Blue-black Ink.
NOTE.—No gum or sugar is proper and on no account must the acid be omitted. When intended for copying, 5 1/2 ounces of galls is the quantity. On the large scale this fine ink is made by percolation.
Colored Inks.
Copying Ink.
This is usually prepared by adding a little sugar to ordinary black ink, which for this purpose should be very rich in color, and preferably made galls prepared by heat. Writing executed with this ink may be copied within the space of 5 or 6 hours, by passing it through a copying press in contact with thin, unsized paper, slightly damped, enclosed between 2 sheets of thick oiled or waxed paper, when a reversed transcript will be obtained, which will read in proper order when the back of the copy is turned upwards. In the absence of a press a copy may be taken, when the ink is good and the writing very recent, by rolling the sheets, duly arranged on a ruler, over the surface of a flat, smooth table, employing as much force as possible, and avoiding any slipping or crumbling of the paper. Another method is to pass a warm flatiron over the paper laid upon the writing. The following proportions are employed:
I.—Sugar candy or lump sugar, 1 ounce; or molasses or moist sugar, 1 1/4 ounces; rich black ink, 1 1/2 pints; dissolve.
II.—Malt wort, 1 pint; evaporate it to the consistence of a syrup, and then dissolve it in good black ink, 1 1/4 pints.
III.—Solazza juice, 2 ounces; mild ale, 1/2 pint; dissolve, strain, and triturate with lampblack (previously heated to dull redness in a covered vessel), 1/4 ounce; when the mixture is complete, add of strong black, 1 1/2 pints; mix well, and in 2 or 3 hours decant the clear.
After making the above mixtures, they must be tried with a common steel pen, and if they do not flow freely, some more unprepared ink should be added until they are found to do so.