Care And Feeding Of Handmade Black Walnut Ink

[Wheatflower]

Last weekend at an Earth Day event one of my co-workers noticed a local paper-making shop giving away bottles of black walnut ink. Knowing that I was a fountain pen user he thoughtfully picked up a bottle for me.

 

I've spent time reading some of the threads about homemade walnut ink, and now I have questions. Should I keep the bottle in the fridge to retard mold? Is it likely to damage a pen? How much risk of there of it drying up in the pen before I use it up? (I loaded some up in a Preppy I had converted into an eyedropper so I'm not really worried, but it could be useful to know.)

 

I don't know if this ink has iron in it, or if it has any preservatives. Should I call the paper-making shop and ask if they know anything about it?

[linearM]

I have a commercially made drawing ink called Walnut. Is yours commercially made or made using walnut hulls boiled in water then strained?

You might consider using the ink in an inexpensive eye dropper filler such as a Noodler's eyedropper filler or one of the indian made eyedropper fillers or your Preppy, but I wouldn't use it in a valuable pen. The commercial ink doesn't seem to need refrigeration ( I've carried it in my sketch box for over a year) I don't know about the ink you have. I probably wouldn't trust it not to mold.

 

Depending on the ink, I don't think I'd leave it in the pen for long.

 

I have black walnut trees in my front yard and have soaked the hulls and used the liquid for dying yarn and fabric and it is pretty permanent. I have some hulls in a pail in my garage and had intended making some ink from them but haven't gotten around to it yet!

 

Good luck.

[wallylynn]

Yeah, if you want specifics, you'll have to call. Maybe they put alcohol or some other ingredients. Old-fashioned homemade inks are best for dip pens where you can clean easily.

 

I have a jar of walnut hulls also, but I've been too scared to open it (lots of stuff grown inside). I doubt my ink will mold any further. Generally the ink is fermented for a while. Anything consumable has probably been eaten already. Depending on how it was made, it's possible that spores are still inside and might contaminate your other inks if you're not careful.

 

Some places sell walnut ink powder/crystals. That should be spore free.

 

Walnut ink is HIGHLY staining. My fingers were brown for weeks. My nails had to grow out (about 2 months).

 

FPN member Fiberdrunk made some I believe. Maybe she'll reply with her experiences.

[pharmacist]

A very potent and completely natural preservative is clove essential oil (it contains eugenol a powerful derivative of phenol). A tiny drop of it in bottle should suffice (shake well).

[Ink Stained Wretch]

Should I call the paper-making shop and ask if they know anything about it?

Yes! You should definitely call them and ask about the ink. The fountain pen you save ....

 

I probably wouldn't trust it not to mold.

Yeah, that's a danger too. That's why a call to the folks handing the stuff out would be a good idea.

 

I have black walnut trees in my front yard and have soaked the hulls and used the liquid for dying yarn and fabric and it is pretty permanent. I have some hulls in a pail in my garage and had intended making some ink from them but haven't gotten around to it yet!

Oh. For health reasons I've been having walnuts with supper for years in an effort to keep my cholesterol down, an M.D. gave me the advice to do that, so we throw away a lot of walnut shells over time. Jeez, I wonder how my wife would take a request that we start keeping the walnut shells? The many pens, and all that ink, are so far tolerated by her. And having to keep rather a lot of paper around causes discussions about where to store it all. I'm not so sure about bringing this idea up. I'll have to think about it. But thanks for the idea.

 

A very potent and completely natural preservative is clove essential oil (it contains eugenol a powerful derivative of phenol). A tiny drop of it in bottle should suffice (shake well).

And thanks for that idea too!

 

Oh, am I now going to embark on yet another ink adventure? I have more ink now than I'll use up in what actuarial tables predict is what's left of my remaining life expectancy. Where to keep walnut shells :hmm1: ?

[jkingrph]

Oh. For health reasons I've been having walnuts with supper for years in an effort to keep my cholesterol down, an M.D. gave me the advice to do that, so we throw away a lot of walnut shells over time. Jeez, I wonder how my wife would take a request that we start keeping the walnut shells? The many pens, and all that ink, are so far tolerated by her. And having to keep rather a lot of paper around causes discussions about where to store it all. I'm not so sure about bringing this idea up. I'll have to think about it. But thanks for the idea.

