Oak Gall Ink - help please

[John Fenna]

Many years ago I came across a recipe for ink which involved Oak Galls.
I can find the one in Maybe's "plants with a purpose" but this includes "green sulphate of iron" while the one I want is all (?) plant materials.
In my part of the world there is a huge crop of oak galls this year - but no acorns for some reason - and I fancied making my own ink.
Does anyone out there have a recipe for Veggie Ink?

 

[memoryweaver]

I think pretty much any source of (available) iron will do -- I've successfully used steel wool (not very bushcrafty) -- chopped a handful of galls in a blender, covered with water and left to ferment for a month or so, then dropped in a 'chunk' of steel wool, left for a week or so, stirring occasionally -- mixture turned very black. I reduced this down a bit, until I had a more concentrated solution -- worked a treat, although it started to grow mould after a couple of weeks. I think the addition of vinegar/alcohol may inhibit this.

A web search on 'iron gallotannate' should yield some useful results.

Also, see: http://www.knaw.nl/ecpa/ink/make_ink.html

A more 'bushcrafty' solution might be to try crushed iron pyrites which is iron sulphide, although I've no idea whether this will work.

Other inks have used lamp black as the pigment source. A binding/flowing agent is also useful, traditionally Gum Arabic.

Don't use oak gall ink in an ordinary fountain pen, I believe it is corrosive and will damage the nib.

Good luck!

 

[John Fenna]

Many thanks for this memoryweaver!
Just the job!

 

[Templar]

One method I have read about...

take some Oak Galls crush them up and add to some red Wine or Vinegar to soak, then add some iron filings for colour and thicken with gum Arabic, used to write on velum rather than paper...

hope this helps,

Cheers,

Karl

 

[Toddy]

The problem with oak gall ink is the iron; the ink eats it's way through paper, parchment, whatever, over time. Sometimes on old documents what you really read are the holes

I make oakgall ink with children though, and they write with it using a quill.
You need crushed oak galls, ten or twelve will do; I break them to powder in a mortar but a couple of stones will do. Cover the dust with red wine, for kids I use ribena let it sit.

Meanwhile, either crush an iron tablet (yes, the kind your SWMBLT probably has in the medicine cabinet) and add a little vinegar or use a washed out brillo pad and add vinegar to that. You don't really need that much iron, the iron tablet is really over kill.

Pour everything into one jam jar and cover. It is better if it sits and matures for a couple of weeks but it can be used pretty much as soon as the liquid looks greyish.

The next stage is to strain the ink and then add some powdered gum arabic, for kids the ribena seems to be thick enough to carry the ink without any bother but I don't know how long the ink will last as a useable ink.

I have used powdered pine resin before now in the ink and it works fine but it will set like glue as it dries out in the bottle. I suspect it'd kill a good pen.

cheers,
Toddy

p.s. if you want a true bushcrafty ink then Iron Pan scraped from the surface of clay ground works quite well

 

[British Red]

Does anyone out there have a recipe for Veggie Ink?

First catch your Veggie. I find a deadfall trap bated with tofu effective.

 

[Toddy]

First catch your Veggie. I find a deadfall trap bated with tofu effective.

You're a bad man, Red; I just coffee'd my keyboard....again, Leon1 got me last week too

c
Toddy

 

[John Fenna]

Cheers Toddy!
the tip about the iron is invaluabe as is the one about resin instead of Gum Arabic - resin I got - gum costs money! Resin local - gum forign etc lots of reasons to use resin!

 

[Toddy]

Hi John,
Have you got some real turpentine? If so, try soaking some of the native resin, (apparantly cherry tree stuff is clear enough without any bother) in the turps and then strain the liquid, this honey coloured and wonderful smelling liquor dries out beautifully to rosin which is ideal both for the ink or as a base for an incense. It makes awfully good glue too

HWMBLT has been playing with the stuff for weeks now; the house smells wonderful since he's taken to drying the resin off in a beaker set on top of one of those little desk lamps turned upside down. When it's dry enough he rolls it into little balls that look like sweeties. It looks like amber.

cheers,
Toddy

 

[John Fenna]

I can easily get some!
Cheers for that
John