EFNIR: Kakimori Kurun

[LizEF]

Extra Fine Nib Ink Review: Kakimori Kurun

This is review #254 in my series. Here's the YouTube video:

Post-recording notes: This was a gift sample from a generous FPNer.  Cleaning was easier than usual for a permanent ink.  Only when the ink had had a chance to dry did it require scrubbing.  Otherwise, your usual routine plus some soaking should be enough.  I don't know how to describe the color of this green other than slightly muted. The microscope image was unexciting, so it's not included. Dry time in test was just over 60 seconds.  Dry time in the review was over 90 seconds.  So I went with 105 seconds as a guess and am calling it good enough. I labeled "Shading" as "Low", but on most papers, it's nonexistent.

Zoomed in photo (The color really isn't right. The green I see is brighter. Funny how the camera rendered parts of some strokes as grey.)

Screenshot (Text is too dark. Green is a little off, but better than the magnified photos.)

Scan of Completed Review (This one is actually pretty close to what my eyes see.  Go by this for color.)

Absorbent Paper Close-up (top is puzzle paper like thick newsprint, bottom is old 20lb copy paper) (Both are off in color, but in ways I don't know how to describe. These are still closer than the zoom.)

Line width (One of the lines used for dry time. Magnification is 100x. The grid is 100x100µm. The scale is 330µm, with eleven divisions of 30µm each. The line width for this ink is roughly 270µm. With 254 inks measured, the average line width is 295µm.)

Water Test Results (Color is still too dark and muted.)

Previous Review: De Atramentis Document Black 2.

Images also available on Instagram: @zilxodarap.

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View a list of my inks, complete with review results in a google sheet.

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]

Initial impression of that color, to my eyes, is green tea leaf.  That dry time might as well be forever though.  Thanks for the review!  

[lapis]

Not bad. I first thought of a "slightly chalky green" since "muted" IMO sounds somehow as if I shouldn't hear or see it (the colour of the ink) -- no harm meant. "Green Tea Leaf" sounds even better and in fact now reminds me of my lovely R&K LE Efeublatt (Ivy Leaf).

[LizEF]

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

That dry time might as well be forever though.

I've come to the conclusion that my dry times are useful only for people who live in the desert or by comparison to the dry times of other inks I've reviewed (but even then, it's mostly only relevant for desert-dwellers).  See here for discussion of the theory:

 

It's possible that my dry-time results are more useful in determining flow (surface tension) and lubrication (concentration of surfactants) of an ink than for predicting how long it will take the ink to "dry" (not be smudged when swiping a finger, or some other dry thing, across it).

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

Thanks for the review!  

You're very welcome!

[LizEF]

4 minutes ago, lapis said:

Not bad. I first thought of a "slightly chalky green" since "muted" IMO sounds somehow as if I shouldn't hear or see it (the colour of the ink) -- no harm meant. "Green Tea Leaf" sounds even better and in fact now reminds me of my lovely R&K LE Efeublatt (Ivy Leaf).

Thank you!  It can be hard to figure out how to describe a color in words.  I don't remember it looking chalky the way many pigmented inks look chalky, but I take your point. From their website: "Kurun depicts the dance of a vine’s curling tendrils. A green that captures both vitality and a sense of calm."

[lapis]

20 minutes ago, LizEF said:

A green that captures both vitality and a sense of calm."

Now that is some  green!  💚

[yazeh]

Another excellent Tuesday review @LizEF and what a cliffhanger  

I have to admit after I was initially enamoured with this ink or shall I say it's bottle. I'm quite disappointed with the brand, due to the excessive dry times, even in my humid climate. All their inks suffer from the same malady and lack lubrication. They are best on thick absorbent paper, like Peter Pauper Notebooks or if you love using a blotter. Even on Hammermill copy paper the ink slightly pearls. It seems as if the ink is cellulose-phobic. @InesF can explain the ink's behaviour in much better way

Thanks for making our Tuesdays brighter 🙏

 

 

 

[LizEF]

15 minutes ago, yazeh said:

Another excellent Tuesday review @LizEF and what a cliffhanger  

Thank you!    There will be quite a few cliffhangers before we get to the climax...

 

16 minutes ago, yazeh said:

I have to admit after I was initially enamoured with this ink or shall I say it's bottle. I'm quite disappointed with the brand, due to the excessive dry times, even in my humid climate. All their inks suffer from the same malady and lack lubrication. They are best on thick absorbent paper, like Peter Pauper Notebooks or if you love using a blotter. Even on Hammermill copy paper the ink slightly pearls. It seems as if the ink is cellulose-phobic. @InesF can explain the ink's behaviour in much better way

  Thank you for sharing your extended experience.  A week in the pen is enough to say how it will do from an EF nib, but not really enough to get a feel for longer term use.  <aside>Get samples, people!  Samples!</aside>

 

17 minutes ago, yazeh said:

Thanks for making our Tuesdays brighter 🙏

You're most welcome!

[Sailor Kenshin]

Yay, it's Tuesday!

 

I would wear this color in a pair of knit capris.  Or pajamas.  I would paint a bathroom in this color.

 

Would I use this ink?  I fear not.  Seems like it would be hard on the eyes, take too long to dry, be underlubricated and grindy.  But I love this sort of color.  And I loved looking at the review.  The story is wonderful, too... a dizzying flight down stairs to who-knows-what.

 

Thanks, @LizEF, for lifting the darkness.

 

(Darkness?  Yeah, it's everywhere.)

[inkstainedruth]

@LizEF -- Thanks as usual for the comprehensive review (I was not familiar with this brand).  The color looks nice but the lengthy dry time makes this one a no-go for me.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[LizEF]

2 hours ago, Sailor Kenshin said:

Yay, it's Tuesday!

 

2 hours ago, Sailor Kenshin said:

I would wear this color in a pair of knit capris.  Or pajamas.  I would paint a bathroom in this color.

 

2 hours ago, Sailor Kenshin said:

Would I use this ink?  I fear not.  Seems like it would be hard on the eyes, take too long to dry, be underlubricated and grindy.  But I love this sort of color.

Every color has it's use.  (Well, maybe...)

 

2 hours ago, Sailor Kenshin said:

 And I loved looking at the review.  The story is wonderful, too... a dizzying flight down stairs to who-knows-what.

Thank you!

 

2 hours ago, Sailor Kenshin said:

Thanks, @LizEF, for lifting the darkness.

You're very welcome!

 

2 hours ago, Sailor Kenshin said:

(Darkness?  Yeah, it's everywhere.)

No.  There is light, it's just that sometimes we have to search for it.

[LizEF]

2 hours ago, inkstainedruth said:

@LizEF -- Thanks as usual for the comprehensive review (I was not familiar with this brand).  The color looks nice but the lengthy dry time makes this one a no-go for me.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

You're very welcome, Ruth!  Check out the linked thread - unless you're in a desert, it may well dry much faster for you.

[InesF]

Thank you, @LizEF, for the enthralling story part written with a surprise ink  - double action, so to say! 

(the surprise is fully mine, as this green looks exciting from your photos and scans, and embodies a certain degree of uniqueness)

 

The dry time would not scare me away from using it, but the lack of lubrication may. Life is too short to use badly lubricated inks ...  ...

 

@LizEF, what is the average air humidity at your home and what is the minimum over the day?

[LizEF]

7 hours ago, InesF said:

Thank you, @LizEF, for the enthralling story part written with a surprise ink  - double action, so to say! 

You're very welcome!

 

7 hours ago, InesF said:

(the surprise is fully mine, as this green looks exciting from your photos and scans, and embodies a certain degree of uniqueness)

  It is unique.  Not really my color, but not bad.

 

7 hours ago, InesF said:

The dry time would not scare me away from using it, but the lack of lubrication may. Life is too short to use badly lubricated inks ...  ...

  I'm not sure you'd notice in larger nibs.  If it were worse (there are two ratings worse than this one), then you might, but I think it has to be pretty awful to notice in nibs larger than EF.

 

7 hours ago, InesF said:

@LizEF, what is the average air humidity at your home and what is the minimum over the day?

I haven't bothered to keep track.  It's been raining off and on for more than 24 hours and the hygrometer (here in the house) says 49.  Outside it's 94% (according to weather.com).  Let's see if this average for the area will paste in readable format:

Daily		Morning	Afternoon
74	January	78	69
70	February	77	59
60	March	68	47
53	April	58	39
49	May	51	33
41	June	44	26
36	July	39	22
39	August	44	23
46	September	52	29
56	October	64	41
66	November	74	58
74	December	79	71
55	Annual	61	43

 

My house has forced air heating and cooling (got rid of the swamp (evaporative) cooler a long time ago), so it's always a lot drier inside than out.  I might get a more normal reading on Sunday (first sunny day in the forecast).  Otherwise, it could be next Thursday before things normalize.  I would bet it's 30 or less inside on average.

[LizEF]

7 hours ago, InesF said:

@LizEF, what is the average air humidity at your home and what is the minimum over the day?

Anecdotal answer: I went to visit family who live in a humid region of the country.  In addition to constantly feeling damp (and miserable), after about two weeks I realized my clothing felt incredibly soft.  I thought maybe they had different laundry detergent (it was kept in non-original packaging, so I had no idea what it was).  Asked and it was the same that I use.  Then I realized - the humidity had made my skin softer and smoother.   Got back home and in short order, everything felt rough again...

[PJohnP]

3 hours ago, LizEF said:

My house has forced air heating and cooling (got rid of the swamp (evaporative) cooler a long time ago), so it's always a lot drier inside than out.  I might get a more normal reading on Sunday (first sunny day in the forecast).  Otherwise, it could be next Thursday before things normalize.  I would bet it's 30 or less inside on average.

 

 

Heh.  I'm sitting in my office located in a sub-alpine zone of New Mexico where the humidity is 10% at 67°F on my little weather station.  The office has a "swamp cooler" that's offline since the autumnal temperatures have arrived, so the humidity measurement is a pretty accurate assessment of the ambient conditions.  That's not too bad as I regularly see single digit humidity outside summer conditions.

 

But.  I do actually get some reasonably quick dry times with my inks, although I am clearly not in LizEF's class of trying and testing inks...  <warm smile>

 

 

 

John P.

[LizEF]

43 minutes ago, PJohnP said:

Heh.  I'm sitting in my office located in a sub-alpine zone of New Mexico where the humidity is 10% at 67°F on my little weather station.

Yes, 10% would be low here (though we often joke that "10% humidity feels muggy").  There are definitely drier places on the planet.

 

44 minutes ago, PJohnP said:

But.  I do actually get some reasonably quick dry times with my inks, although I am clearly not in LizEF's class of trying and testing inks...  <warm smile>

  It's definitely only some inks that suffer from this problem.  My thread on dry time has some good science that helps explain it, though I don't think my brain has finished compiling the info.  And I'm a bit too busy to try the suggested test.  But I'll get to it eventually!

 

Hmm.  Perhaps there's a tipping point.  A "just wrong" dryness range where inks take a long time to dry but don't evaporate quite fast enough.  If it's even drier, fast evaporation makes up for lack of absorption?  Who knows.  So many variables, so little time...

[InesF]

23 hours ago, LizEF said:

My house has forced air heating and cooling (got rid of the swamp (evaporative) cooler a long time ago), so it's always a lot drier inside than out.  I might get a more normal reading on Sunday (first sunny day in the forecast).  Otherwise, it could be next Thursday before things normalize.  I would bet it's 30 or less inside on average.

That was important information, @LizEF. Things may start to become different from the usual and expected paper and ink behaviour below 35% rH (relative humidity) and are definitely strange below 20% rH.

Always valid with no exception: water will evaporate faster the lower the air humidity is and the higher the temperature.

However, I would not have had expected such a different ink behaviour on paper around 40% rH.

 

After a more or less long time of contact, there is always an equilibrium between air humidity and water content in all the materials around (in the wood, in the walls, in the furniture, in the clothes, in the paper, and so on). A quick-and-dirty search resulted in this short explanation with examples and maybe also Wikipedia has some useful information. The equilibrated aW-value of a substance represents directly the air humidity; a value of a_W 1 is equal to 100% rH. When you look at top of page 411 (cereals) you recognise that these have very low a_W-values (in the form as delivered), means: if you open the package in air with above ca. 40-50% rH, they will absorb water and become sticky. Other food with a_W-values of, lets say 0.9, opened in an environment with below 80% rH will start to dry. This is only for understanding the principles of the equilibration.