 

I don't think it's so much the shells that are used, but the husk over the shells where the color comes from.

[Paddler]

Adding ethyl alcohol to walnut ink will keep it from molding. I make my walnut ink 10% alcohol and have had no problems. The more alcohol you add, the more trouble you will have with feathering and bleeding. Rubbing alcohol (isopropyl alcohol) is twice as bad for feathering. Forget methyl alcohol. It causes runaway feathering.

 

Letting the hulls rot before you make the ink will allow the ink to dry to crystalline form. You can store the ink safely that way and only mix as much as you need. Two kinds of crystals are formed: a cubic one and a needle-shaped one. One crystal shape (I have forgotten which) makes a warmer tone than the other. If you make the ink from green or un-decomposed hulls, the ink will dry to an amorphous gum - probably because of sugar content.

 

I have used walnut ink in a Sheaffer "NoNonsense" cartridge pen for nearly a year before it began to plug up. I would suggest rinsing after every fill and not letting the pen sit unused for extended periods. Also, it would be wise to use it in a pen with a straight feed channel. That way, if it plugs up, you can run a wire through and unplug it.

 

The ink is water resistant and light fast.

[vrgelinas]

Adding ethyl alcohol to walnut ink will keep it from molding. I make my walnut ink 10% alcohol and have had no problems. The more alcohol you add, the more trouble you will have with feathering and bleeding. Rubbing alcohol (isopropyl alcohol) is twice as bad for feathering. Forget methyl alcohol. It causes runaway feathering.

 

Is that the same as ethanol, then? Vodka in your ink? Sounds like a cooking marathon in my kitchen; Some for me, a little for the pot!

 

 

 

[Paddler]

Adding ethyl alcohol to walnut ink will keep it from molding. I make my walnut ink 10% alcohol and have had no problems. The more alcohol you add, the more trouble you will have with feathering and bleeding. Rubbing alcohol (isopropyl alcohol) is twice as bad for feathering. Forget methyl alcohol. It causes runaway feathering.

 

Is that the same as ethanol, then? Vodka in your ink? Sounds like a cooking marathon in my kitchen; Some for me, a little for the pot!

Yes, ethanol is the same as ethyl alcohol, same as vodka, sippin' whiskey, etc. I use high proof (151 proof) rum, so bringing the mixture up to 10% doesn't dilute the ink so much. I have read that 5% will work, but I have not tried it. That brings it down into the beer range and beer will spoil without hops.

 

Don't be tempted to taste the ink after the booze is added (or even before that). There are compounds in walnut hulls that are toxic to some other plants and may make trouble for humans. Squirrels don't have a problem chewing through the hulls, but we (or most of us, anyway) are not squirrels.

[wallylynn]

 

Letting the hulls rot before you make the ink will allow the ink to dry to crystalline form. You can store the ink safely that way and only mix as much as you need. Two kinds of crystals are formed: a cubic one and a needle-shaped one.

I'll have to try that... if I can work up the courage to open the jar and strain out the hulls, mold, grubs...

[mik86]

Adding ethyl alcohol to walnut ink

 

I have heard people say not to use ethanol/alcohol to clean pens, so what about it makes it safe to use in ink? I am kind of confused.

[wallylynn]

Adding ethyl alcohol to walnut ink

 

I have heard people say not to use ethanol/alcohol to clean pens, so what about it makes it safe to use in ink? I am kind of confused.

It's not, really. All these inks are meant for dip pens, not fountain pens.

[fiberdrunk]

I preserve my black walnut ink with 10% alcohol (100 proof vodka) and a few whole cloves thrown in for good measure. I've made a batch using only 8% alcohol and I don't see any ink beasties growing in it yet (and it's over a year old). I do store the ink in a cool, dark room and in amber glass bottles when I can get them.

 

Apart from dip pens, I've only ever tried black walnut ink in a Platinum Preppy and Pilot Parallel, but I couldn't get it to flow in either. Glass pens work fantastic with black walnut ink. A real pleasure, I've found. This ink is on the acidic side, so it will most likely tarnish a metal dip pen.

