Krishna Lyrebird Water Sapphire

[HartGummi]

I bought this ink after looking at several writing samples and swatches. The ink showed a lot of variation based on the wetness, but the pale and faded color that I have got with my Kanwrite Desire ED (F nib), has completely underwhelmed me. By underwhelming I mean the ink seems less saturated than Camlin Royal Blue.

 

This pen and nib combination has worked just fine with standard inks like Waterman Serenity Blue, Platinum Carbon Black and Skrip Turquoise.

 

Has anybody faced similar issues with this ink, and if so could you improve the colour?

[Sharad Pratap]

@HartGummi - I too purchased this ink very recently....like 2-3 weeks ago from thepenworld.com. My observation is that this is an iron-gall ink . Iron-gall inks are my favourites now....they work perfectly even on the shittiest paper. Pelikan blue-black is the other iron-gall ink that I have. Now about your problem with the ink....I totally agree....my experience has been the same too. The trick is to use these extremely dry iron-gall inks with ebonite feeds only. I have 2 kanrite heritage pens and one Gama forever pen all three with ebonite feeds. Also, I customised the ebonite feeds on all these 3 pens....I cut the ink channels twice wider and twice deeper to increase the flow tremendously. Now these iron gall inks work really good in these pens after customisation. In fact they write very wet and juicy lines.

I do have some plastic feed pens too....all these plastic feed pens failed miserably with these iron-gall inks.[ I only use fine nibs]. Only Parker frontier somehow managed to work okayish with the pelikan blue-black....I think Parker pens are a bit wetter then the jowo\bock\schmidt nibbed pens.

Another thing that I noticed....Krishna water sapphire is actually even drier than the pelikan blue-black. And I am prellty sure that Krishna water sapphire has more iron content than pelikan blue-black. It even has a stronger iron-gall metallic smell than the pelikan blue-black.

[Sharad Pratap]

I actually like this ink a lot....infact this is one of my favourite top 4 inks now. When it comes out of a wet enough pen....it looks really beautifull. It looks light sky blue leaning towards turquoise. And it is very easy on the eyes while reading unlike the turquoise inks which have a dynamic colour profile and hurts my eyes while reading.

Try this ink with ebonite feed pen with a medium or broad nib.... maybe that will do the trick for you.

[IlikeInksandIcannotlie]

Hmm, I thought Krishna only had one line of IG ink.

 

[Sharad Pratap]

@ilikeinksandicannotlie - I am assuming it to be an iron-gall ink based on my use. I would be pretty surprised if it's actually not.

[IlikeInksandIcannotlie]

AFAIK they only have IG in two inks - a black and a blue, and this ink is completely dye based.

[Sharad Pratap]

Only the manufacturer can clear this doubt. But I can tell you for a fact that this behaves as well as smells exactly like an iron-gall ink. But as I said....I am assuming it to be an iron-gall ink based on my experience....there definitely is a possibility that I could be wrong.

[HartGummi]

On 1/1/2022 at 10:38 PM, Sharad Pratap said:

But I can tell you for a fact that this behaves as well as smells exactly like an iron-gall ink.

It has a very distinctive smell. Reminds me of acetic acid. I asked the creator and he replied that the ink contains phenol too.

 

On 1/1/2022 at 7:49 PM, Sharad Pratap said:

I am assuming it to be an iron-gall ink based on my use.

He did not call it an IG ink, but he did say it is a "very old" formula. I think this basically proves that it is an IG ink.

He also mentioend that this ink is very sensitive to contamination. So don't put it into any pen unless you have thoroughly washed out the previous traces of another ink.

On 1/1/2022 at 12:52 PM, Sharad Pratap said:

I totally agree....my experience has been the same too. The trick is to use these extremely dry iron-gall inks with ebonite feeds only. I have 2 kanrite heritage pens and one Gama forever pen all three with ebonite feeds. Also, I customised the ebonite feeds on all these 3 pens....I cut the ink channels twice wider and twice deeper to increase the flow tremendously.

I complained to Krishna inks about the horribly dry behaviour. He immediately sent me a little bottle of solvent to make the ink wetter and free flowing. 

 

It worked perfectly, now this ink works in my Hero 565, Kanwrite Desire (plastic feed), Kanwrite Desire (ebonite), Platinum Preppy (plastic feed) etc.

 

I have finally scene the rich blue colour with hints of turquoise hiding under it. The shading in Kanwrite's broad stub nib is simply beautiful. 

[HartGummi]

On 1/1/2022 at 4:39 PM, IlikeInksandIcannotlie said:

Hmm, I thought Krishna only had one line of IG ink.

