Appreciate all the helpful information you've documented throughout the site. Had a quick question for you and the community.

I frequently see 'food coloring' recommended for post-buttering application of fumed silica to ceramic wool. I was wondering, would acrylic-ink be an acceptable option as well? 

I have Liquitext Acrylic Ink pigments on hand; they say: "Ultra-fluid acrylic with lightfast, artist-quality pigments. No dyes. No fade. Just pure, permanent color. And like all acrylics, it dries quickly and permanently, with no smudging or bleeding when rewetted or layered. You get pure liquid color in a range of opacities." And elsewhere I see they are made of "super-fine pigments in a [...] acrylic emulsion."

Do you think these would somehow interfere, chemically, or otherwise, as a substitute for food coloring? I'm still planning to use Kastolite-30 afterwards. But trying to save a trip to the grocery store to buy something I'll likely not use again for 20 years. ::chuckles::

IKC

If it's water soluble it should work ok. Stop by my shop and I will give you green food coloring, my favorite in making a forge.

NOOOO! You are going to heat the inside of that forge WAY hot and acrylic WILL be burning & smoking into your breathable!

I'm sure the pigment would work fine coloring the blanket so you could gauge coverage but it has to burn out and I have no idea what the: fumes, smoke, who knows what the heck, could do to a person breathing them. There may be information regarding burning acrylic pigments, I don't know. If you have information it can be safely used for this, please share it with us. In this kind of situation my default setting is ere on the side of caution. Especially when I have a known effective alternative.

Food coloring is cheap and food safe, it doesn't produce harmful fumes when you super heat it.

Frosty The Lucky.

 

Frosty is right. I just looked up the MSDS and it is alcohol based and a breathing hazard if heated. So do not use it, even though it says it is miscible with water. Thank you Frosty for making me delve deeper into it.

Thanks for doing the research! It's good to have backup isn't it?  So, the bolded red over size font wasn't over the top? I worry about doing that sometimes. 

Oh I almost forgot! Welcome aboard inakarmacoma, glad to have you. If you'll put your general location in the header you'll have a better chance of hooking up with members living within visiting distance.  

Frosty The Lucky.

If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research. Attributed to A. Einstein

Research is good

Thank you, everyone! Appreciate the guidance here. I went and purchased some red food coloring.   Apologies, 

Apologies,  Irondragon ForgeClay Works  I just couldn't pull the trigger on mold green!

All the best

IKC

You're more than welcome! I hope we never know how many people your question saved from making a dangerous mistake! Good questions are a treasure!

The only color I won't use is yellow, a little added: red, blue or green fixes the potty association though. 

Frosty The Lucky.

I used concentrated water color painting pigment to color mine the last time I sealed my blanket (because I found some tucked away in my wife's supply rack and didn't have a bottle of food coloring around).  Bottle probably was on the order of 25 years old, but it worked quite well for me.

Do you know what's in it?

Frosty The Lucky.

Not a clue, but I kept clear with my big exhaust fan running in the shop when preheating it and now it is encapsulated behind a 1/2" thickness of Kastolite.  

I looked it up at the library about forty years back; it is made from coal tars. Yuk! On the other hand, there is very little of the actual material that ends up in your food, and even left of it left as ash, when used to color fiber insulation.

Yeah but coal tars are used to make all kinds of stuff from shampoo to cold remedies. I little whiff of burning coal from a forge doesn't sound like an EPA violation. 

Frosty The Lucky.

 Coal Tar dyes was one of the big factors in getting modern chemistry started.  I always preferred the arsenic greens though for gifts to people on////////   NEVERMIND!

Hmmm, I always thought Paris Green was kind of unattractive as a kid. One house we lived in in Seattle maybe had a Paris green living room and the color put me off green for a long time. 

Arsenic red on the other hand is striking and pretty. 

Frosty The Lucky.

Lead White?

Sweet color, true.

Frosty The Lucky.