Gel pens have seen a huge increase in their popularity over the last few years with more and more people starting to use gel pens for both writing and drawing. Due to this, we constantly see a wide range of questions being asked about gel pens to help people get the most out of them. One of the more frequently asked questions that we do see each month is based on how to make gel pen ink and with the number of people looking to make homemade gel pen in seemingly increasing, we wanted to publish this article.
Our hope is that we will be able to help any of our readers who are looking to make their own gel pen ink at home get the job done. That said though, unless you already have the required arts and crafts supplies to make your own homemade gel pen ink, it will be cheaper and easier to simply purchase some new cheap, high-quality gel pens or to just get some gel pen ink refills for your specific pen model.
Another issue with making your own gel pen ink is getting the ratios correct for the perfect consistency of the gel-based ink. Homemade gel pen ink can cause a pen to skip, especially when you first start using it but our article on how to fix a gel pen that skips may help you prevent this. Additionally, homemade gel pen ink usually needs you to store your gel pen correctly for optimal performance so our article on how to store your pens may be helpful too.
How To Make Gel Pen Ink At Home
Before getting into the actual homemade gel pen recipe that you can try, we also have two short topics that we want to cover to help our readers better understand what they are actually trying to make. It only takes a few seconds to read but can help you improve the gel pen ink that you make and ensure that the end result offers the writing experience that you want from your creation.
What Is Gel Pen Ink Made Of?
To make your own gel pen ink, you first have to understand what it is actually made of as unlike ballpoint ink that is oil-based, gel ink is simply a water-based gel solution that has powder pigments suspended in it. Although this may seem like a basic concept the amount of water that you use for the pigment suspension plays a large role in the performance of your gel pen.
Too much water and your ink and it will ghost or bleed when you apply it to your paper when writing or drawing. Too little water and the pigments will clog in the ink cylinder, feed, or nib essentially blocking the pen completely or causing it to skip or have an inconsistent ink flow during use. When making your own gel ink there is some trial and error involved with the amount of water that you have to use so keep that in mind moving forward.
How Do You Make Gel Ink Flow?
When using your own homemade gel ink, getting a consistent ink flow can be a nightmare. As we mentioned above, the amount of water can be tricky to get writing when you first start making your own ink but the amount of glycerine and pigment that you add can also cause a number of problems too.
When it comes to homemade made inks, the main cause of inconsistent ink flow is almost always due to the ratios of your ingredients being off. If you are confident in your ingredient ratios in your gel ink then this article may be helpful to deal with any problems with inconsistent ink flow.
Homemade Gel Pen Ink Recipie
Now, getting onto our actual homemade gel pen ink recipe but like we said back at the start of the article, due to the costs of the required ingredients, it is cheaper and easier to just get the correct gel pen ink refills for your gel pen model. That said, we know many of our readers are into arts and crafts so may already have these ingredients in their home and be trying to make their own ink as more of a challenge than to actually use in their writing or drawing.
- Take a bowl and add two tablespoons of hot water to it. A wide bowl tends to be better than a deep bowl when it comes to making ink as it is easier to mix the ingredients together.
- Although some people do prefer to use paint for the coloration of their ink, we feel that actual pigments are a much better option and that a raw pigment will offer slightly better performance. Select the color of the pigment that you want to use for your gel pen ink and add a small amount to the hot water.
- Add in two or three drops of a high-quality glycerin to thicken up the consistency closer to what a store-bought gel-based ink will have. You can also add between half and a whole tablespoon of Fevicol to help with this too.
- Mix all of the ingredients together while the water is still hot to get the best possible blend for your gel ink.
- The next step is to actually add your homemade gel ink to a pen and this can be difficult. Rather than type out a text-based explanation of how to do it, we would recommend that you watch the video tutorial below on how to actually modify the pen barrel and add the gel-based ink.
Conclusion
That brings our article going over how you are able to make your own gel pen ink to an end and although there are a number of different recipes out there, they are all based around a very similar process and ingredient list. As we said though, it can be expensive, take a bunch of time, and require lots of trial and error to perfect the method so simply buying the correct gel pen ink refills for your pens will almost always be the best option for most people.
