99 bottles of ink on the wall...

Well, maybe not 99 but I'm getting there. I took it as a project to decant the inks from their bottles into 50ml test tubes for storage. Takes up less space, makes it easier to find any specific ink (because the racks can be cataloged), and safer (presuming the plastic doesn't crack like glass can shatter).
Inks as of 2018_12_26.

Note that in the album link the first two pics are of the empty bottles (well, mostly empty, 6 bottles still have ink; 4 are Scribes' Inks documents (permanent so they seem to stain the plastic 5ml vials), 1 is Noodler's (need more large test tubes) and 1 is Akkerman (decanting that may take some time)). The next two pics are the 50ml test tubes the inks now reside in. The last two pics are the samples I keep at my desk. The first are samples from purchased inks while the second are the samples I've acquired from online/local stores. There is no significance to the yellow labels, they are just more flexible and do not require a little transparent tape to keep the label down. This transfer was done using a 60ml syringe with a 14 gauge blunt needle. Some of the larger bottles required 2 large test tubes (looking at you Montblanc with the 60ml shoe bottle). I also have some smaller 30ml test tubes for the smaller capacity bottles (Diamine and J. Herbin for example). I could transfer a maximum of 7 bottles in one pass then rinse the bottles and clean the syringes and needles. Now that this has been done, future transfers will be much easier (I ordered a silicon measuring cup) and faster. And I should only have to deal with a bottle or two at a time.

Along with this project was the cataloging of the 5ml vials. The first tray is the Bottled Samples and the second is the Purchased Samples. When this started there was an order to the samples (make with the largest first) but from now on it will just be the next available slot (or tray). The flat text file consists of columns for tray, row, column, make/brand/line, name, generic color. As an example;
"BS1, A, 08, Iro Shizuku, Asa-Gao, blue" is a bottled sample tray 1, row A, column 8, make is Iro Shizuku, name is Asa-Gao and it is a 'blue' ink.

Next project is getting swabs of all the ink. I want to swab them, then take pics and store that online. I have a rolodex on order (there is a company that makes swab cards that fit a rolodex) and will start that project when a couple more supplies arrive. That will be a slow moving project. I have yet to determine how much info I want to record but at least a swab of the ink and the name (probably using a 1.1m stub TWSBI dipped) but I doubt I'll do the chromatography strip, the chemical fades, the quote and the bleed/feather tests on different papers. I may need to learn a decent photo program (hmmm, Adobe on windows?) and/or get an actual camera. Not sure yet. The big question is to get the pics somewhat color balanced. Lots of things to think about.

Anyway, that is it for this post.