Recipes for Making Coloured Inks.

American Farmer, 26.12.1828.

Red Ink

The mode of preparing this ink, recommended by M. de Ribaucourt: infuse four ounces of ground Brazil wood in vinegar for three days; then heat it to the boiling point, and keep it for an hour at that temperature, after which, it must be filtrated. Whilst hot, dissolve in it one-third of an ounce of gum arabic, and the same quantity of sugar, and of alum; allow it to cool, and put it into well stopped bottles.

An ink of a still more beautiful shade may ba made with a decoction of cochineal, to which ammonia is to be added.

The most beautiful of all the red inks, is made by a solution of carmine in liquid ammonia, allowing the excess of the alkali to evaporate, and adding a small portion of colourless gum arabic.


Green Ink.

Klaprotti's recipe for making a beautiful green ink, is the following: boil two parts of verdigris, and one of cream of tartar, in eight parts of water, until it is reduced to one-half. Strain it through a cloth, allow it to cool, and then bottle it.


Yellow Ink.

In a quart of boiling water, dissolve an ounce of alum; add half a pound of French berries, (Graines d'Avignon;) keep the mixture at the boiling point for an hour, strain the liquid, and dissolve in it a little more than a quarter of an ounce of gum arabic.

By following the same process, but substituting a much smaller quantity of saffron for the French berries, a much more beautiful yellow will be obtained. A still more durable colour may be made from gamboge, by merely dissolving it in water, until it is of the shade required.


By means of concentrated solutions of the greater number of colouring substances, inks of every shade may be prepared; a portion of gum is, in general, required, to suspend the colouring matter, and sometimes, corrosive sublimate must be added, to prevent mouldiness.