KWZ IG Blue-Black Review: ice-cream and long march

[Karmachanic]

Good people at LCDC, with great prices and frequent discounts. Unfortunately they are not so good at inventory management, and are notorious for not showing out of stock items as such. You'll definitely get the ink though. I've had similar experience.

 

I have more KWZ inks than any other brand. Including IG Blue Black

 

[RJS]

  On 12/28/2020 at 7:10 AM, Karmachanic said:

Good people at LCDC, with great prices and frequent discounts. Unfortunately they are not so good at inventory management, and are notorious for not showing out of stock items as such. You'll definitely get the ink though. I've had similar experience.

 

I have more KWZ inks than any other brand. Including IG Blue Black

 

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I was pleased with my correspondence with them, and the tremendous job of packing the items and expertly wrapping them up like Christmas presents. I checked availability before I ordered, so I knew none of the items were in stock. It's just been that one ink that's evaded their capture, so I guess it wasn't easy for them to snag. I think the other inks took just a couple of weeks to procure, and it was a Narwhal pen I ordered that delayed proceedings for an extra month. Cool pen, though, stunning for the money!

[Dimy]

I think in our little fp hut community in general, suffers from supply demand issues and honestly its quite understandable to some extent as many are small business and production houses rather then large companies. Too much demand for few items....well many mass produced are also suffering from this.....in general its probably combination of both availability and general transport issue for mass goods.

 

No intention to hijack the thread here but, There was something I heard that air freight in general are suffering and facing over double the standard charges while ocean freight are suffering from too much cargo of different purpose (in general priority goods). In some cases its leading to auction of freight containers for goods where larger companies have better chance, making companies which deal in...well markets like our...take back seat, leading to general delays and stuff...this is actually a general case for several products not just our fp house.

[arcfide]

  On 12/24/2020 at 4:40 AM, Dimy said:

Now I need some help on any more suggestions on testing to further add or remove them, since its long term test suggestions and ideas are welcomed with open arms.

 

I plan to test for Sallix as age in comparison to this ink if someone is interested there then I will add them as well in comparison posts. No plan as in now but if interested do tell I will need to create pages for Sallix although end result of sallix is with me and its not pretty....over year it aged poorly which actually became motivation for this long term test.

 

I will post taccia Tsuchi later today..on Christmas here...on which note Merry Christmas.

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This is really great! Do you think you would be interested in doing a whole series of tests on modern IG's in the blue black range? I'm thinking, Diamine Registrar's, ESSR, Platinum Blue Black, KWZ, R&K. It would be really neat to see these all compared consistently based on your experience. I find that a lot of people find a single IG that they like, and then they aren't very motivated to test others. I'm guilty of this myself! I haven't really done enough testing of other IG inks simply because I have so much of something I already like, but I really would like to see them compared. 

[Dimy]

  On 12/29/2020 at 7:36 PM, arcfide said:

 

This is really great! Do you think you would be interested in doing a whole series of tests on modern IG's in the blue black range? I'm thinking, Diamine Registrar's, ESSR, Platinum Blue Black, KWZ, R&K. It would be really neat to see these all compared consistently based on your experience. I find that a lot of people find a single IG that they like, and then they aren't very motivated to test others. I'm guilty of this myself! I haven't really done enough testing of other IG inks simply because I have so much of something I already like, but I really would like to see them compared. 

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Thanks

I would gladly, if fact I will add sallix in next batch in ink comparison section, the irony is that even though I love doing such activities...I don't have any other IG ink apart from these 2....later I do plan to get some more and I will add them...but I don't this it will be before these tests are over sadly........well will conduct other test then.

[Dimy]

1st month test results are in, the general exposure has been done for 30 days with 1 day as plus or minus.  The light has been maintained as consistent as possible with aim at recreating same lighting condition every-time the test is conducted. Now the conditions of each cases as over and close up shot. color has been tried to remain as accurate as I can by phone camera. Each analysis is that the result is as expected with wardrobe kept document showing no change while diffused light exposed document showing most fade. I say most fade but in all honesty its very hard to notice the change without keeping the documents side by side and not accounting for paper damage due to use wear and tear, looks more like all colour are preserved. For 1st month no particular change is in notice and can be attributed to aging.

 

There was one small error on my part so pls let me clear that one. The note is on the 1st case with page which was preserved but not opened much but kept outside, the original page had issue of being damaged so I have used the backup page for that (I created 2 backups for all papers, did not expected to use one so fast).

