As a science investigation we made iron gall ink by crushing oak galls and putting them in 200ml water with an iron nail. At first the ink was dark brown so we left the mixture for two weeks and the ink got darker, almost black. Grey hairy mould started to grow on top of the mixture so we guessed it was time to use our ink. We used a feather quill just like in the old days. The ink was difficult to use because it was very runny and we made quite a few blobs. It got used up quickly from the quill and we had to keep dipping. Here is some of our inky handwriting…….
We decided to keep one jar of our ink and left it safely on the windowsill but first we took out the rusty iron nail. Just this week we noticed that our ink had disappeared completely , the crushed oak gall had settled on the bottom of the jar and the water was almost completely clear ! No more ink ! We figured out that our ink disappeared because we took out the iron nail and that it was an important part of the experiment. No iron nail , no ink. We put another iron nail back into the jar and we will watch carefully to see if ink will be made.