[812] Making India Ink.

Manufacturer and builder 11, 1873

If you follow the hints given to question 809, under the bend of "Mixing Lampblack," you will obtain a good but very soft India ink, which you may harden by adding some boiled starch or mucilace, or very diluted glue-water. Many samples of this ink contain too notch glue altogether, and are therefore so hard that they require considerable rubbing with water when using them for drawing or writing. If you wish to imitate still closer the genuine ink, you may make a mold from the genuine ink by electrotyping or the simple stereotype process and press your paste in them; then it will have the exterior form, Chinese figures, etc., of the imported article, and if you flavor the paste with musk, as the Chinese most always do, your imitation is still more perfect.