Anyone Else Dilute their Ink?

[OldSchoolYoungin]

I did it for a short while, stopped, but I'm back to doing it again. A lot of inks like PR and Noodler's are WAY too saturated and you lose very little of the color even when it's diluted significantly. Have no idea why I stopped doing it. Not only does it increase the life of the ink, it can cut back on clogging and flow issues and make certain inks just behave better in general. Really, that's all the "safe" manufacturer's inks are, anyway: more diluted solutions than "artisan" inks like Noodler's, et al.

As a general rule, I dilute no more than 30%, but I've gone as high as 50%. I've heard of some folks going even higher than that with excellent results. How much do you dilute? What inks in particular? Post writing samples if you care to

 

[SmoovD]

The only ink I regularly dilute is R&K Leipzig Black. 50/50. Undiluted, it is a mess...feathers something fierce. Dilution tames it, makes it useable.

 

[nemo]

Only in a pinch, like when running out of ink and refilling with tap water.

Really, that's all the "safe" manufacturer's inks are, anyway: more diluted solutions than "artisan" inks like Noodler's, et al.

Oh, really?

 

[OldSchoolYoungin]

Only in a pinch, like when running out of ink and refilling with tap water.





Oh, really?

That's assuming that the "artisan" inks aren't ones that contain anything other than dye and water. Am I totally off-base here? Makes sense to me that Waterman, Parker, etc. inks are simply less saturated than Noodler's, PR, Diamine and others. The basic formulations and ingredients are more or less the same.

 

[nemo]

There are many other ingredients than simply dye and water, formulas which are undoubtedly quite guarded secrets. A few use pigment instead of dye. I've found that adding water changes the flow, dry times, and bleeding pretty radically. Of course, my uncontrolled experiments consisted of a pump of a lever into a dead pen!

Dilution will change more than just the shade and density.

What is in ink besides dye and water?
An excerpt from a wikipedia article:
Blue inks often contain Triarylmethane dye. In addition to water, the non-dye components (collectively referred to as the vehicle) might include, polymeric resins, humectants to retard premature drying, pH modifiers, anti-foaming agents and biocides, to prevent fungal and bacterial growth,[SUP][4][/SUP] and wetting agents (surfactants). Surfactants reduce the surface tension of the ink – distilled water has a surface tension of 72 dyn/cm (72 × 10[SUP]−3[/SUP]N/m) but the desirable value for ink is between 38 and 45 dyn/cm (38 to 45 × 10[SUP]−3[/SUP] N/m). If the ink's surface tension was too high, then it would not flow through the pen; if it was too low, then the ink would run out of the pen with less control.