 

I'm currently making a "cold-process" batch of black walnut ink. Rather than repeatedly cooking the hulls down to strength, I simply soaked the hulls for a few months, strained, and am letting it evaporate down to the correct strength (the only cooking was giving it a 10-15 minute boil to kill biologic activity). I've read that "cold-process" (fermented) was better for iron gall inks (makes a more stable and longer lasting ink), so I thought I'd test the theory with black walnut ink, too. On the downside, this method does take a lot longer, and the ink does smell much worse (has a manure-like smell, in fact, one that was improved somewhat once I added alcohol and cloves. This is probably my fault... I meant to let the ink ferment for 2 months, and ended up letting it go for 5!). In the future I will do permanence tests between the "cooked process" and "cold process" inks and see how they perform compared with one another. I'm also curious to find out if there will be less sediment dropping out with the cold one. My cooked black walnut ink tends to form a good, thick sludge at the bottom of the bottle (perhaps this is why I can't get it to flow in fountain pens-- that's some thick sticky pigment). I can stir it back into the ink somewhat with a popsicle stick, but it is annoying. This is usually a sign in iron gall inks that it is no longer a fit ink for archival work, though I don't know if this is necessarily true with black walnut inks. They are quite a bit different. Currently testing to find out.

Edited April 29, 2012 by fiberdrunk

[pharmacist]

The minimum preservative concentration of alcohol (ethanol/ethyl alcohol) is actually 15 %. This is the reason why no normal fermented wine will have this alcohol percentage (maximum 13-14 %). Any excess will kill the yeasts, which make the wine by converting the sugars into alcohol. But at this percentage feathering is a big problem....

[Ink Stained Wretch]

I don't think it's so much the shells that are used, but the husk over the shells where the color comes from.

Oh. I guess we don't get that when we buy walnuts in a bag at the supermarket.

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f0/Black_walnuts.jpg/320px-Black_walnuts.jpgSo they'd look like this with the hulls on?

 

Photo credit: Bruce Marlin

 

Yeah, we don't get anything like that at our supermarket, all right.

Edited April 29, 2012 by Ink Stained Wretch

[Paddler]

I preserve my black walnut ink with 10% alcohol (100 proof vodka) and a few whole cloves thrown in for good measure. I've made a batch using only 8% alcohol and I don't see any ink beasties growing in it yet (and it's over a year old). I do store the ink in a cool, dark room and in amber glass bottles when I can get them.

 

Apart from dip pens, I've only ever tried black walnut ink in a Platinum Preppy and Pilot Parallel, but I couldn't get it to flow in either. Glass pens work fantastic with black walnut ink. A real pleasure, I've found. This ink is on the acidic side, so it will most likely tarnish a metal dip pen.

 

I'm currently making a "cold-process" batch of black walnut ink. Rather than repeatedly cooking the hulls down to strength, I simply soaked the hulls for a few months and am letting it evaporate down to the correct strength (the only cooking was giving it a 10-15 minute boil to kill biologic activity). I've read that "cold-process" (fermented) was better for iron gall inks (makes a more stable and longer lasting ink), so I thought I'd test the theory with black walnut ink, too. On the downside, this method does take a lot longer, and the ink does smell much worse (has a manure-like smell, in fact, one that was improved somewhat once I added alcohol and cloves. This is probably my fault... I meant to let the ink ferment for 2 months, and ended up letting it go for 5!). In the future I will do permanence tests between the "cooked process" and "cold process" inks and see how they perform compared with one another. I'm also curious to find out if there will be less sediment dropping out with the cold one. My cooked black walnut ink tends to form a good, thick sludge at the bottom of the bottle (perhaps this is why I can't get it to flow in fountain pens-- that's some thick sticky pigment). I can stir it back into the ink somewhat with a popsicle stick, but it is annoying. This is usually a sign in iron gall inks that it is no longer a fit ink for archival work, though I don't know if this is necessarily true with black walnut inks. They are quite a bit different. Currently testing to find out.

I filter my ink through a filter element from a respirator designed to remove pollen. Before filtration, cold process ink will be full of single cells and clumps of cells from the walnut hulls, molds, etc. (This filter won't remove bacteria.) After filtration, evidence of floating cells and plant detritus is gone. This makes ink with better flow properties.

 

You can make ink from old black walnut husks that have been on the forest floor for a year or more. As long as the husk's outer layer hasn't been crushed too badly, the elements can't leach away all the color. The resulting ink will have an earthy walnut smell.