Iron Gall Ink

[Eldan]

stale beer

 

That's my problem. I never have any beer around long enough to go stale.

 

[RevAaron]

I have some iron sulfate monohydrate. At least, I think that's the species of iron. But it's what I've used for making iron gall inks myself. I had to buy a 2 lb sack of it... And a little goes a long way! if anyone wants some, PM me.

 

I've made iron gall ink from two sources:

 

1. Lake water

 

A favorite swimming lake in the summertime around here is called Island Lake. The water is a lovely clear brown red color from the dissolved tannins. I had the goofball idea of using this to make ink. It was a lot of work- I boiled down 5 liters of lake water to 250 mL. The product was still pretty neat- the ink went on nearly clear but dried to a lovely brown color with great shading between light and dark brown. To make a better ink, I'd probably need to boil down 10 liters to 100 mL.

 

2. Tea

 

This worked quite well, actually. The trick is to brew the tea incorrectly.

 

You know how you only let tea steep for 3-5 minutes because if steeped to long it gets bitter and astringent? That is because of the tannins that start to come into the solution. They're also what we're after for ink. I can't recall the amount of tea I used precisely, but it was something like a cup of tea leaves for a liter of water. I then boiled (not steeped) the mixture for a few hours. Then I strained and reduced the solution further until I was left with 250 mL of super-powered tea extract.

 

In both cases, I began with my solution of tannins and added iron sulfate monohydrate by titration. I titrated by pH, darkness of liquid, and darkness of Q-tip tests of the ink, giving the swipe the time to oxidize. You really don't need much of the iron, that's for sure.

 

You can also get iron from dissolving nail shavings and the like- there are recipes online for those procedures.

 

Aaron

Edited January 22, 2009 by RevAaron

[Wildoaklane]

A question about storage of iron gall inks. I'm thinking of using baby food jars but wonder about the corrosive nature of the ink and the jar lids. What do you recommend?

[davidspitzer]

A question about storage of iron gall inks. I'm thinking of using baby food jars but wonder about the corrosive nature of the ink and the jar lids. What do you recommend?

 

 

i use glass jars with plastic lids (you have to but them online) about 100ml

 

The historically correct form of Iron was called copperas or Iron (II) Sulphate - You can buy it from a pottery supply store online for about $2 a pound (which is enough to make a lifetime supply of ink

Edited January 23, 2009 by davidspitzer

[davidspitzer]

Here are some better photos - this is 1 minute after laying ink on paper - I will take some more pictures in a day or two to compare