Koh-I-Noor Document Fountain Pen Inks...

[amberleadavis]

I ordered blue, I will report back. Thank you for showing us the black.

[dcwaites]

I ordered blue, I will report back. Thank you for showing us the black.

 

I have enough permanent blacks (between Noodler's Black, Heart of Darkness and Kiwaguro Carbon, who needs more?) but you inspired me to order a bottle of the Document Blue. The price of the ink is good, and the postage is (literally) unbeatable...

[amberleadavis]

Oh, you have been an enabler for me, so I'm very happy to return the favor!

[jackkessler]

I tried the Brown in a .025 mm Radiograph nib. Not saturated enough. Unsatisfying. It might be better in larger diameter technical pens than .025 mm where the thickness of the layer of ink laid down would be greater.

 

With a cylindrical nib the width of the line drawn is the same as the diameter of the nib but the volume of ink that flows out, simplistically, is the area of the cross section of the cylinder. Doubling the diameter to .050 mm would mean 4 times as much ink spread over a line twice as wide. So the layer of ink laid down should be twice as thick.

 

Which might mean that this ink would be much more saturated with a bigger nib. But that is a deduction not a fact. We have known since Francis Bacon (1561-1626) that experiment is more to be believed than logic.

[dcwaites]

I now use the Document Blue on a daily basis. It is in a Pilot DPN-200 Desk Pen with a Fine nib. The nib is on the wettish side (for me) and so the ink comes out a nice medium-dark blue.

 

It is nice to be able to pick the pen up from the desk pen stand (one in Australian Mulga wood, with a bakelite pen horn), write, and put it back. It is as quick as using a ballpoint, and doesn't get lost on the desk. And, I have the pleasure of using a fountain pen. It stays wet in the horn, ready to write, even after a weekend.

 

The ink is well behaved on poorer papers, with a minimum of feathering and bleeding. See this post for its comparative behaviour for feathering and bleeding on the worst paper I could find.

[Frank Savage]

Since 2008, I do not use anything else than Koh-i-Noor Document ink Black for all my writing of all kinds, taken under any conditions. The ink is definitively more viscous than most other inks, which makes it less feathering-prone even on bad papers, but it can cause some trouble during fast writing with some nibs, esp. dry ones with feed with delicate, slim compartments.

The viscosity can be felt when writing on wet or humid-soaked (from humid air) paper-it bleeds or feathers on most papers definitively less than most other inks. You can write terrible, feathered but legible line under conditions where Parker Quink makes just a series of grand blots with different saturation from the same nib and paper combo.

The flow is indeed good or very good, I would say it is moderately wet, but for sure I lack the experience as I was never keen into any kind of atrament which can be easily ilegible after soaking the paper in plain water.

Dry time is 2-5 seconds on a lot of papers, up to 10 seconds on most. You need a realy coated or extra glossy paper to wait more.

 

The colour is more dark black-grey with greenish hue, vary with paper a bit, but over period of several days to several months, depending on paper and exposition to free air, it darkens into light black (not dark grey) with a bit of dark greenish hue.

Subjected to immersion into water (on bad papers) and subsequent mechanical abuse of the line (on most papers), the ink will let a bit of a dark green dye or what is it), which can propagate around the script, but not on the better papers. No alteration to body color, crispness or legibility of the text.

On beter papers, immersed (quite no matter how long) and dryed, absolutely no change.

In 2008, I made a bunch of tests with this ink, on several el cheapo copy papers (80g/m2), several terrible "cheapo catalogue" so-called "papers" full of fillers, some diary and pre-WWII leger book grade papers. Those latter were absolutely beautiful to write on, rather thick for the weight (like 100-140g/m2), with tight, smooth skin, while the inner showed definitely a fibrous nature.

I used water, bleach (Savo), hydrochloric acid up to 35%, sulphuric and nitric acid, up to 65%, amonia water and amonia gas, NOx gas mixture, winegar, citric acid up to about 15%, those in mix also with regular salt added, sodium hydroxide... can´t remember all. Cold, warm, hot, for several minutes (until the paper vanished or desintegrated) to over a year of maceration. When possible, I maltreated the script line by mechanical means-rubbing by hand, piece of glass or loop from inox wire (I´m not hardcore enought to use fullhouse nitric acid for hand lotion...).

