Kwz Baltic Memories

[white_lotus]

KWZ Baltic Memories (Wspomnienie znad Baltyku)

 

I must say I was very excited when I saw the announcement of new KWZ inks. I am a real fan of their inks, and they are one of my favorites. This is the first of those three new inks that I'll review. There are a number of positive things about this ink, and one fairly important negative.

 

The color for this ink is really lovely. It's a green-leaning blue but quite dark, so not at all a bright teal. The shading I got with the Gate City Belmont was fabulous. There's supposed to be lots of sheen with this ink and it's true. It's sort of shiny and not quite red, it more like darkens the places where a heavier application is found. I don't care much for sheen. It's not a requirement for the inks I use and most of the papers I use won't show sheen, ever. So unimportant to me. I don't know if this sheen is the kind folks will rave about. The ink is not water resistant and having a heavy dye load will probably leave a mess when a page interacts with water.

 

The problem I have with this ink is the numerous hard starts and skips. I suspect it was the pen did not work well with this ink. This is a fairly wet nib, but it would constantly dry out even after a few seconds of a pause. And it would write somewhat dryly until the flow got going again. On Rhodia, the writing was painful as the paper is somewhat dry itself. These problems made me quite disappointed in the ink.

 

The saturation/dye load for this ink is very high, much higher than the usual KWZ ink. So much so I was concerned that the ink would stain the clear barrel of the Belmont. It did not, but I only had the pen inked for a couple days with it. This ink reminded me of some of Noodler's ultra-saturated inks where it's necessary to add some water, perhaps up to 10%, to improve their flow. I haven't tried this yet here, so don't take that as a recommendation.

 

After my disappointment I switched pens to an Edison Premiere (F). I knew this pen was very wet, with an excellent feed. So far it has performed flawlessly without the hard starts, skips, dry out I experienced with the Belmont. But much of the special character of the ink is lost: it's now just a dark blue-green with minimal shading. If I was writing on paper that would show the sheen, perhaps I'd see that aspect of the ink.

 

I'll have to give some thought to which of my pens might work well with this ink and bring out its good qualities.

 

I'd definitely recommend a sample so you can determine whether you'll have issues with your pens with this ink.

 

 

Pen: Gate City Belmont (M-steel)

Pen: Edison Premiere (F-steel)

Papers: MvL=Mohawk via Linen, TR=Tomoe River, Hij=Hammermill 28 lb inkjet, Rhodia=Rhodia 90g ivory.

Camera: iPhone 7 using Camera+ app

The images were fairly decent, but the FPN uploader seems to modify the images making the ink appear darker and with less range than in reality. As always with ink reviews, you may want to order a sample prior to diving in on a full bottle.

Sadly the FPN uploader has totally messed up these first two images. Far too dark in the ink. The original images look fine on my screen.

[inkstainedruth]

Not a color for me. But thanks for the review.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[niunia]

Hi, thanks for your review!

You are right that adding around 10% of water will limit the effect of quick drying in some nibs. It will also increase the shading and decrease a bit sheening. Any water is ok (perfect if distilled).

 

Best wishes

Mrs. KWZI

[white_lotus]

Thanks very much Mrs. KWZI I'll definitely give your suggestion a try.

[catalyst]

In my first experience with KWZ standard inks, I received this Baltic Memories and walks over Vistula about a week ago and I absolutely love them. I have been a huge fan of Sailor made inks, but I have been very impressed with my first couple of KWZ inks, and I will get samples of more.

 

Walks over Vistula has been performing very good, the lubrication, shading and sheening reminds me of a green-tinted version of Bungubox Sapphire.

 

This Baltic memories is a little darker, but overall more surprising and interesting, I put it in a Wing Sung 698 with a 78G BB which is about average wetness and it shades very well and writes a little dry. I put it in a wet Namiki Falcon Soft Broad and it just gushes out and writes as if it were a paint brush. I cannot wait to try them both in some more flexy pens because they let the Falcon effortlessly flex with no sign of railroading.

 

Both have performed very well on good and bad paper and I see very little smudging considering the broad wet Namiki Falcon I am using. But I am definitely seeing a larger difference than I expected from pen to pen with Baltic Memories. I did not see this big of a difference with Walks over Vistula.

 

 

 

 

Off-Light Angle:

Edited December 11, 2017 by catalyst

[senzen]

Great review! I like this ink, it's very subtle in spite of the sheen (not into disco inks); but if I get another blue my head will explode.

[GregW]

On 12/10/2017 at 10:12 PM, niunia said:

Hi, thanks for your review!

You are right that adding around 10% of water will limit the effect of quick drying in some nibs. It will also increase the shading and decrease a bit sheening. Any water is ok (perfect if distilled).

 

Best wishes

Mrs. KWZI

Hello, I also had this really annoying issue with hard starts with this ink - and only with this ink - on an otherwise rather wet pen. 
Adding 5% water fully resolved this issue. The ink’s green color is more prominent now, as it is less dark, and it seems more wet. 

 

Thanks for the tip,

Gregory