Diamine China Blue Not As Expected

[loganrah]

I'm hoping someone with experience of Diamine China Blue can chime in:

 

I just inked up a pen with Diamine China Blue for the first time (after a thorough flushing) and it writes much darker than I expected. Next to Diamine Sapphire Blue it is almost impossible to tell the difference. In person the Sapphire blue is a little more purple but they are equally dark. The swabs on cult pens and Diamine's website made me think China Blue was going to be significantly lighter and less saturated than Sapphire Blue.

 

Maybe this is a manufacturing glitch? An over saturated batch, or Sapphire Blue accidentally bottled as China Blue?

I'm not that worried because I quite like Sapphire Blue and will use up the ink anyway, but I was looking forward to a nice light blue for particular uses that this does not fit the bill for.

I've tested the ink on a couple of different papers and it doesn't seem to make a difference.

 

This image is pretty close to how it looks in person (the China Blue looks even darker because it is in a pilot falcon while the Sapphire blue is in a medium nib GvFC):

 

[ErrantSmudge]

China Blue shouldn't look saturated. It does go down as a deep blue when wet, but then fades significantly as it dries. It ends up looking very much like its namesake.

Edited March 11, 2019 by ErrantSmudge

[JulieParadise]

Yep, mine is also pretty light. Beautiful, but far from "saturated" or "dark".

[loganrah]

Hmmm. Sounds like something is up with this particular batch/bottle then. Maybe I'll try watering it down a little, and using it in some different pens.

[JakobS]

When I bought this ink back in 2009 I experienced a similar color, it wasn't as light as the swabs suggested, but wasn't a bad shade of blue in the least. It could be a matter of a difference in using a very wet nib vs a drier one, or paper type. This is an ink I have been meaning to get back to for awhile, so I will make it my next fill and see if it still stands. In a way, I feel almost like it is a more accurate china blue than the more faded version, at least what I am familiar with on plates and cups etc.

Edited March 11, 2019 by JakobS

[senzen]

That looks very different from what I've seen online (never seen it in person). You can see it as a disappointment, ask the seller or sell it to someone who likes it, and move on; or go down the rabbit hole and try to find a pen that makes it look lighter... As an expert at making things way more complicated than they need to be, of course I took the second route, I can't recommend it for everyone but it certainly can done; compare my much lighter version of Asa Gao to everything else:

 

 

Of course you could just get a Parker 75 with a fine nib, but I have no scientific data to prove they all write like this. Again, no guarantees for your sanity .

 

Another even crazier approach is to put a bit of cellophane (as found in biscuit, pasta and chocolate packets and such) between the feed and nib; this doesn't work with all pens, depending on the shape of the nib and feed, and can break the pen's aesthetics; but if done right it causes no problems with starting or flow, I've had two Pelikan m205 like this for some time now.

[Tas]

I found Chrissys review perfect in its findings.

 

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/304423-ink-review-diamine-china-blue/

 

A dryer pen will lay down less ink and make it paler. It does indeed dry a little lighter.

[amberleadavis]

I think that is mislabeled.

[JulieParadise]

When I revisited Diamine China Blue for the #50shadesofbluechallenge (link to the hashtag on Instagram), a challenge over at the German PenExchange forum for July & August 2020, I came to realise that this ink has many faces and its appearance on page depends heavily on how long it has been sitting and "ageing" on the paper and how thick = wet it was applied. The label on the bottle for example shows a one-pass area below and a double layer area over the writing.

 

[Dip n Scratch]

You were expecting a blue akin to that of a shard of Wedgewood Blue Jasper?

The first pictures remind me of Herbin Eclat de Saphir. Diamine's Sapphire Blue looks to have a lean towards purple, though I really would have to have samples of both colours to lay down with a swab and a dip pen.

[A Smug Dill]

I just inked up a pen with Diamine China Blue for the first time (after a thorough flushing) and it writes much darker than I expected. Next to Diamine Sapphire Blue it is almost impossible to tell the difference. In person the Sapphire blue is a little more purple but they are equally dark. The swabs on cult pens and Diamine's website made me think China Blue was going to be significantly lighter and less saturated than Sapphire Blue.

Maybe I'll try watering it down a little, and using it in some different pens.

 

Have you tried writing with Diamine China Blue with a pen/nib that is 'drier' yet, irrespective of whether that would be your personal preference of writing instrument?

 

I opened up my first bottle of Diamine China Blue yesterday, and filled my first Kaigelu 316 (of which the nib and feed I had flushed with dilute ammonia and Fairy detergent solution, then flushed again with plain water and dried ). After the initial problems with the pen were remedied, it wrote consistently (so it was "all good"), and the writing presented as a pale blue after the ink has been given sufficient time to dry. However, with the same pen and some fill of the converter, just twelve hours later it produced marks a significantly different colour on the same type, and indeed the same sheet, of paper, without my having further fiddled with either the nib or the feed.

 

 

I would attribute that difference to the ink flow in that pen somehow becoming wetter (evidence by my not able to get the same fine lines as I did earlier) without further intervention. The marks on the swatch card were produced in the earlier session, when the nib wrote more 'dryly':

 

[A Smug Dill]

On 9/25/2020 at 1:48 PM, A Smug Dill said:

However, with the same pen and some fill of the converter, just twelve hours later it produced marks a significantly different colour on the same type, and indeed the same sheet, of paper, without my having further fiddled with either the nib or the feed.

 

That mystery was solved, in my abundance of “spare time” while FPN was offline. My Kaigelu 316's feed can retain more than 0.1ml of liquid which, for no doubt scientific reasons I can neither explain nor grasp at this point, it will not readily release when there is no converter plugged in onto its end; standing just the gripping section — complete with nib and feed assembly installed, but no converter or cartridge connected — nib down on a paper towel for a few hours did not in fact dry the feed. The writing with Diamine China Blue ink became darker, after some twelve hours and maybe ten half-pages of writing, because that was how long and much it took for the residue cleaning water trapped in the feed to run out completely.

 

This is the actual colour of the ink coming out of my Kaigelu pens:

[TitoThePencilPimp]

I have the same issue as op with my china blue. It went through 15mL (30mL) bottle writing with a pelikan m101n grey/blue fine nib. It was a nice blue, bought I it for for the color I seen in multiple images online. I also get red halo effect ( I think this is what it is called when the boundary of the letter is different from the rest of the ink). I decided to load up a Sailor xf and f. Same dark blue color. I will use the remaining ink. Purchase another bottle, and see if my initial bottle was mislabeled.

[JCC123]

This could just be the fact that you're using old ink that's not fresh. Ink will always darken when exposed to oxygen. The longer it's exposed, the darker it becomes. When you first open a bottle of fresh ink it always shows a different color than after it's been opened for longer. The pigments will change color as well from one color to another. For example, the Montblanc Glacier ink has a lot of green which changes to blue once it's exposed to air. Both of the Montblanc and Pelican Royal blues have a lot more purple when new and will change to more blue when aged.

 

I believe it's two actions happening simultaneously. First, exposure to oxygen will darken and second, as the liquid in the bottle evaporates, the ink becomes more concentrated which will darken or saturate the ink more.