 

 

This page is one that has been exposed to diffused light for a month. Very slight change in colour which shows just a tiny nit lighter when looked close. (3rd case)

 

 

This is page from my work and shows a case of using the page on regular basis while keeping the notebook outside on table. No appreciable change noticed in colour of page, any change might as well be wear and tear as page is used. (4th case)

 

The backup page. This page was kept in closed notebook and not used or opened. No appreciable damage noticed to colour or page. (1st case)

 

This page was kept in wardrobe inside a notebook and never saw the light of any kind. This page shows no hint of damage whatsoever. (2nd case)

 

The Close up shots of pages in the order as above.

 

 

One month diffused light exposed. (3rd case)

 

1 month regular use page. (4th case)

 

1 month page kept in closed notebook which was kept ouside wardrobe. (1st case)

 

1 month page kept inside a notebook in wardrobe. (2nd case)

[Dimy]

Second month of test are in and what to say, hardly any difference in ink colour of both inks. I kinda feel bad for bothering to do this much pain and seeing difference in every month. Well this also acts as a example on how the ink will behave and age so not all is bad right.

 

Jokes aside the result are positive in respect to the inks behavior when compared with other IG I have (Sallix). I will let the pics do the work. The camera is pea shooter phone with white balance at 6000 and ISO at 200 and lighting conditions kept same throughout with ambience rating of 700 on LDR. (this is for my personal reference to keep test at constant and also for those who care).

 

I have added a new comparison to show inks change colour and side by side comparison. (made more sense this way plus easy to describe). The colour change observations remain same as 1 month change. The yellowness in some page of diffused light exposed and regular use is due to.......well regular use and diffused light exposure of paper plus general abuse in comparison to wardrobe shut page.

 

 

The page was kept in wardrobe inside a closed notebook and not exposed to any light or external factors. Thing is as new as it gets.

 

 

Diffused light exposed paper. This shows most damage, still comes in normal wear of paper over fade of ink.

 

 

Regular used paper. The page is often used for reference and is subjected to same abuse as normal often used reference notes would be (they are that if someone has not already noticed).

 

 

The page was kept in closed notebook and rarely opened. The notebook was kept outside wardrobe in bright and open room. No control on moisture and such.

 

 

 

Comparison between closed inside wardrobe and exposed to diffused light page. Hard to notice even here but there is very slight change in inks colour while paper shows clear difference.

 

Comparison between closed inside wardrobe and regular used paper. The ageing of page is less here then above one and ink change is negligible and can be blamed on wear and tear over anything else.

 

 

comparison between exposed to diffused light and closed but kept outside page.

 

 

 

Close up of page kept inside the wardrobe page.

 

 

close up of page exposed to diffused light.

 

 

close up of regular used page.

 

Close up of page kept inside notebook which is kept outside the drawer.

 

As always the number cases are mentioned in original post if one wants to get exactly how the test was done. Any suggestions are welcomed and lastly sorry for delay, busy year this one for me.

[Nick T]

@Dimy Thank you for this thorough review and bringing this ink to my attention. Its the kind of color and performance profile which I think @Sandy1 would like with the exception of the shading characteristics. It looks a bit too saturated. Perhaps a wetter or broader nib would conjure up some light and dark.

 

I'll have to pickup a bottle and give it a whirl. Thanks again!

[dawi han]

  On 12/24/2020 at 4:33 AM, Dimy said:

Introduction and Elephant in the Room

 

KWZ inks at this point don’t really need an introduction of themselves so all I can say is about page on KWZ website is the best friend here. Bottle is dark glass bottle, good for inks.

 

Now to elephant and well there are 2 different things that I noticed here, First the ink comes in a plastic wrap around the bottle, nice touch really as this prevent many issues that can arise.

Second, is entire ink smells like vanilla and that was nice (typical of KWZ)....it made me want to eat ice-cream though so that’s bad. Jokes aside I can see some real practical benefit of inks condition and easy to spot any issue in ink if it arises (by smell) and that is a big plus for many.

 

Each ink is handmade as mentioned by KWZ and might have some variations in them, take it as may that is a what it is. Variation are understandable if on asks me and I don’t think there will be any change in base formula or nature of ink, as comparison lets take processors, there is difference in each processors wafers when made and this has no real impact on processor itself but if you are overclocking the processor then it matters not for normal case. In short for most part, there should not be enough difference in actual ink nature of ink itself and that is the goal of this analysis.

 

Ink review section

 

Test papers include

75gsm sectra copy paper

70gsm and 85gsm nightingale paper

52gsm classmate copy paper (dot bleeds at end seen)

100gsm JK Cedar bond papers.

Random books back sides and some unknown real cheap papers (slight bleed on cheap ones).

 

 

Ink properties

 

Bleeding/Ghosting – very slight on cheap papers.

