Stark's ink
Encyclopedia
Stark's ink is one of a number of types of homemade ink
Ink
Ink is a liquid or paste that contains pigments and/or dyes and is used to color a surface to produce an image, text, or design. Ink is used for drawing and/or writing with a pen, brush, or quill...

s whose recipes were widely available in the 19th century. People often made their own ink before
commercially available ink was inexpensive and easily obtainable.
The origin of the name is unknown.

Recipe

This recipe is taken from the Household Cyclopedia of General Information
Household Cyclopedia
The Household Cyclopedia was an American guide to housekeeping published in 1881.- External links :**...

, published in 1881. It is not in common use now, though the preparation of inks with similar methods was common at one time.
Recipe for 1 gallon of ink:
  • Twelve oz. nut-gall
    Gall
    Galls or cecidia are outgrowths on the surface of lifeforms caused by invasion by other lifeforms, such as parasites or bacterial infection. Plant galls are abnormal outgrowths of plant tissues and can be caused by various parasites, from fungi and bacteria, to insects and mites...

    s
  • 8 oz. each, sulfate
    Sulfate
    In inorganic chemistry, a sulfate is a salt of sulfuric acid.-Chemical properties:...

     of indigo
    Indigo dye
    Indigo dye is an organic compound with a distinctive blue color . Historically, indigo was a natural dye extracted from plants, and this process was important economically because blue dyes were once rare. Nearly all indigo dye produced today — several thousand tons each year — is synthetic...

     and copperas
  • A few clove
    Clove
    Cloves are the aromatic dried flower buds of a tree in the family Myrtaceae. Cloves are native to the Maluku islands in Indonesia and used as a spice in cuisines all over the world...

    s
  • 4 or 6 oz. of gum Arabic
    Gum arabic
    220px|thumb|right|Acacia gumGum arabic, also known as acacia gum, chaar gund, char goond, or meska, is a natural gum made of hardened sap taken from two species of the acacia tree; Acacia senegal and Acacia seyal...


The addition of the sulfate of indigo renders the ink more permanent and less liable to mould. It is blue when first written with, but soon becomes an intense black.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK