Diamine Graphite

Ink Reviews
Written By Julian

Ink Review #137

 

*Please note that the scan is the accurate representation of this color.

 

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Overview

The color/properties

Diamine Graphite is a medium grey ink that has heavy green undertones. It shades with a soft cut in both cursive and print writing, and loses its soft green tones for a darker, fuller grey anywhere that the ink pools.

My ink splat and droplets showed a (barely) visible red sheen, however in writing It’s not something I noticed outside of the occasional shiny edge around a shaded area of ink, and mostly when writing in print.

Ink splat

Ink droplets

 

Rhodia

Leuchtturm1917

 

Performance on paper:

Diamine Graphite is very well behaved. I didn’t see any signs of bleeding or feathering on any of the test papers, as well as on the ink splats and droplets. This ink should be great on most fountain pen-friendly papers.

The dry times were mostly average, although noticeably better on Rhodia. In most cases, the larger nib sizes were dry between 15-20 seconds, with the finer nib sizes drying within 10-15. Unfortunately, the odd one out here is Leuchtturm, where it took much longer to dry, and although dry enough to close a book on, it seemed particularly prone to smudging regardless of the dry time.

The water resistance isn’t great, and water exposure unfunately causes a lot of color clouding. There are still some dark shadows left over of the writing, however, and it may retain some legibility.

Midori MD

Maruman

Tomoe River

Kokuyo

Water resistance

Chromatography

Performance in the pen:

Graphite has a dry-medium flow across all of the nib sizes I used in my test. Despite that, the lubrication isn’t as poor as you would expect — while not slick, it’s still far from uncomfortable and makes for an average, serviceable writing experience. I also didn’t run into any hard starts, skips, or stops during my tests, and it seems to be able to keep up with fast writing without any issues.

Cleaning this ink out of my nib units was quick and only required an initial flush; however, there were some rings of grey residue left over inside the pen that couldn’t be removed by just flushing with water.

 
Diamine Graphite cleaning

Written on 52 GSM Tomoe River paper (white) with a medium nib.

Written on Midori MD paper (cream) with a medium nib.

  • Performance in a pen: 10/10

  • Performance on paper: 10/10

  • Color saturation: 6/10

  • Sheening: 1/10

  • Shading: 5/10

  • Dry time: 6.5/10

  • Water resistance: 2/10

  • Ease of cleaning: 7.5/10

  • Shimmer: None

My Personal Thoughts…

Being an adoring fan of grey inks in general, Diamine Graphite was right up my alley, and it’s been on my radar for quite some time, so perhaps I’ve built up too much anticipation for it, because as a general grey ink, I think it’s excellent — but for what I thought it was: a ink that looked more akin to what I would expect when writing from a pencil — maybe not so much. Don’t get me wrong; at a glance, it might be fairly convincing, but there’s just so much green in there, and the wider the nib gets, the more green it seems. It gives the ink a unique cold earthiness. Maybe they were simply going for the look of a chunk of graphite — that might be close — but honestly, if you’re looking for something more pencil-y, I would recommend looking elsewhere (although, I myself haven’t found the perfect pencil-y ink yet). “But Julian, why do you want your pen to write like a pencil?” I don’t know! I’m just like that — and if you don’t have pencil-centric hangups like myself, then yes, I recommend Diamine Graphite because it’s a beautiful grey in its own right and despite everything, I’m still loving it.

Sample written on 52 gsm Tomoe River paper with a Lamy Lx (medium nib).

More images/info:

 

Featured in the photography and writing samples:

 

Comparisons:

 

Tools and materials used in the writing samples:

  • A TWSBI Diamond 580 AL with 7 nib units including a Needlepoint grind, EF, F, M, B, 1.1mm stub, and an Architect grind. All nibs are tuned to perform at the same medium wetness.

  • A Rhodia No16 A5 DotPad

  • A Leuchtturm1917 A5 Notebook

  • A Midori MD A5 Notebook

  • A 52gsm A5 Tomoe River Notebook

  • A Maruman Mnemosyne A5 Spiral Notebook

  • A Kokuyo Campus A5 Notebook

 
Julian
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