Message
Re: Does anyone know if Inksupply.com (MIS Associates, Inc.) has gone out of business?
2016-05-17 by rdeloe1@...
* Eboni 1.1 is STS WJ1082. I bought a litre of WJ1082 ink from STS in Florida (the manufacturer). It's also available (in 1 litre and 0.5 litre volumes) from a company called Printer Filling Station (http://www.printerfillingstation.com/Ink_Refills/Epson/55E.htm). I've never used them. If you buy from STS you may need to set up an account and deal with a sales rep via email. It was all fine (but expensive in Canada because of brokerage fees -- should be more reasonable in the US).
* You'll need a source for the clear base. MIS sells it, but you can easily mix your own. I use Paul's C6b formulation, which is simply distilled water, glycerin, PhotoFlo 200, and a few drops of Edwal LFN. If you are in the US, PhotoFlo and Edwal LFN are at your camera store; Edwal LFN is not available in Canada (so I bought if from the US). Glycerine is at your drugstore and distilled water is at your grocery store.
* I've mixed by volume and by weight. The proportions are slightly different by weight than volume because glycerine is very dense compared to water. This is explained in Paul's instructions. I recommend that you invest in a scale that has grams to one decimal place (in other words, can weigh to 1/10th of a gram). It's vastly easier and more consistent than by volume.
* The only other wrinkle is whether or not you want to go the pure carbon "Eboni" route, or "Eboni Variable Tone" (which is Paul's newer concept that uses diluted Canon Lucia blue and cyan ink as a toner). I'm a huge fan of this approach because with Quadtone RIP it allows me to choose whether I want a warm tone, a neutral tone, or a split tone -- image by image. It's very easy to mix up the toner. You use the same clear base as for the Eboni, and you drain the Lucia inks from the Canon cartridges. The ones Paul describes in his instructions are big and provide more than a small volume printer will be able to use in a year, so going in with someone would be ideal. I haven't been able to source smaller carts.
Here are instructions for ink mixing (general) and for Eboni Variable Tone (for the Epson 1430 and Epson Stylus Pro 3880). I have both of these printers and these inks work amazingly well in them.
Bottom-line: this approach is for people who are comfortable mixing their own inks and profiling their own papers. I love the flexibility and the alchemy. It reminds me of my darkroom days. If you prefer a turnkey approach, you'll probably be happy with Cone's Piezography. I've never used it, but loads of people seem happy. I would miss the ability to choose warm, neutral or split tone image-by-image (which is something that Eboni Variable Tone lets me do). I believe that with Piezography you can have a warm inkset or a neutral inkset, but you'll need multiple printers (or be willing to change carts and flush a lot) if you want the flexibility to choose tone for every image. Perhaps Piezography users can comment on this and whether or not it's as I described.
Have fun with this.
http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/Ink-Mixing.pdf
http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/Eboni-Variable-Tone.pdf
http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/3880-Eboni-Variable-Tone.pdf