Powdered Iron Gall Ink - homemade

[jbb]

I'm experimenting with Powdered Iron Gall Ink. I mixed pulverized oak gall in a 2:1:1 ratio with gum Arabic and ferrous sulfate. Then I added water which turned the mixture to a gritty sludge which wrote in a very light grey color. It's day two and some of the sludge has settled. I have a reasonable denim blue colored ink. Stay tuned to see if the sludge settles more and the ink gets darker.

Powders:



Sludge:



Writing Example day 2:

[jbb]

Day 3: The ink appears to be darkening and the sediment has settled. The color is still a denim blue. I will try a test with the ratio of 1:1:1 and see if that alters the color.

[fiberdrunk]

This turned out really nice! Did you add something to make it blue? Or is it naturally blue?

[jbb]

This turned out really nice! Did you add something to make it blue? Or is it naturally blue?

I've only added ground oak gall, ferrous sulfate and gum Arabic so the blue is happening naturally. What color are your oak gall inks before they darken?

Also, I had a small amount of my first iron gall ink attempt set aside in a jar and that batch is brown... and I have no idea why. Any guesses on that one? For that first batch I added steel wool and vinegar at some point.

[fiberdrunk]

This turned out really nice! Did you add something to make it blue? Or is it naturally blue?

I've only added ground oak gall, ferrous sulfate and gum Arabic so the blue is happening naturally. What color are your oak gall inks before they darken?

Also, I had a small amount of my first iron gall ink attempt set aside in a jar and that batch is brown... and I have no idea why. Any guesses on that one? For that first batch I added steel wool and vinegar at some point.

The oak gall inks I've made usually mix up black almost straight away. I've heard that "blue galls" can produce a bluish black... generally, these are aleppo galls that still have the wasps inside them. Once the wasps leave the gall, the tannic-gallic acid content begins to decrease some. So it may just be that the fresher the galls are, the better the ink color (less brown). Bluish black is what you want. Brownish and greenish blacks are considered poorer quality (it means it's higher in tannin and lower in gallic acid).

[jbb]

This ink has turned out to be very nice. It's dark blue although not super-saturated like modern inks. It takes about 2 days for the sludge to settle and the color to darken up so it's hardly instant but a lot quicker and way less work than fermented iron gall ink.

[fiberdrunk]

It looks really nice! I'm going to have to try doing this sometime, just for the experience of it!

[jbb]

How would you do a comparisson test between the traditonally made iron gall ink and the powdered? Leave it in sunlight? Run it under water?

[fiberdrunk]

How would you do a comparisson test between the traditonally made iron gall ink and the powdered? Leave it in sunlight? Run it under water?

Yes, I would do both, especially the sunlight test. Leave it in a sunny window for a few months and see which one browns or fades first.

[jbb]

I'm going to try a batch of Powdered Iron Gall ink with turmeric added. Turmeric is a natural yellow dye so I think it will turn my blue ink green but we shall see....

[Uncle Red]

Cool, let us see how it turns out. The writing you did on my receipt looked good and that was with this powdered ink.

[jbb]

I will test to see how these inks do in sunlight.

[jbb]

I've never seen this many oak galls on one tree! The oak galls continued all the way up the tree too. This tree is not on public land for the picking though.

[Uncle Red]

talk to the owner.

BTW, I got a sample of powdered Iron Gall ink from a kind person yesterday.

[jbb]

My sunlight test got rained on the other night. The iron gall ink is waterproof!

[Sailor Kenshin]

Fascin ating!

JBB, the containers you use for mixing are almost too beautiful to believe, lol. I have never seen a 'gall' on an oak, though. Is this a west-coast thing?

[jbb]

Fascin ating!

JBB, the containers you use for mixing are almost too beautiful to believe, lol. I have never seen a 'gall' on an oak, though. Is this a west-coast thing?

I don't think oak galls are a west coast thing. Do you have oak trees where you live? Until I LOOKED for oak galls I never noticed them though they're fairly common -- even on the road I live on -- even on a tree above the box where I pick up our newspaper.

I have a few sample packets of the powdered iron gall ink if you, or anyone reading this, wants to give it a go.

[Sailor Kenshin]

We are lousy with oak trees. In Fact right now they are spewing those trailing strands of 'stuff' that clogs everyone's gutters. Even though I squint at them I do not see any galls.

Spare packets you say? Hmmmm!

[jbb]

We are lousy with oak trees. In Fact right now they are spewing those trailing strands of 'stuff' that clogs everyone's gutters. Even though I squint at them I do not see any galls.

Spare packets you say? Hmmmm!

Yeah, you want one?

[Sailor Kenshin]

Pm sent, lol.