 

A sheet of paper that was sealed as a pack and opened at your home starts with an a_W-value around 0.2 to 0.3 and will start to absorb water from the air if the rH is higher or will loose water if the air rH is below. In other words: I would had expected that your paper may be more "wet" some time after opening the package. And especially after weeks and month laying around it will be fully equilibrated and will contain a lot more water than it had after unpacking.

 

However, writing paper consists of additional ingredients besides cellulose fibres. These may be secret to us and their influence can only be guessed.

 

The ink behaviour remains a partial mystery. @LizEF, maybe you can do the experiment with equilibrated paper stored over saturated sodium chloride (salt) solution, which should have an a_W of 0.6 and with paper freshly put out from a 15 minutes stay in the oven (110°C) with an expected a_W of 0.05 (for one or two minutes, before starting to suck water out from the air).

 

I'm not sure if can bring light to this dark chapter of fountain pen and ink use (), it may be worth a try. 🧑‍🎓

Have a nice weekend!

[InesF]

PS to above entry: Here a graphical representation of the equilibrium dynamics between rH and water content. Remember, the a_W value is in equilibrium always the same as the rH):

(diagram copied from: https://www.processsensing.com/en-us/)

[LizEF]

57 minutes ago, InesF said:

However, I would not have had expected such a different ink behaviour on paper around 40% rH.

I'll move the analog "weather station" to the room where I do my reviews.  Then I can note the rH whenever I start my reviews.

 

1 hour ago, InesF said:

The equilibrated aW-value of a substance represents directly the air humidity; a value of a_W 1 is equal to 100% rH. When you look at top of page 411 (cereals) you recognise that these have very low a_W-values (in the form as delivered), means: if you open the package in air with above ca. 40-50% rH, they will absorb water and become sticky. Other food with a_W-values of, lets say 0.9, opened in an environment with below 80% rH will start to dry. This is only for understanding the principles of the equilibration.

Around here, you leave a package of anything open for 2 hours and it's a rock forevermore.  I keep a small piece of bread in my Rolaids so they don't break my teeth...  (And have to replace it now and then as I don't use them that often and after a while, they and the bread are rocks...)

 

1 hour ago, InesF said:

A sheet of paper that was sealed as a pack and opened at your home starts with an a_W-value around 0.2 to 0.3 and will start to absorb water from the air if the rH is higher or will loose water if the air rH is below. In other words: I would had expected that your paper may be more "wet" some time after opening the package. And especially after weeks and month laying around it will be fully equilibrated and will contain a lot more water than it had after unpacking.

Well, that's interesting.  (Of course, Rhodia dot pads aren't shipped (to me) in shrink-wrap - they come with no packaging other than the box they're in.  My Rhodia Webnotebooks, on the other hand, did come shrink wrapped, and I leave them that way until I open them to use.  Ink dries much faster on these, so I know part of it is the "added ingredients" in dot pads.)

 

1 hour ago, InesF said:

The ink behaviour remains a partial mystery. @LizEF, maybe you can do the experiment with equilibrated paper stored over saturated sodium chloride (salt) solution, which should have an a_W of 0.6 and with paper freshly put out from a 15 minutes stay in the oven (110°C) with an expected a_W of 0.05 (for one or two minutes, before starting to suck water out from the air).

 

I'm not sure if can bring light to this dark chapter of fountain pen and ink use (), it may be worth a try. 🧑‍🎓

Have a nice weekend!

  Well, this is certainly an interesting experiment!  How long do you suppose the paper should stay over the salt solution?  And should it be in some container or open to the air?  I could always put the paper on a rack over the solution and all of it inside the microwave - I often use the microwave for short-term storing of things I don't want to dry out.

 

It will probably be a couple of weeks before I even start on these experiments (and @dipper's from the other thread), but I'll get to them.

 

Thank you for sharing your brilliant brain with us!