A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending the DC Pen Show, which is technically in VA, not really DC and one of the interesting products I was able to get my hands on was this KWZ Iron Gall Green Gold ink from Vanness Pens. Apologies for the not ideal photography, but I’ve got a new photo setup that I’m still trying to get the hang of.
Iron Gall inks are known for their deep and water resistant colors, but also have a reputation for being a bit more high maintenance. I can say that so far in about 3 weeks of using the KWZ Iron Gall Green Gold ink, in my TWSBI Diamond 580 with 1.5mm stub nib and my Pilot Vanishing Point with a fine nib I have successfully cleaned them out and see no issues from the ink in terms of any visible corrosion or ink staining.
When you are loading this ink up in your pen you will instantly notice the vibrant green color, which the above picture probably doesn’t even do justice. A quick peek at the cap though will start to give you the idea that the ink will darken up a little once you start writing with it. You can see more of the color differences in the poor quality video at the end of the review and in the writing sample in the next photo. With a little patience and practice you can get some nice shading with this ink too, with the understanding that its going to darken up on you over time.
THis picture of the writing sample above gives you a good idea of the different shades you can get with the KWZ Iron Gall Green Gold ink as it dries and with a wider nib as well. The ink swabs in the center of the page were before the ink really had a chance to completely dry and settle into the true color on this ivory paper. The dry time with this ink was pretty manageable with the Pilot Vanishing Point Fine nib at about 6 seconds, but you can see with the 1.5mm stub nib, things were a little different. Obviously the 6 billion second mark is an exaggeration, but this ink was literally oozing out of the stub nib on this pen. I’ve used plenty of other inks in this nib and none of them had the same excessive flow that I saw with this ink. It was still able to be written with, but it required an extra degree of care not to splash around or drip in some instances. I did do some water smears to see if the ink ran off the page, and it held up very well with no smearing and the slightest hint of green left on my finger tip.
As I mentioned, I grabbed this KWZ Iron Gall Green Gold ink from Vanness Pens at the pen show, but you can go ahead and grab some of your own at the link there. Definitely keep in m ind that you will want to be careful with this ink in any pen. Just make sure you don’t leave it sitting in a pen for too long because although I had no issues with the two pens I tried it in, you will want to do your own test with your pens that you use.
©2017, Brian Greene. All rights reserved.
