Inky Gradient: Noodler's Black To Distilled Water

[vossad01]

An Inky Gradient

 

Strathmore Writing (25% cotton, natural white, wove, 24lb):

 

Georgia Pacific Multipurpose Paper (20 lb, bright white, Walmart):

 

Southworth Diamond White (25% cotton, white, 20lb):

 

Why I did it:

To help answer whether a Lexington Gray approximation can be derived from Noodler's Black. To see if it would be a valuable component for Noodler's CMYK Pilot Iroshizuku Fuyu-syogun approximation. To see what kind of gray it produced.

 

Why you might recreate any of these mixes:

You like gray ink so will dilute a fair bit. You want an ink that could be confused with graphite pencil. You find Noodler's Black a bit too finicky because of its concentration, so you dilute it some while keeping it black.

 

Remarks:

The scanner starts to clip the 1:10 ratio, but really it is perfectly legible. Based on another sample not shown, Noodler's Black seems to be another ink that could be useable at 20x dilution https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/index.php/topic/264739-does-whiteness-of-the-whale-matter-for-achieving-color-mixes/.

 

General disclaimer when mixing with water:

At high dilution levels, water has too high of surface tension to make a good ink (IMO). I have Kodak Photo-Flo for use as a surfactant and believe I can make any dilution flow at a desirable level for use in a FP. If you are going to do very high dilutions, you will want a surfactant, or can achieve same dilution results with Noodler's Blue Ghost with less hassle. I also have Phenol (never used) should I feel I am making a large quantity that needs a preservative.

[Miz Black Crow]

Wanted to say I find this really helpful. I'm trying to avoid spending $35 on a bottle of Fuyu-Syogun and debating trying to make my own "homebrew" F-S, from Noodler's Black, Lexington Grey, or Old Manhattan, and some 54th Massachusetts or some other blue to get the off-grey color. I have a suspicion that diluting N's blacks to greys and then adding other colors could produce some really beautiful, shading mixtures, and this thread tells me it's definitely achievable. (I also don't have a problem with darker inks; I contaminated my F-S sample with 54th MA by mistake and made a BEAUTIFUL shading mid-dark gray mixture).

 

WRT Photoflo: would a little dish detergent act as a poor woman's photoflo, for surfactant purposes?

 

Thanks for posting

[vossad01]

I am glad to hear you found it helpful . I still have the scratch sheet I was using I made a Fuyu-Syogun imitation myself, I will try to scan it tomorrow for you. I only tried once and it was not perfect, but I think you will be able to make a color you are happy with.

 

I think Noodler's Black has a little different weight than some other inks which can lead to some interesting shading when mixed. At the same time it may make the mix seem a little more inconsistent.

[Miz Black Crow]

Oooooh, I would love to see your experiments! Curiosity: Do you remember what your ratio was (roughly) for the homebrew Fuyu mix? I'm just now beginning to experiment diluting down 54th MA (so far only to 1:1); that may yet yield some interesting results if I can get it down far enough and still have it flow. It may actually approximate Fuyu better than a mix, though as I recall it gets greener the further it's diluted....

[vossad01]

I don't have 54th Mass so I am not very familiar with it, but I do have a small writing sample. I think you are spot on that it is too green in hue. It is also too blue. Fuyu-syogun looks blue next to a true grey, while it look grey next to 54th Mass. You may still find a color you like though.

 

In my case my mix was a mix of the Noodler's CMYK colors (Navajo Turquoise, Shah's Rose, Yellow, Black). Where I stopped I would say I was not quite as dark as Fuyu and a little more saturated (color-theory saturated not ink saturated). It not so precise as my experiments typically would be so I do not know ratios. I was a lot of "add this", "too much", "add that", until I narrowed in on what I was trying for. Plus I was mixing a sample vial worth so measurements would have been of small amounts (lots of room for errors).

 

BTW, dish detergent contains surfactants and many will use it to improve flow, general consensus is "at your own risk" because you don't know what else you are adding to your ink, nor will results be the same across soaps; thus, Photoflo is superior for consistency and safety. In Praise Of Dishsoap... is the canonical thread I think of for information on tweaking inks with surfactants. If you were wanting to use dish soap with very diluted ink, I think you would find you need too much soap to get the needed flow. Most reports of it are just small tweaks to an ink, not taking a fluid with a surface tension near that of water and bringing it to the level of an ink.

[Miz Black Crow]

You make a very good point about the required amounts of surfactant, though I'm guessing that would be the same thing between Photoflo and dish soap.

 

Doing some (fairly surface-level) digging, I noticed photoflo is basically just ethylene glycol and distilled water.... much like antifreeze. I would never actually try this, but I have to wonder if you could hypothetically use antifreeze to make your inks wetter. And also yellow....

[vossad01]

Interesting, I never looked into what Photoflo was.

 

Photoflo is really concentrated stuff. Sandy1's instructions for use are to dilute 100 to 200x for use. Using too much can easily ruin an ink by lowering surface tension too much.

[amberleadavis]

Hmm.... where can we buy ethylene glycol?

[vossad01]

  On 1/6/2015 at 11:44 PM, vossad01 said:

I am glad to hear you found it helpful . I still have the scratch sheet I was using I made a Fuyu-Syogun imitation myself, I will try to scan it tomorrow for you. I only tried once and it was not perfect, but I think you will be able to make a color you are happy with.

 

I have posted my mixing scratch sheet, with limited commentary (it has been some time since I did it) over on the Dark Matter inky gradient.

 

Sorry about the delay.

[Brianm_14]

Photoflo is NOT just ethylene glycol. It does contain a related glycol (propylene -less toxic), but that is still not the significant component. (Ethylene glycol is the antifreeze component most commonly used in cars; sweet-tasting and seemingly innicuous, it can attract animals who lick up puddles from leaks. Since it is toxic to the kidneys, this can kill them. So when changing your antifreeze, collect and dispose of it properly and hose the ara nd engine diwn with lots of water. Or use a less toxic form of antifreeze.)

 

Needless to say, I cannot recommend having ethylene glycol around the house if you have pets or kids.

 

The Kodak MSDS admits to the following ingredients:

 

Components - (CAS-No.)

 

25 -30 % Propylene glycol (57-55-6)

 

5 - 10% Octylphenoxypolyethoxyethanol (9036-19-5)

 

Octylphenoxypolyethoxyethanol is the active stuff here. It is a non-ionic surfactant, commonly used in labs worldwide, usually under another brand trademark, Triton-X100. I've used TritonX many, many times to lyse cells, as when preparing to extract DNA or other cellular components. There are a number of very similar substances marketed to labs and industry under other trade names. Useful stuff, and a very concentrated detergent.

 

TritonX or Photoflo can be used to clean pens, and may be more effective than dish detergent. A drop or two in 6 ounces of cool tap water is enough. To use as a surfactant in ink, dilute the Photoflo or TritonX at a rate of about one drop to 2 teaspoons (10 ml) of distilled water. Use one drop of this in the ink, and see how it goes from there. "Drops" and such are not exact units, but this is probably sufficient for our purposes and better than no attempt to quantify. (If you have some small graduated or volumetric pipets, use them; in that case you certainly don't need my help!)

 

Given the price of inks, personally, I'd use a small sample of known volume: say, about 10 ml of ink. 10 ml is 2 teaspoons. (A kitchen measuring teaspoon is adequate.) I'd start by adding one drop of an even more highly-diluted surfactant solution (say one drop surfactant diluted in 4 teaspoons water). You can always add a drop or two more.

 

I know this is coming late to the thread, but hopefully the correct information will be of value to someone.

 

Good luck, and keep good notes!

 

Brian