soap is used.

 

Can anyone tell me what is going on with the ink when soap is added.  And is there a better way of making the ink wetter. 

Thanks

 

In the US we call it "dish soap", but no matter what it's called the primary cleaning part is a detergent, not a soap.  Detergents are surfactants, meaning that they decrease surface tension.  And that's what this is all about: you're increasing the flow by lowering the surface tension.  

 

What you've done is pretty much the most commonly recommended way to make ink wetter, but usually the recommendations are to put the tiniest amount of detergent into a sample vial with ink, then if it's too wet you can add more ink into your sample vial.  Or toss it and start over.

 

In other words, there are limits to how small a drop of washing up liquid that you can easily get (or repeatably get), so mix with more ink instead of less detergent:  doubling the ink is the same as halving the detergent.

 

But don't try the mix in directly in your bottle of ink, otherwise you risk ruining an entire bottle.

 

The "better" ways to make it wetter are generally trying to find a more pure surfactant.  Dish soap probably also has dyes, perfumes, sudsing agents, alcohol, etc.  If you search here on FPN for "surfactant" you'll find many threads covering this in more detail, and they'll (almost) all be about making ink flow better.

 

[Karmachanic]

9 hours ago, Easigraf said:

Another method is adding glycerin

 

My understanding is that glycerine is a lubricant.  I use Liquitex for a surfectant.  If you're going to use soap Fairy/Dawn is reccommended as they have less of the "nasties" that @XYZZY mentioned.

+1 for vials

 

I find this discussion helpful

 

 

[PolarMoonman]

I sometimes use Dawn Platinum in my ink. I only do this with cheap plastic pens. Usually my $3 Wing Sung 3003 pen. If the dish soap somehow destroyed it I could buy another off eBay that day. 

 

I reuse cartridges, NEVER CONVERTERS! Dish soap destroys converters. And I add 1 drop of dish soap in the cartridge and fill the rest with black ink. I call it my "Black Ice Ink"

 

Now, this is much higher concentration than a lot of people use. And I never ever put anything in the ink bottle itself. But this concentration has worked for me.

 

[Armo]

Washing up liquid breaks the surface tension of water and a very small amount is all that is needed.

[Bo Bo Olson]

Glycerine, by the drop will make ink wetter.

I had Lamy Agate, the driest ink I've ever had...I put in two drops of glycerine...one drop too much, but luckily I had a second bottle of Agate. An empty MB shoe gave me an ink that was dry enough...in two drops was too much.

 

A very nice shading gray...

 

Ask which Diamine ink is the wettest...or buy a Wet Noodlers ink..........once Waterman was considered a wet ink (I still consider it a wet ink).....but many Noodler users think Waterman a dry ink.

[Carrau]

Similar to the Liquitex mentioned by Karmachanic above, I’ve used Photoflo (Kodak) as a surfactant.  There are a number of threads on FPN discussing use of Photoflo and others.  One of the most common issues using surfactants is finding the right amount to achieve the desired wetness.  One method described by others and one I have used successfully is to use ink sample vials to make dilutions of the surfactant, which gives you finer control over the degree of wetness produced. Make successive 1:10 dilutions, which will give you 1:10, 1:100, 1:1000 concentrations (use an aliquot of each dilution to start the next dilution). This allows you to use drops of very dilute surfactant added to a small sample of ink by an inexpensive dropper/pipette ( no need for an expensive micropipette as mentioned on one of the threads).  Save your vial(s) of the desired concentration, or make new ones each time.  Keep a record of the dilution and the number of drops added to achieve the desired wetness, and you can refer to this in the future when you need to make more.  A small bottle of Photoflo goes a very long way, and I’m guessing Liquitex may be similar.

[grayautumnday]

On 2/11/2024 at 8:29 PM, PolarMoonman said:

I sometimes use Dawn Platinum in my ink. I only do this with cheap plastic pens. Usually my $3 Wing Sung 3003 pen. If the dish soap somehow destroyed it I could buy another off eBay that day. 

 

I reuse cartridges, NEVER CONVERTERS! Dish soap destroys converters. And I add 1 drop of dish soap in the cartridge and fill the rest with black ink. I call it my "Black Ice Ink"

 

Now, this is much higher concentration than a lot of people use. And I never ever put anything in the ink bottle itself. But this concentration has worked for me.

