The real price of ink....

[Tin Ho]

My understanding of many technology products, including those made in China, are more expensive in China than in the USA market. This is because of a practice of government subsidies to exportation of Chinese made products by the Chinese Government. This is a unfair trade practice by the way. This may or may not apply to after market ink products made in China. I tend to believe they are cheaper there but probably only slightly. My understanding is the businesses in China make very thin margin in exportation but enjoy a healthy profit selling domestically for the same products. From the government subsidies the businesses are able to maintain their momentum in selling into USA with small margin. I may be wrong. Comments of different aspects are welcome.

 

[NoWaste]

Hi Tin Ho -The price of ink is very subjective and its voiced down to what is the type of ink you are happy to pay. The process of ink making is relatively cheap and low cost and again what is actually ink? If you "like" to use only inks that come with specification and other "high technology" terms then it is likely that you will pay more for all these extra work. So what is ink to you? To some people ink for the inkjet printer is some "dark liquid solution" that can be jetted out from the printhead on a piece of paper like any other written communication.

So ink in general with a wider mind can be any liquid solution to a user as long as it can be used to meet his requirement.

I use many kind of inks and none of them are from inkjet supplier. Off course, if you buy inkjet ink then pay the extra but it does not means that you receive a better quality ink. I also make my own ink, estimated about US$4 for 10 litres.

One similar way to reduce your ink cost is to group with your friends and buy ink in large quantity. But lets face it. If a bottle of ink cost $5 and can be used for a year, I think most people are happy with it. It is unlikely for the general public to look for the ink that cost the least.

 

[Smile]

I use many kind of inks and none of them are from inkjet supplier. Off course, if you buy inkjet ink then pay the extra but it does not means that you receive a better quality ink. I also make my own ink, estimated about US$4 for 10 litres.

Hmm how do you make your own ink? How do you control tension etc. Are you a chemist or just have a proper equipement to make ink, btw that is very interesting coud you share some information?

 

[lolopr1]

I use many kind of inks and none of them are from inkjet supplier. Off course, if you buy inkjet ink then pay the extra but it does not means that you receive a better quality ink. I also make my own ink, estimated about US$4 for 10 litres.

Sounds too good to be true. :/

 

[NoWaste]

One common ink is the walnut ink. You can also use other stationery ink. Making walnut ink is available in the Internet. Do a search and you will see many. However, like l said earlier, it may be wiser to just pay a little more and leave the "dirty" work to others. And it is unlikely for you to use all the ink if you make it yourself. If you need to travel and buy the walnut, it may be a little costly as you are making a small amount of ink. You decide what you want to do.

 

[fotofreek]

There are common natural dye materials that have been used since the beginning of time! I'm sure that any one of them would make a solution that would produce color on paper. Native Americans wove beautiful blankets and baskets on which they used natural dyes. Balancing ph, viscosity, etc, and trying to get any type of color balance would be another story. If anyone has a printer that has a really sick printhead, and it still has nozzles that work well for some colors it might be fun to try some "home brew"! One that comes to mind is the dye that is produced from onion skins. Another would be the dye component from raspberries. It would probably be necessary to cook it down to reduce the volume and intensify the coloring agents. Maybe food coloring agants would also work.

Now, there's a project for someone with lots of time (and subsequently stains) on his/her hands!

 

[Tin Ho]

I believe the color dyes for making inkjet ink are all synthetic dyes. There are thousands of different dyes available but only a handful of them are suitable for inkjet inks. Even Image Specialists have to buy the dyes they use from companies that specialize in color dyes and color pigments. There are also other chemicals used to formulate ink. If you add a correct dye to only water your ink would be still more than $10 per gallon and then it still won't work. It may be true that materials are relatively cheap. But R&D is not. It is not cheap to feed the mouths of everyone that do R&D in a lab. The cheapest thing is talk. There is no doubt talk is cheap. But no, it is not. Try to imagine how expensive it may be for those we see daily on ABC, NBC and CBS. But of course we can all benefit from cheap inks. $1 a liter or less would be really nice.

 

[pharmacist]

One common ink is the walnut ink. You can also use other stationery ink. Making walnut ink is available in the Internet. Do a search and you will see many. However, like l said earlier, it may be wiser to just pay a little more and leave the "dirty" work to others. And it is unlikely for you to use all the ink if you make it yourself. If you need to travel and buy the walnut, it may be a little costly as you are making a small amount of ink. You decide what you want to do.

Nowaste,

I have a recipe to make the legendary fade- and waterresistant iron gall ink. I use it to write with (dip or fountain pen). Unlike normal fountain pen inks, it is almost impossible to remove the writing from paper without acutally destroying the paper surface. After oxidation the bluish ink becomes an indelible deep black and is burnt into the paper. It is made from gall nuts (fermented), ferrous sulphate, gum arabic, a temporary blue dye and water (and some additives).

I find the colour even blacker than commercially available black dye fountain pen, which are not water- and fade resistant. This ink is for me far superior than most modern writing inks.

The only problem is that on bad paper (normal bleached writing/printing paper) after several decennia the ink can eat in the paper and ink corrosion can become a problem. On high quality cotton rag paper (used for important documents like diploma's/will's/contracts) and properly stored (not in humid environment) the writing should be as new after several hundred years, if you still care then.

 

[NoWaste]

pharmacist - good for you. However, this ink don't seem to be ph balanced. So it may likely affect the cartridge printhead and other metal if in contact. But, if the ph can be adjusted and any solid removed, then there is a potential for it in inkjet printing.