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Warning: I keep seeing people mix inks without checking the pH first.
I was trying to make a nice purple by mixing a blue and a red, and it turned into this weird sludge after a day. The blue was a basic ink and the red was super acidic, and they just did not get along. I lost about 15ml of good ink because I didn't test them. Has anyone else had a batch go bad from a chemical clash like that?
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richard_shah1mo ago
My buddy did that with a fancy iron gall blue and a regular pink. He thought he was making some kind of vintage lavender. Woke up to a bottle full of what looked like gritty mud. It wasn't just color change, it had actual bits in it. He learned the hard way that some inks are basically in a different chemical world.
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finley_lopez9828d ago
Ah come on, I gotta respectfully disagree here. Iron gall inks are kind of a special case since they're already acidic and reactive by design. Most modern dye-based inks mix just fine as long as you test a tiny bit first. I've mixed a standard blue with a pink before and got a nice dusty purple with no gunk at all. The key is keeping it to similar ink types like all-water-based dyes from the same brand. Your buddy's problem was mixing a chemically complex iron gall with a basic dye ink, that's like putting diesel in a gas car. Have you tried sticking to one brand's lineup when you experiment?
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