Filtering Out The Gold

February 13, 2017

Has anyone attempted to filter the gold particles out of an ink that has them in it?

I have a few of the Diamine inks from the Shimmertastic range and while I love the colours I'm not so fond of the behaviour of the inks due to the clogging presence of the glitter and in some cases its gritty feeling on the nib (surely that can't be good for a nib?!). I thought about filtering it through a coffee filter paper but I'm worried that it will take away some of the colour too and it could be a waste of ink as I suspect the paper will get saturated with it. Is there another way?

February 13, 2017

I think the particles of this kind of inks settle rather easily. If you leave the bottle for a moment and carefully draw ink from the top level of the liquid you'll get an ink with very few particles in it.

February 13, 2017

I haven't tried, but my understanding is coffee filters are often used to help get rid of mold or other unwanted particulates. That might help get rid of your shimmer as well. Although make sure you wash the bottle out thoroughly before pouring back in

February 13, 2017

I think the particles of this kind of inks settle rather easily. If you leave the bottle for a moment and carefully draw ink from the top level of the liquid you'll get an ink with very few particles in it.

+1

This would be the easiest way to avoid the shimmering bits.

A coffee filter or grade 4 lab quality filter paper would be absorbent, so you would lose some ink, but should not change the color, as the dye is suspended in water.

Edited February 13, 2017 by JakobS

February 13, 2017

You could wet the filter paper with water first. That way it wouldn't saturate itself with so much ink

February 13, 2017

Great, thanks for the responses. I will try it out a little later and get back to you about how I get on.

Can't wait to start using Brandy Dazzle without the dazzle

February 13, 2017

I've used the "letting it settle and draw off the top with a syringe" trick before. It works very well and certainly a lot less messy than trying to filter the ink.

February 13, 2017

I've used the "letting it settle and draw off the top with a syringe" trick before. It works very well and certainly a lot less messy than trying to filter the ink.

Yes I suppose the filter paper method will waste more of the ink that you want to keep.

February 13, 2017

Did it, and in super quick time. It went through very easily and wasn't messy. I'm keeping Golden Sands and Night Sky because I liked them both and thought they looked very effective and lubrication on the Night Sky was a joy. I filtered out Blue Lightning as it was the one that felt very gritty and there was surprisingly little sparkle stuff in it. Brandy Dazzle on the other hand took considerably longer to filter and had a very large amount of sparkle gloop. I also filtered the Penbbs No.218 with the alarming result that the gold stuck to the sink and needed a thorough scrubbing to get it off. I'll post a warning on the review page I did for it.