EFNIR: KWZ Green Gold

[LizEF]

Extra Fine Nib Ink Review: KWZ Green Gold

This is review #150 in my series.  Here's the YouTube video:

Post-recording notes: Cleaning was quick and easy. This is my kind of color: gold with a hint of green. If I didn't already have a bottle of Robert Oster Bronze, I'd be sorely tempted. The green was a *lot* easier to see as I was cleaning and it washed around in the sink, so artists using this for a wash (e.g.) may find more green than they bargained for. The scanner hated this ink. It's utterly useless - the text is too dark and shows none of the green gold color. The screen shot is better, but still not accurate. The AP image is too green. The zoom is quite accurate.

And here is a screen of the final result, for those not interested in the video:

Scan of Completed Review:

Zoomed in photo:

Absorbent Paper Closeup (top is puzzle paper like thick newsprint, bottom is old 20lb copy paper):

Images also available on Instagram: @zilxodarap

Previous Review: Diamine Safari.

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Need to catch up on The Adventures of Quin and Makhabesh?  Find the whole story here.

Hope you enjoy.  Comments appreciated!

[I-am-not-really-here]

Gold with a hint of green? My eyes are not seeing any gold in them there hills.  It all looks grass green.

 

What is the KWZ scent? You could throw in a sentence like  "The ink tasted of ripe elderberries at dusk yet the underlying aroma was, er, something not mentionable in good company" just to see if people are paying attention. 

[yazeh]

22 minutes ago, I-am-not-really-here said:

What is the KWZ scent? You could throw in a sentence like  "The ink tasted of ripe elderberries at dusk yet the underlying aroma was, er, something not mentionable in good company" just to see if people are paying attention. 

Brilliant

 

[yazeh]

Great job, Liz

The colour reminds me of tarnished bronze.... It probably would look more complex and interesting with a wide nib. But in an EF nib, it's sort of yucky.

 

 

What's the name of the High Wizard? Hidy? (From the infamous hidy hidy ho, ho, ho!)

[LizEF]

28 minutes ago, I-am-not-really-here said:

Gold with a hint of green? My eyes are not seeing any gold in them there hills.  It all looks grass green.

Well, the images may highlight the green too much...  And monitors and eyes vary.  Definitely doesn't look like my grass - except may when it's dormant in winter....

 

29 minutes ago, I-am-not-really-here said:

What is the KWZ scent? You could throw in a sentence like  "The ink tasted of ripe elderberries at dusk yet the underlying aroma was, er, something not mentionable in good company" just to see if people are paying attention. 

Others have described the scent as vanilla.  To me, it's the same thing I've smelled from other KWZ inks (except Honey, which had a different scent).  But I can't describe the scent, or even confirm it's vanilla, because my nose (or that part of my brain) doesn't work right - cracked my head decades ago and the lasting result was a messed-up sense of smell.  Sorry, but someone else is going to have to confirm vanilla or describe it in some other fashion...

[Sailor Kenshin]

32 minutes ago, I-am-not-really-here said:

Gold with a hint of green? My eyes are not seeing any gold in them there hills.  It all looks grass green.

 

What is the KWZ scent? You could throw in a sentence like  "The ink tasted of ripe elderberries at dusk yet the underlying aroma was, er, something not mentionable in good company" just to see if people are paying attention. 

 

It's...spoiled birthday cake.

 

i see no gold, either, but the color is one I would like.

 

@LizEF ....great review as always.  I see you got Old Goat in there, more than one way!  The long dry time, however....nope, not for this southpaw.

[LizEF]

6 minutes ago, yazeh said:

Great job, Liz

Thanks!

 

6 minutes ago, yazeh said:

The colour reminds me of tarnished bronze.... It probably would look more complex and interesting with a wide nib. But in an EF nib, it's sort of yucky.

Blasphemy!  It's wonderfully murky is what it is!

 

8 minutes ago, yazeh said:

What's the name of the High Wizard? Hidy? (From the infamous hidy hidy ho, ho, ho!)

Hmm.  I have no idea what his name is.  If I did, I could probably find him - names are powerful things, after all...  But I can tell you he's not hiding.  That much I know.  He might be lost, or trapped, or captured, but he's not hiding.

[LizEF]

1 minute ago, Sailor Kenshin said:

....great review as always.

Thanks!

 

2 minutes ago, Sailor Kenshin said:

I see you got Old Goat in there, more than one way!

 

2 minutes ago, Sailor Kenshin said:

The long dry time, however....nope, not for this southpaw.

Yeah.  I've decided to start doing more pre-testing of dry time - apparently I'm still no good at guestimating.  I'm wondering if there isn't some common additive in KWZ standard inks, cuz they all seem to have long dry times.

