Blickensderfer ink idea - more testing

Having found a cheap and plentiful source of very small quantities of oil-based ink, some more experimenting was done. Especially some colored inks; a discount-store had a brand set of colored ballpint pens for a few Euro.

These are very easy to take apart - twist and pull gets the top off and it all comes apart. The nib can be pulled out of the white tube easily (and pushed back too, they re-assemble equally easily).

The ink in these Staedler color-pens is more runny than the BIC Cristal pens, so simply holding the tube over a fresh roller lets the ink drip onto the felt. Three new rollers, with each a different color ink:

The ink is still quite slow to soak into the felt. After an hour it is deeper, but by no means uniform. If the soaking has 'halted', as e.g. on the green one, another drop is added.

With the lids on, these were left overnight in their trays to fully soak through the entire roller. The next day the felt is completely colored, with ink distributed throughout; the purple roller was then placed on the machine:

To make sure the felt is properly saturated through and through, the obvious thing to do is to add another drop of ink just to make sure. That works, but probably also leads to an over-inked roller.

When typing with an over-inked roller too much ink is rolled onto the type. This causes excess ink to be flung off the type at impact with the paper. This causes streaking or splatter around the characters - seen on the left-most 'test' typing. The remedy for bad inking caused by too full a supply of ink is rubbing the pad with blotting paper, as advised by a Blickensderfer instruction manual:

Not blotting paper, but a bit of card works just as well - removes excess ink from the surface. 

This does indeed eliminate streaking and splatter - the right-most 'test' typing. The letters are printed clear and reasonably crisp, but noticeably fainter than before.

The typing quality is definitely not on the level of a typebar machine with ribbon inking. On the other hand the typewheel used here is new, made with a 0.08 mm layering. (The Attic typeface used here is also a bit too ornate for typewriters perhaps.) Earlier experimenting with water-based ink and heavy inking gave much better writing, but were impractical because of soaking through the paper and drying out within the day (or hour!). 

Overall the oil-based ink works, but the printing quality is very sensitive to the level of ink on the roller.

Looking closely at an original typewheel's type ('slug'), the top is not sharp as a typebar machine's type, but has a definite flat surface facing the paper. That flat surface is probably by-design. That surface is there to take the ink and act as the stamp. Ribbon-inked machines that work on impact do not need this flat surface, the impact onto the ribbon material presses ink onto the paper.

The needs of the 'stamping' process will be behind the typing advice given in the Blickensderfer instruction manual. On a regular ribbon-inked machine the typing is 'staccato'; the fingers strike the keys to fling the type against the ribbon and paper at speed, to rebound immediately. The inking is done by impact; near-instanteneous. On the Blickensderfer typing should be not by striking the keys, but rather by pressing them down - the type should be pressed against the paper to act as a stamp. This will be needed to give the ink time to transfer onto the paper, as in stamping. It's explained in the manual: the key must be followed down until the type is stopped by the paper.

Even though pens give low-cost oil-based inks (which oil?) and do work, the ink of these particular colored pens is not great - too runny and relatively light on colorant. Current impression is that the BIC Cristal inks are better suited for the Blickensderfer; thicker, sticky and very dense. Also the type itself on newly-made wheels can perhaps be optimised for the printing process. 

Another realisation is that ribbon-inking is a very good, robust solution for typing.

More tinkering (playing) may be possible on getting this Blickensderfer 5 to type as it would have done 120 years ago :-)