Feathering – None observed.

Saturation – Good.

Flow – Wet ink.

Dry time – 5 sec to 20 sec approx.

 

 

This above is when ink has been given 1 hrs to dry before pics were taken

 

 

10 day dry time has been given to ink. The color came out to be remarkably what it really is, very dark blue-black almost black in color. As with all the pea shooter phone camera at full works. This will serve as 1st case of testing, more below on that.

 

Water Resistance – Very High. Although the dye tends to bleed out of page, content survive just fine and colour mostly.

 

 

this is 10 day dry time given paper

 

 

 1 min tap run, page has not been given time to dry but cloth was used to try removing ink using as soak for water and not rubbed. Pressed with cloth.

 

 

The square lines have been soaked for 2 hrs in water and then crushed with dry cloth in attempt to remove ink. Color in these 3rd images is way off the mark, its little darker and paper is white, but dye loss is visible and that was intent, sadly due to nature of test its not possible to recreate the colors if one wants to I will perform another one but results will take 10 days at min...cos well 10 day time

 

The ink is wet writer but very well behaved, I did not find any running issue even on wet pens of mine but all nibs I use are Fine ones so there is that, but I don’t think it will give trouble on this front. It does show very small bleed on cheap papers (in my experiment, the paper with bleed were some random 40 ish GSM pages which are very absorbent in nature and on 52 GSM classmate copy paper which showed dot bleeds) All in all a normal paper will not have any issue including copy pages.

 

Cleaning well........will require hard work and regular interval is suggested as with all permanent inks.

 

Ink is very dark blue-black and is on edge of black over blue. The beauty lies in it being blue at start and then quickly darkening to blue-black with inclination to blue for first 2 hrs or so while the real dark blue-black color takes another 2 days to fully show. No significant change after this.....yet.

 

Personal take

 

This ink has been on many people hit list and for obvious reasons of being liked in color and being an IG ink which also raises many questions on maintenance of ink and its general oxidization over time and this comes especially true for people like me who are burned by Sallix if I may be so bold as to say. While sallix tends to show signs of losing color this one it too early to say what changes will be. The main highlight for me was that it will darken as age, now I don’t think it will become black from already very dark, almost black color, but I hope to see it darker then sallix as it ages, The ink on box shows blue black and I suspect that is the final color of the ink (after properly oxidized).

 

 

Lubrication is good, the last part of multiple pen test was left here and oliver used has some issues during testing. Dried ink for 1 hrs.

 

 

7 day dry for same page. below part of page came a bit wrong.....thanks pea camera lol....

 

This page will serve as second case. (more below about case).

 

Reasoning behind other post of same ink

 

Now begins the game of waiting and real reason to separate this post from other Blue black IG. Over the concern for IG ageing in time in current environment and uses, plus paper and well general skepticism of IG ink fade over time faster then most

What I intend to do is simple, record the way the ink changes its color over the course of entire year with the way paper would be normally handled in normal situation.

 

The tests will have 3 categories planned for testing on how the page is kept

 

First- this is one where the page will not be used for any reference and will be opened for bare minimum like taking pics and observing the ink, but paper will lie outside shelf and wardrobe making it exposed to all weather paper might suffer.

 

Second- Same as above but stored in wardrobe.

 

Third-one small page will always be exposed to light of room and daylight abid diffused one to see general nature of inks movement. Possible due to east facing room with complete open windows, attempting to recreate a well naturally lit room.

 

Fourth-Page opened and referred often to as notes, these are my geography notes. The first page of this will be posted along with others later. Oh and this is kept outside wardrobe... get all guide about ice cream makers at this blog cos well its in constant use and I am too lazy.

 

 

this is third case test page.

 

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This is fantastic, really! 
Are you interested in doing a comprehensive set of tests on contemporary IGs in the blue-to-black range? 
Diamine Registrar's, ESSR, Platinum Blue Black, KWZ, and R&K come to mind. 
Seeing things all regularly compared depending on your experience would be extremely cool. 
Many people, in my experience, just test one IG because they already enjoy it, and they aren't especially eager to try others. 
I'm also a perpetrator of this! 
Because I already have so much of something I enjoy, I haven't tested other IG inks sufficiently, but I'd really like to compare them.

[A Smug Dill]

  On 9/6/2022 at 1:31 PM, dawi han said:

Are you interested in doing a comprehensive set of tests on contemporary IGs in the blue-to-black range? 
Diamine Registrar's, ESSR, Platinum Blue Black, KWZ, and R&K come to mind. 

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Are you offering to supply all the inks in the list as material input, for someone else to provide the labour (and know-how?), for such an exercise? 🙂