[Tas]

🙂

[LizEF]

14 minutes ago, Tas said:

🙂

[mizgeorge]

Thank you as always @LizEF - great review of an ink I always find hard to get good pictures of too. I love a good murky green, but it's curious how different this looks in an EF compared to my more usual great fat stubby lines!

 

I have to admit, I don't generally gravitate to KWZ (I think it's to do with the smell), but I got this one for the colour. At the time it felt quite unusual, though I now slightly prefer the yellower #2 version, and there are certainly enough other options that I like as much or more which have come out in the last couple of years for me not to probably not replace when it's empty. 

[LizEF]

2 hours ago, mizgeorge said:

Thank you as always

You're very welcome!

 

2 hours ago, mizgeorge said:

great review of an ink I always find hard to get good pictures of too. I love a good murky green, but it's curious how different this looks in an EF compared to my more usual great fat stubby lines!

You're welcome!  I have yet to use it in a fat nib, so I'm going to take your word for it.

 

2 hours ago, mizgeorge said:

I have to admit, I don't generally gravitate to KWZ (I think it's to do with the smell), but I got this one for the colour. At the time it felt quite unusual, though I now slightly prefer the yellower #2 version, and there are certainly enough other options that I like as much or more which have come out in the last couple of years for me not to probably not replace when it's empty. 

Certainly it's a good time to love murky inks!  And my own preferences have changed over the few years I've been in the hobby.  Right now, Robert Oster Bronze is #1 with me - love it!  (Sorry, Salamander.)

[LizEF]

Here's the line width measurement. The line is one of those used for dry time.  Magnification is 100x.  The grid is 100x100µm.  The scale is 300µm, with ten divisions of 30µm each.  The line width for this ink is roughly 285µm.

 

[InkyProf]

Excuse me for resurrecting an old thread, but has anyone had trouble with KWZ Green Gold clogging in nib slits or feeds?

 

[I made the scientifically impractical move of putting a new-to-me ink in a new-to-me pen, so I can't tell whether the problem I encountered (pen dries up overnight, starts writing again after a several seconds of slow, gentle writing with little pressure) is more likely to be the ink or the nib (which though new has a small amount of roughness visible along the slit below the tipping). Or, of course, the very special and utterly incalculable combination of the two. I've flushed the pen and re-inked with something straightforward and familiar to see what happens, and I'll try the Green Gold in a different pen, too -- I like the color and don't mind the smell! -- but I'm curious about others' experiences.]

[LizEF]

8 minutes ago, InkyProf said:

pen dries up overnight

This is most likely the pen not sealing well from evaporation.  I'm surprised it's that bad, particularly in upstate NY, which is fairly humid.  I'll be interested to hear what comes of your testing with other ink.  I don't remember KWZ Green Gold being particularly saturated (that's usually why inks dry fast on the nib or don't tolerate evaporation - low water content to begin with).

[InkyProf]

 

16 minutes ago, LizEF said:

upstate NY, which is fairly humid

 

Downright tropical at times! We've been pretty rain-free for the last several weeks, but the indoor RH is not low, especially now that it's cooled off and we're not running the AC any more. And I have 11 other pens inked, vintage and modern, none of which is misbehaving.*

 

16 minutes ago, LizEF said:

not sealing well

 

The pen is new and the cap threads on tightly. It looks like the "inner cap" is actually just a smaller-bore recess within the cap formed from a single piece of acrylic; my assumption is that the section butts up against the lip of that recess (I'll take some measurements to see if that seems right).

 

The manufacturer advised that it might have been dried ink from their pre-shipping nib test and asked me to flush, soak, and refill with something else, and suggested Pelikan, so that's what I'm doing; I'll let them (and you) know after a couple of overnights how it goes!

 

* Hey, pens, that is not an invitation to prove me wrong. Just sayin'. Mess with me and you go back in the dark, dark drawer.

[LizEF]

40 minutes ago, InkyProf said:

The manufacturer advised that it might have been dried ink from their pre-shipping nib test and asked me to flush, soak, and refill with something else, and suggested Pelikan, so that's what I'm doing; I'll let them (and you) know after a couple of overnights how it goes!

It's when you don't clean the pen before first inking that you needed to clean the pen before first inking!   I hope that's all it was.

 

41 minutes ago, InkyProf said:

* Hey, pens, that is not an invitation to prove me wrong. Just sayin'. Mess with me and you go back in the dark, dark drawer.

[InkyProf]

22 minutes ago, LizEF said:

It's when you don't clean the pen before first inking that you needed to clean the pen before first inking!   I hope that's all it was.

 

And here I thought that the fact that I received a nice handwritten nib test with the pen freed me from having to do that conventional pre-first-inking cleaning! But, yes, I hope so too, and thanks!

[yazeh]

What's your pen if it's not confidential?

 

[InkyProf]

Santini Italia Nonagon.