Diamine Blue/Black – a lazy review

[A Smug Dill]

 

Close-up:

 

Colour: Blue-black, as advertised; without being goes-down-blue, then-turns-black like iron-gall blue-black inks typically would, because as far as I'm aware this is a plain/standard dye ink without any iron-gall component (and with no water resistance)

Flow: Slightly on the dry side of moderate, perhaps, on account of my being able to see a fainter line being left by the nib's slit along the broadest strokes

 

Feathering: Not observed on Rhodia Dotpad 80g/m² paper, looking closely at the thinnest hatching lines, and words/glyphs ‘reverse-written’ with the nib upside-down (i.e. the bottom of the feed facing up)

Show-through: Low to nil

Bleed-through: Not observed

 

Drying time: 11–12 seconds, which is relatively quick compared to most of the other inks I've tested or reviewed lately

Smudging after fully dry: Didn't happen when I rubbed my thumb over the hatching/stippling panel and the largest Chinese hanzi characters

Water resistance: So apparently poor that I don't think I need to soak some part of the sheet for an hour or so, to establish whether that would completely obliterate the marks made with this ink

 

Shading: Moderate, without having too drastic a delineation between lighter parts and darker parts along the same pen stroke; can be seen even in very narrow ink marks (i.e. when writing with the equivalent of an Extra Fine nib)

Sheen: None observed — and I checked with a loupe and a bright LED light

Shimmer: None

 

My thoughts: I can't imagine why I'd want to use a sombre blue-black ink that offers neither sheen nor water resistance, notwithstanding that this ink has a nice Delftware kinda colour as far as blue-black goes; but I suppose if someone wanted a blue-black that is cheap, and easy to clean from pens and/or after accidental spillage, this may well fit the bill nicely.

[chromantic]

Nice enough color but not very dark, is it? Compared with, say, 1864.

 

I picture a Ryan George Pitch Meeting:

"I have an idea for an ink."

"OK, tell me about it."

"It's blue."

"Uh-huh."

"But it's a little bit darker because it's got a little black in it."

"Sounds amazing. What's it called?

"Blue-black."

"OK."

[gerigo]

It's actually a lovely ink. When I first saw the title, I thought I would come into a grey ink with a little tint of blue. This has a very pleasant green tint to it that I really like in blue black inks.