 

Dawn platinum contains at minimum very strong concentrations of enzymes that destroy carbohydrates (cellulose), proteins, and lipids (fats), and I wouldn't suggest it for use in any fountain pen. Dawn original blue and (and dawn pots & pans manual liquid) dish liquids contain no enzymes.

[XYZZY]

17 hours ago, grayautumnday said:

Dawn platinum contains at minimum very strong concentrations of enzymes that destroy carbohydrates (cellulose), proteins, and lipids (fats), and I wouldn't suggest it for use in any fountain pen. Dawn original blue and (and dawn pots & pans manual liquid) dish liquids contain no enzymes.

I think it's time we have a replacement recommended pen-safe detergent.  I don't mean to insult Dawn as a product:  it's great for washing dishes and one can only expect them to modify their formulas to keep up with the competition (or to lead the competition).  You aren't the first to mention though that it might be bad for some pens.  I recall somebody, some years ago, commenting that it now has denatured alcohol which can be bad, too (maybe that was @Ron Z ?).

 

There are too many "gotchas" now with the current product's recipe and if I'm in the grocery store I don't really want to pull my phone out and spend 30 minutes googling for FPN articles that might help me distinguish which one to buy.  And then to find out that the story doesn't even sell the old version that is safe.

 

Ideally it would be an easy to find product that is available in most stores nationwide.  But even a specialty brand only available in something like Whole Foods would be good.

[Ron Z]

Dawn, straight Dawn is fine.  Platinum?  Not sure. I suspect that the concentration of denatured alcohol is pretty low, but it you don't need the stuff that breaks down the stuff stuck to your pots in a 30 minute soak.  But long use has shown that basic Dawn is fine for cleaning pens.  It's safe for cleaning wildlife after oil spills too. 

 

What apparently is of more concern is the ammonia.  A number of sources have suggested that soaking, if not just contact with ammonia, leaches the base metals out of gold and makes nibs brittle.

[XYZZY]

1 hour ago, Ron Z said:

Dawn, straight Dawn is fine.  Platinum?  Not sure. I suspect that the concentration of denatured alcohol is pretty low, but it you don't need the stuff that breaks down the stuff stuck to your pots in a 30 minute soak.  But long use has shown that basic Dawn is fine for cleaning pens.  It's safe for cleaning wildlife after oil spills too. 

 

What apparently is of more concern is the ammonia.  A number of sources have suggested that soaking, if not just contact with ammonia, leaches the base metals out of gold and makes nibs brittle.

 

Is plain straight Dawn still sold?  Last I checked (it's been a couple of years now) my local stores only offered a choice between Dawn Platinum and Dawn Ultra, both of which list denatured alcohol.

[grayautumnday]

On 6/24/2024 at 6:00 PM, XYZZY said:

 

Is plain straight Dawn still sold?  Last I checked (it's been a couple of years now) my local stores only offered a choice between Dawn Platinum and Dawn Ultra, both of which list denatured alcohol.

 

On 6/24/2024 at 6:00 PM, XYZZY said:

 

Is plain straight Dawn still sold?  Last I checked (it's been a couple of years now) my local stores only offered a choice between Dawn Platinum and Dawn Ultra, both of which list denatured alcohol.

As long as there's any chance of an oil spill on land or sea affecting wild animals, original blue Dawn will still be available for sale. Original Dawn (or its nearly identical version with slightly less water for commercial food service use, Dawn Manual Pots & Pans) is also the only version approved for (and near universally used by) animal shelters, veterinary hospitals, etc.

 

i buy the Pots & Pans version. Slightly lower amount needed because it has about 5% less water but is otherwise identical to original blue dawn and it's easier to find in a gallon f-style (rectangular) jug plus it's more affordable. In North America that is -I don't know about availability in other regions of the world.

[OCArt]

On 6/24/2024 at 6:00 PM, XYZZY said:

 

Is plain straight Dawn still sold?  Last I checked (it's been a couple of years now) my local stores only offered a choice between Dawn Platinum and Dawn Ultra, both of which list denatured alcohol.

If you happen to have a Costco Business Center near you they sell Dawn in one and five gallon containers.  We buy the one gallon and it has a built-in pump that we use to refill our small bottle, it's about $14.

[Ron Z]

Plain Dawn is available on Amazon and at Walmart.

[Karmachanic]

3 hours ago, Ron Z said:

Plain Dawn is available

 

UK/EU Fairy Liquid = same.