Freshly writen and such treated specimens were placed outside, on the sun (UV), sticked onto bitumen roof, put into ground to give all the elements a free bite on them... Some of the specimens were found as late as autumn 2014. Result? You can destroy the paper, but the script stays.

Some of the specimens, writen with fine dry dipper nibs on bad paper were tarnished in comparison, but perfectly crisp and legible.

I don´t have the records, it was too boring to spend ½ hour writing down the methodics, just to find out that the result is like „no change“ or „light greenish hue around the text“ or „paper destroyed“.

 

This apply for about pre-winter of 2014 stuff, I don´t have yet a younger bottle-they seem to be more bluish hue than green, from online photos.

The greenish „dye“ or what it is probably the reason why this ink is not awarded the ISO 12157 (or what is the correct number) for archival grade pigment, as it can alter or have some other influence on other pigments on the same document. For sure, it makes for easy amateur recognition of a fraud attempt.

Several weeks ago, a clipboard with a day worth of important notes (on poor copy paper, 80g/m2), already a bit soaked in the rain, faceplanted into soaked, liquid clay in a ditch. All was covered to no avail under ochroid mess. So I took it home in a plastic bag, washed the paper gently and recovered every bit of info I had written. This says a lot, when I add the paper was more yellowish-brown-ochroid than white as formerly was...

 

Like most document inks, even this can stuff up the feed, even that I´ve yet to experience it. If you refil once or twice a week, no matter if you need it or not, I can´t see any ill results of not cleaning my pens even once in 5 years. If you want to be sure, wash them with warm water until it comes out clear (inners of most ink storage devices might be greenish hued), let it sit overnight under water and give it a good run in warm water in ultrasonic cleaner. But I´m positively sure no way it can clog the feed and nib like any of the graphite-based breed of document inks can do.

 

During the winter, I´m going to take my hands on some examples of the more famous and "standard" top grade papers, so I´ll get more idea and data to add to this post (kind of a bit vague in terms of standard "test beds" of this forum).

 

It might not be the most archival-grade ink on the market, but for usual personal use I´ve yet to be shown anything better, more bulletproof. Definitely you are given one of the most durable ink you can have, at one of the lowest prices you can find (in Czech Republic, home country of Koh-i-noor, around 1,- EUR per 50 ml plastic bottle, or 3,5 EUR for 30g in nice glass bottle).

Edited November 1, 2016 by Frank Savage

[Frank Savage]

Edit not possible, so this way:

 

This ink is awarded BS 3484-2, probably (of) the toughest specs for a permanent record ink in existence.

[bob_hayden]

To be clear, Koh-I-Nor has two lines of inks -- the "Document" inks in blue and black, possibly competing with Diamine Registrar's ink, ESSRI, or various Noodler bulletproof inks. There is also a regular line with at least blue, black, red, and green. (Posts and linked threads are not always clear which line they are addressing.) All are $4.45 postpaid off eBay US of A for a 50g bottle so they are quite inexpensive. I have only the Document Blue. My best description is that it looks like cheap generic blue -- the kind that might come in tubs, jars, or plastic bags of loose cartridges. But as has already been said about this ink, if you are buying for color, buy another brand. This is for permanence. I wanted it for signing stuff. For 60 years I have used Sheaffer Permanent Jet Black with no fading or other issues but lately more and more people are asking me to sign in blue ink so I will be using this unless I encounter serious problems with it. So far it is a bit dry which I don't mind much, and I will next try it in a broader (and maybe wetter) nib to see if it will look a bit darker. I cal it my "Superman" ink because it looks totally innocuous yet has super staying powers (when unleashed in a phone booth;-)

[JulieParadise]

For the #50shadesofbluechallenge (link to the hashtag on Instagram), a challenge over at the German PenExchange forum for July & August 2020, I inked up all my pens with all the 50+ blue inks I have. The snapshots might also be of interest to some here.

Since the ink I want to show you only came to me in sample form, I am not even sure whether there is another "Permanent Blue" besides the "Document Blue" in Koh-I-Noor's line-up, so please forgive me if I post the wrong ink here.

This ink was, however, permanent in the sense that water could not affect it and light did not harm it (I lost the notebook from May where the fading test was stored. sorry).

Nevertheless, the permanent ink I had looked like this and came to me from a Koh-I-Noor bottle at a German pen meet-up, of that I am sure.