Anyone Ever Look At Ink Through A Microscope?

[brewsky]

it was pretty cool. i looked at noodlers kiowa pecan which i extracted from a converter. i was surprised at all of the blue particles in the ink, i previously had midnight blues in the converter, and i must not have cleaned it fully? either way, just thought id share my findings... i thought it was neat.

 

the molecules were moving semi rapidly, there seemed to be different "stations" where there were more clumps of the molecules together.

[lsmith42]

Any possibility of images?

[Milosz]

it was pretty cool. i looked at noodlers kiowa pecan which i extracted from a converter. i was surprised at all of the blue particles in the ink, i previously had midnight blues in the converter, and i must not have cleaned it fully? either way, just thought id share my findings... i thought it was neat.

 

the molecules were moving semi rapidly, there seemed to be different "stations" where there were more clumps of the molecules together.

 

 

It would be fantastic if you could get some pictures to post. (I did a quick google, but didn't see any pictures of FP ink specifically.)

[brewsky]

i wish if i could get it focused through a lens on my camera, but i doubt it would show anything big enough to see. it was quite a site.

[foxtail1]

Hmm, if I get some spare time at work (hah!), I'll throw some ink on one of my scopes and see what happens.

 

Geoduc, my fellow microscopist, have you ever tried this?

[SamCapote]

What inks do you want images of?

[geoduc]

Neat idea. What magnification were you using?

 

I just tried a couple of Montblanc inks on a slide and there were no discrete particles at 600x (that's as far as my 'scope will go).

 

I have a decent microscope and camera setup that I'll play with tomorrow and see if I can come up with something. MB was a bust, but I'll try a couple of Noodler's inks and a Sailor nano to see if they are any more interesting.

[foxtail1]

I've always wondered about those odd floating swirls in Noodler's Dragon's Napalm...

[watch_art]

yes please! any and all inks! from the kind to the kind that stain. the weird and scented to the bitter and stinky.

 

FUN!!

[jomielll]

How interesting! Looking forward to pictures. Would like to see less saturated inks, more saturated inks, and inks known to produce shimmer effects (Sailor, Majestic Blue, etc) or is composed of nano pigments.

[geoduc]

Okay, not too exciting. I could not see any discrete particles in MB toffee brown, violet, or Sailor sei-boku (nano blue black). I could see some particles in Noodler's Walnut but they were too small to really resolve with my setup.

 

Here's a photo of Noodler's Walnut at maximum magnification on my scope (600x) - the slight graininess you can see are the particles. Yawn.

 

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5175/5429764327_281c50e76e_b.jpg

 

This is a little more interesting. Things were starting to dry out at the edge of the slide and the particles started to aggregate. The larger blobs are a couple of chunks of silica left on the slide from a project I was working on earlier today.

 

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5291/5430370180_3196c19ae5_b.jpg

 

I'll play some more tomorrow. Hopefully Kristi or SamCapote can also find something.

 

 

edited to remove excess blah blah

Edited February 9, 2011 by geoduc

[eilu]

If you look at BSB, little blue men will wave at you... :roflmho:

[watch_art]

If you look at BSB, little blue men will wave at you... :roflmho:

 

[jbb]

Any possibility of images?

+1

[foxtail1]

Oh, wow! Photos coming up shortly. I'm tempted to start with a matching game: what photo matches which ink?

[TMA]

it was pretty cool. i looked at noodlers kiowa pecan which i extracted from a converter. i was surprised at all of the blue particles in the ink, i previously had midnight blues in the converter, and i must not have cleaned it fully? either way, just thought id share my findings... i thought it was neat.

 

the molecules were moving semi rapidly, there seemed to be different "stations" where there were more clumps of the molecules together.

I hate to be picky, but you were looking at particles of dried ink, not molecules, which were probably from the Midnight Blue, as you said. Truly well dissolved dye-based ink should not show any particles at all, however, you should see something interesting if you used tiny droplets of India Ink.

 

The Nano inks from Sailor - Kiwaguro Black and Seiboku Blue - should have particles that are too small to see in a normal microscope, except at the highest of magnifications.

 

The movement you saw is Brownian Motion. Spend some time looking it up.

[foxtail1]

Okay, here are five pictures, followed by the 5 ink names. These are all shot with fluorescence microscopy. (For those curious, I'll but the excitation and emission wavelengths with each picture.) I'll post the transmitted light images shortly. (Edit to identify each ink.)

 

Ex: BP 533-585; Em: LP 615

Caran d'Ache Amazon

 

Ex: 546; Em: LP 590

Noodler's Legal Lapis

 

 

Ex: BP 533-585; Em: LP 615

Noodler's Black Swan in Australian Roses

 

Ex: BP 450-490; Em: BP 515-565

Noodler's Dragon's Napalm

 

Ex: 546; Em: LP 59

Pilot Iroshizuku Tsutsuji (Azalea)

 

Edit to identify the inks.

Edited February 10, 2011 by foxtail1

[watch_art]

the napalm is the prettiest picture in the bunch, in my opinion. it makes me want to try the ink more than any swab or review i've ever seen ever has. and none of them have even a little. but this... so cool.

[foxtail1]

Okay, now for the transmitted light images. By far, the most interesting were Legal Lapis and Black Swan in Australian Roses.

 

Noodler's Black Swan in Australian Roses:

 

 

 

 

Noodlers's Legal Lapis

 

 

 

 

Definitely particulate (and, yes, TMA, lots of Brownian movement).

 

The others were just pretty. On several, I shot the edge of a droplet (liquid ink between 2 coverslips). There is some debris from on the glass (the larger, brownish stuff on the Black Swan, for example), as the coverslips were not spotless.

 

Noodler's Dragon's Napalm

 

Caran d'Ache Amazon

 

Pilot Iroshizuku Tsutsuji (Azalea)

 

Okay, I think I need to get back to work!

[foxtail1]

the napalm is the prettiest picture in the bunch, in my opinion. it makes me want to try the ink more than any swab or review i've ever seen ever has. and none of them have even a little. but this... so cool.

 

The first photos were taken by exciting the inks with particular wavelengths of light and observing the emission, so the colors will not relate to what you'll see on paper. Also, I didn't ID the photos with the inks yet, but, I'll give you a hint — the Dragon's Napalm photo is not one of the red ones (though it did also fluoresce in those wavelengths, photo not shown).

Edited February 10, 2011 by foxtail1