Homemade U.s. Government Standard Iron Gall Ink

[Husar]

Hi fiberdrunk. Do you know what dyes is using Pharmacist in his inks? Pgary uses food colourings...

[fiberdrunk]

Hi fiberdrunk. Do you know what dyes is using Pharmacist in his inks? Pgary uses food colourings...

 

No, I don't know what pharmacist uses for dyes. I'd be curious to know, though.

[Husar]

I am working to replicate this formulation, using salicylic acid instead of phenol (but I want to use phenol too). I didn't have any troubles to get the reactives in a Chemical Store, but the gallic acid was the most expensive item (100 USD for 500g) but I can make ink forever. We don't have the regulations for it, so I can buy freely. I'm thinking using food colorants or a "water soluble china ink" as a dye. I will do some essays so I can show you my advances. My goal is make ink like Pharmacist's Urkundentinte and some of his fancy colours.

[Husar]

Textile dyes have lots of additives in them to make them stick to cloth, and these interact with other chemicals.

I would suggest either simple Laundry Bluing if you can still find it, or a good Food Colouring Dye. Both are much safer in pens and for mixing with inks.

Thank you, I am thinking to test my ink with food colouring dye.

[fiberdrunk]

I am working to replicate this formulation, using salicylic acid instead of phenol (but I want to use phenol too). I didn't have any troubles to get the reactives in a Chemical Store, but the gallic acid was the most expensive item (100 USD for 500g) but I can make ink forever. We don't have the regulations for it, so I can buy freely. I'm thinking using food colorants or a "water soluble china ink" as a dye. I will do some essays so I can show you my advances. My goal is make ink like Pharmacist's Urkundentinte and some of his fancy colours.

 

Yes, please do let us know how the food colorants work. Pgary had some really nice colors.

[mooshi]

Good stuff here. Thanjs for sharing! Looking forward to seeing all y'all's experiments.

[Flaxmoore]

I'm intrigued. Do you still have some? I might take some off your hands!

[fiberdrunk]

I'm intrigued. Do you still have some? I might take some off your hands!

 

Yes. PM me for info.

[fiberdrunk]

I've tested this ink in another fountain pen, this time a higher end pen ($80 price range): the Jac Zagoory Write No Evil (part of their Ripple series. See my review of the pen here.) I've had the pen inked for a good 3 weeks and there have been no clogging or start up issues. I've even set the pen down for a few days in a row, but it still began writing just fine when I picked it up again. I'm finding that there are more fountain pens that seem to work fine with this ink than don't. Still, use at your own risk! And if you find that one pen doesn't work well, try another one out (particularly from the list of pens mentioned in this thread).

 

 

Edited September 21, 2014 by fiberdrunk

[Husar]

Pharmacist said than this ink doesn't works well with his Montblanc fountain pen, but it's ok with the other ones than he tested. The point is the concentration of Cl- because it keeps the ink without precipitations.

[Husar]

Oh, and you can remove and clean the ferrogallotannic ink from your pen with Vitamin C from crushed pills.

[Chemist]

I tried to make the slightly modified version of this ink, but as soon as I mixed the acid/iron sulphate solution and the tannic acid solution, I got a brown, curdled mess (a bit like if you mix vinegar and milk, if you've ever tried that) instead of the intended rich, dark ink. Does anybody know why this happened, and if so, what I can do to prevent it?

[Husar]

Make the mixture in the flask containing the hydrochloric acid. Thus, the precipitation is inhibited.

[fiberdrunk]

Thank you, I am thinking to test my ink with food colouring dye.

 

Have you found a good mail order source for dyes?

[Husar]

Hi! I'm so happy! Look at this!

 

http://i62.tinypic.com/1szh9d.jpg

[Husar]

Hello! today i bought the gallic acid and the dyes. Food colours are great, Indigocarmine gives a colour like verdigris or salix. I will test the other colours tomorrow. Fiberdrunk, I have a lot of ink on my hands! I made a batch of 100 mL of ink without dyes. Then I took 10 mL test tubes with screw caps and put some indigocarmine there, and china ink. Indigocarmine went great but china ink precipatate ipso facto and didn't mix with the iron gall ink. Tannic acid gives a nice coffee scent! by the way the ink looks like tea or coffee... I've used distilled warm water, no precipatation but still I filter the ink.

 

[fiberdrunk]

Hello! today i bought the gallic acid and the dyes. Food colours are great, Indigocarmine gives a colour like verdigris or salix. I will test the other colours tomorrow. Fiberdrunk, I have a lot of ink on my hands! I made a batch of 100 mL of ink without dyes. Then I took 10 mL test tubes with screw caps and put some indigocarmine there, and china ink. Indigocarmine went great but china ink precipatate ipso facto and didn't mix with the iron gall ink. Tannic acid gives a nice coffee scent! by the way the ink looks like tea or coffee... I've used distilled warm water, no precipatation but still I filter the ink.

 

 

Your ink turned out beautiful! Well done! Where did you end up ordering your dyes from?

[mooshi]

Hi! I'm so happy! Look at this!

That looks wonderful!

[Husar]

Hi, it's a chilean store of bakery, I went to there and bought. But I can tell you than it is called "Indigotine" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigo_carmine. I bought another colours, for testing it. I want 1 liter of Iron Gall "Toffe Brown"

[Husar]

Look that shading! this is the ink without dye in a pilot parallel 6.0 mm.

 

http://i59.tinypic.com/jpkg7a.jpg