Irongall Ink Recipes and Federal Standards TT-I-563F Ink, Writing, for Fountain and Dip Pens

June 15, 2023

Has anyone access to this standard, or knows that it is not worth looking at?

A couple potentially interesting ones: https://fedspecs.gsa.gov/s/global-search/ink writing

Searching for these, I found a couple of freely available and very interesting documents I'd like to share:

1. Circular of the Bureau of Standards No. 413: Inks

- Master recipe

- https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GOVPUB-C13-e6477fb99042a726ef370f476286f528/pdf/GOVPUB-C13-e6477fb99042a726ef370f476286f528.pdf

2. Circular of the Bureau of Standards No. 183: United States Government Master Specification for Writing Ink

- An excellent book on the history of inks with many recipes

- Has the recipe from TT-I-563

Quote

The copying and writing ink is of too heavy a body to please most writers, so there is a Federal Specification, TT-I-563, Ink; Writing. It was written originally to provide ink for use in post-office lobbies, where the conditions are devastating to pens.

- Explains why inks don't use gum arabic anymore:

Quote

They used 10 grams (hereafter written "g”) of gum arabic, the "acacia” of the U. S. Pharmacopoeia, in a liter of ink, to act as a preservative, as they put it. As we would now say, it served as a "protective colloid” to hinder the precipitation of any insoluble ferric gallotannate formed in the ink. Some years ago the gum was omitted from the United States Government formula when proposals for bids were being typewritten. This clerical error was discovered too late to be corrected, because the contract for a year’s supply of ink had been awarded. This led the then Bureau of Chemis¬ try, U. S. Department of Agriculture, to make special tests of the ink v/ith and without gum arabic. These tests showed that the omission of the gum was an improvement, and ever since then the gum has been left out of the formula for the standard ink.

- https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GOVPUB-C13-64d3ba0f6a81e987a997e5a4bd1f4e36/pdf/GOVPUB-C13-64d3ba0f6a81e987a997e5a4bd1f4e36.pdf

3. U. S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS RESEARCH PAPER RP807 Part of Journal of Research of the N.ational Bureau of Standards, Volume 15, July 1935 IRON GALLATE INKS-LIQUID AND POWDER

- Gallic and tannic acid inks are equally permanent

- Gallic acid inks keep better than tannic acid inks

- Tannic acid was only added as gallic acid is not soluble enough, but not that much gallic acid is needed to reach 3g Fe/l

- 3 less corrosive inks, 17 and 18 are best

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