 

Krishna has now stopped those inks too. They discontinued the entire Water series except Water Sapphire. 

[IlikeInksandIcannotlie]

2 hours ago, HartGummi said:

Krishna has now stopped those inks too. They discontinued the entire Water series except Water Sapphire. 

Did he give any reasons for discontinuation?

Any idea which lines will be discontinued?

[HartGummi]

2 hours ago, IlikeInksandIcannotlie said:

Did he give any reasons for discontinuation?

Any idea which lines will be discontinued?

Almost all of the original series have been stopped: Super Rich, RC series has been stopped.

Krishna Pakeezah has also been stopped.

 

Today you can buy the following inks:

 

Classic Series (20 mL for Rs. 130):

Purple Blue, Plum, Classic Blue Black, Dense Black, Emerald Green, Chocolate Brown.

 

ACR Series (20 mL for Rs. 175):

Free Range Blue, Biowood Green, Rubywood Ruby Red.

 

Lyrebird Series (30mL for Rs. 135)

Blue, Blue-Black, Turquoise, Purple, Walnut, Water Sapphire

 

City Series (Sheening):

Chennai, Kolkata

 

Specialty Ink:

Peacock (30 mL for 900)

 

 

 

 

[KrA]

Your observation on the ink is very similar to my experience. When I first inked it in my metropolitan, it just stopped flowing. It also gave a very nostalgic smell of those watercolors that we used with paintbrush in school. (This is what makes me believe that ink is not IG based)

 

I researched a bit and added a bit diluted dish shop and the ink flows perfectly now. It has very good shading and looks different from standard boring blues.

 

My only problem with the ink is that it fails in the water resistant department. It is water resistant to a good extent but a lot of the blue lifts of the page and is soaked in the page making it very unreadable. Also the ink does stains and is much harder to clean than normal inks, something to keep in mind.

[Sharad Pratap]

@HartGummi - May I ask what kind of solvent it is? Is it available in the market?

You are right about the contamination too. I filled it in a converter which had some traces of bril blue left in it and it just got destroyed. it became watery and pale as water.

[Sharad Pratap]

@HartGummi - iron-gall or not....I do really like the colour of this ink. And it does really shade good.

[Sharad Pratap]

@HartGummi - Where do you get this ink for 135? I got it for like 250.

[HartGummi]

7 hours ago, Sharad Pratap said:

May I ask what kind of solvent it is? Is it available in the market?

I asked the creator, he replied that the solvent consists of an "arkkam". I don't know what that is (most likely a plant).

He also sent this link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6l7u8Bl2NE

I doubt the solvent is available for sale online.

7 hours ago, Sharad Pratap said:

I filled it in a converter which had some traces of bril blue left in it and it just got destroyed. it became watery and pale as water.

I bought a new Kanwrite Heritage with a stub nib just for this ink. This ink looks awful in any pen that is not wet. I tried using it in a plastic feed Desire and it came out pale.

7 hours ago, Sharad Pratap said:

iron-gall or not....I do really like the colour of this ink. And it does really shade good.

If this ink behaved well in all pens then it would have been my favorite ink. Only this and Monteverde Horizon Blue are the "true blues" I own.

7 hours ago, Sharad Pratap said:

Where do you get this ink for 135? I got it for like 250.

I bought it straight from the retailer in bulk (1 litre).

[Sharad Pratap]

@HartGummi - 1 litre of ink?....   Try that ink with a wet eyedropper pen with ebonite feed, it will become usable....hope you will be able to finish that much ink some day. That would be a really great achievement actually.

[HartGummi]

7 hours ago, Sharad Pratap said:

Try that ink with a wet eyedropper pen with ebonite feed, it will become usable....hope you will be able to finish that much ink some day.

Not an eyedropper but a Heritage. 

7 hours ago, Sharad Pratap said:

hope you will be able to finish that much ink some day.

Maybe in 10 years. Hope the inks doesn't lose all the water or get slimy. Krishna stopped so many inks, I was worried that my supply of Water Sapphire could disappear at any moment so I bought a lot of it.

[Sharad Pratap]

@HartGummi - 🤣I think the fear of unavailability of their favourite ink is endemic to the species of fountain pen lovers.

[HartGummi]

10 hours ago, Sharad Pratap said:

@HartGummi - 🤣I think the fear of unavailability of their favourite ink is endemic to the species of fountain pen lovers.

Especially for small manufacturers like Krishna. The entire RC series and IG inks have been stopped. No more Moonview, After Dark or Causal. The worst part is they stop the inks without any notice.

 

I think Pilot also discontinued several Iroshizuku inks and introduced new ones in their place.