GALLIUM PENCIL revisited

Adric at Quelab made another Gallium pencil for me on May 6, 2026 :

Gallium lead holder pencil (middle)

with syringe with gallium (right)

and ice pack (left)

MAKING the GALLIUM LEAD

Adric melted the Gallium and sucked the liquid into a syringe.   Then he injected the liquid Gallium into a 3D Printer Bowden tube.  Then when the Gallium cools it solidifies into a lead that fits perfectly in a lead holder pencil:

"So I attached a plastic syringe with melted gallium in it to a luer lock f/f connector to a bit of 3d printer bowden tube, then put a small syringe filter on the end and then allowed gravity + syringe force to push the liquid gallium down to the filter. An allowing air bubbles to pass through. Turns out some gallium can also make it through the filter too so i put a luer lock syringe cap on the filter after loosing a small drop. After that it went in my freezer to be sure it was finally set."

After Adric made the first Gallium pencil for me in 2019, someone else posted their Gallium pencil on YouTube:

Gallium pencil

GALLIUM LITHOGRAPHY

I wanted to use the Gallium pencil to draw on a lithography ball grained aluminum plate. So on May 8th, 2026 I went to Takach Press and asked Mark Williams to draw on the aluminum plate for me.  Hopefully we will be able to make a print from the plate, somehow:

Mark Williams cleaned and dried

the aluminum plate first

Drawing with the Gallium pencil

The Gallium drawing masterpiece!

We really do not know what will happen. Gallium combines with aluminum and eats through it.  I imagine that the Gallium will gouge a channel into the aluminum where the "pencil" strokes were.  If so, then the aluminum plate might be inked and printed with the intaglio process.

Perhaps there is a way to ink and print the plate through the lithography process...somehow, some way.

Or the whole experiment will be a failure.