When i did a review, a little while ago, of every nib size here of the grog squeezer markers, i got
asked one question in the comments over and over and over again. Incidentally, also when i did a
review of the legendary grog cutter markers, i got asked that very same question. And that question
was, "Sciz, is the Grog Buff Proof ink actually any good?" And since so many people seem to be
wondering that, that's exactly what we're here to find out today while we do a full surface tagging
test as well as an all telling buff test with this grog bpi, to see if it lives up to its name at
all. Is it really buff proof? What's the formula like? Is it nice and viscous? How drippy is it?
So. if you'd like some answers to those questions then stick around and we will get right to it.
So i'll tell you the basic info that graffiti artists and writers will need to know about this
buff proof ink and then we'll scoot on over to our testing area and see what this stuff writes like
and, will it buff? So, this is the 200ml refill bottle of the grog bpi. It is an alcohol-based dye
ink that comes in four different colours according to the grog website specifically. One
of these refills will cost you around 10 USD, or thereabouts. The formula itself is built to resist
not only chemical buffing but also uv rays apparently. Just a word of warning though before
we head on over to the testing area; i do want to say that although it does say it is built to
resist those uv rays, generally paints are more fade resistant than inks and that's something
to always keep in mind, even when an ink is claiming it has some form of uv resistance.
But now it is time to crack open this beautiful Diving Blue, (That's the colour this one is.)
fill a mop up with it and head over to our testing area so that we can do a nice little
sub segment of our reviews here called, "will it buff!" I will see you guys over there.
Welcome everyone to our testing area here. If you are a regular viewer of the channel,
first of all thank you for your continued support, but if you are a regular viewer you may notice
we've done some significant upgrades here to our testing area we now have one of the most slippery
smooth surfaces to write on today with this beautiful grog buff proof ink, so that'll help
us determine today just how buff proof this grog bpi actually is. And just a reminder for everyone,
i always link every product we review in the description if you guys do end up wanting to pick
this up try it out for yourself. So, i'll link the grog bpi for you; i'll also link some of the grog
squeezers as well. And that brings me to the mops that we're using today. So we will be filling up
this, it's a fairly new mop to the graffiti market by On the Run actually. It's got a bit of a unique
nib. It's a nylon nib. We're actually going to be taking that out here and replacing it with a grog
squeezer nib. And yes this one is a slightly used one, but we are doing that for a specific reason,
two reasons admittedly. The first, because i don't have any 18 mil nibs
at the moment that are brand new and, second, i have found over the years that a slightly used
nib tends to contain the lines of ink a little bit better, makes them a little more solid and
a bit less drippy. So, obviously that's just a personal preference of mine, but that is
something i've noticed just over the years I guess. And of course after we fill this Superflow
mop up with the grog buff proof ink, nib it, and do a few tags of subscribers names who have
asked me for hit offs, then we'll have a better idea of what we call here on the channel the
"dripability" of the formula. Inks are always very very drippy of course. You know, the viscosity,
the consistency of the formula and the opacity of the formula as well. And that'll really help
us figure out if this grog buff proof ink actually has some merit on its own, even before we try and
buff it. And after that i have some sort of, you know, standard buffing materials that you can get
which i'll talk a little bit about later and again that'll help us determine how buff-proof is this
buff proof ink. But for now let's get this mop filled up and see what this bpi is all about!
Pro tip with Sciz here: always clean the threads of your refill bottle and if the
threads inside here need a bit of cleaning do that too. You'll thank yourself later.
All right, Ralo wanted to hit off. Let's start with Ralo here.
I know this surface is super super repellent, hence why you're getting this sort of
scrappy looking line, but when i squeeze enough to get a nice thick,
fully saturated sort of line that the surface has to accept, this is a beautiful beautiful
consistency. I'll give you a way better look on camera of this formula because it's just gorgeous.
So you really cannot deny just the beautiful beautiful consistency in the colouring of this
ink. I mean we are on a white surface and I chose a white surface particularly for this one because
the 'Diving Blue' is quite dark and really one of the only ways you're going to see
that blue sort of tinge in its full glory is on the white surface.
But you do see a beautiful beautiful consistency like i was mentioning before. I should point out
that even the lines that aren't perfectly formed here are lines where i wasn't squeezing. Like I
said, just personal preference. I don't love tons and tons of drips. It's fine if you do.
Graffiti has no rules; you get to make whatever kind of tags you want guys. Don't worry about
my preferences. But, that being said, these drips really do add something. Some inks you
just get like not very good drips. I don't know how else to put it. These ones even maintain
a bit of three-dimensionality despite it being an ink. Inks are always runnier
of course; their binders don't exactly work the same way when you have a soluble dye pigment,
which is the opposite of paint pigments of course, the soluble aspect. And you know
what? That really does lead me to a discussion maybe that we should have about what surfaces
this stuff is best on. Of course, metal surfaces are always great, everyone loves metal surfaces
right? I don't know. What's your favourite surface to write on maybe let me know in the
comments. Some smoother concretes would actually be really nice if you're willing to do a bit of
damage to your nib, and any polyplastic like this is quite nice of course. I'm not mentioning glass;
glass is of course a very nice surface to write on but, in terms of buff proofness, even the
most buff-proof stuff comes off of glass quite a bit easier than most other surfaces. Glass just
does not absorb anything. And if you are a dye ink, whatever base, alcohol base like this one,
you feed off those surfaces and really want to absorb into those surfaces and on glass it just
can't do that. So, even before we test the buff proofness of this, i would say that grog buff
proof ink has some merit to it just by itself. Bu,t what we do really want to know is just how
buff proof this grog buff proof ink really is, because hey, it's their number one claim. It's the
boldest font on the bottle. If you're gonna claim it's buff proof, it should be at least partially
buff proof, ideally much more than partially buff proof. So, what we're gonna do is we're gonna let
this dry and actually set into a surface. We don't want to just be wiping off a wet ink, but while it
dries, let me introduce to you the materials we're going to try and buff it with today. Now there's
a couple different ones i have just to make it a bit more of a challenge for the ink. We don't want
this ink to look better than it is. So, let me introduce you to them. So, here's the first one.
This is your just normal off-the-shelf graffiti remover. It states that it works on spray paints,
crayon marks, ballpoint pens, and the like, so really it's probably not your strongest buffing
material that you could be using, but this is something that a lot of people would be
using to try and remove graffiti possibly. So, we definitely should try that out. Just a side note
too, i find it very ironic that Tremclad of all brands seems to understand the superiority of a
female valved can, which they have - it's a new york fat cap on here. I compared them directly
to my new york fat caps. This is a new york fat cap true and through, and they just have new york
fat caps on here. So that's nice. But i find it so ironic that they know about the female valve cans,
yet brands like Rusto, Krylon, they're still using this male valve stuff. Like what are you
guys doing! Come on! It's funny because it's like the buff man is ahead of the writers in terms of
the technology here. What's going on with that? But anyway, the second thing we're going to try
here to buff it is exactly what i use to clean my mops the threads on them and whatnot, and that is,
it's actually nail polish remover. What it is, it's almost entirely acetone and admittedly this
works better with paint most of the time but being that the grog ppi is an alcohol base,
it might make sense to try this sort of thing. It's a very harsh chemical. You really don't want
to get it on your skin too much. So, you know, while we wait for this to dry, maybe check the
first link in the description. Check these shirts out! I'll be back when this is dry.
All right, so this is dry to the touch. Yeah you can see like even the drips are not
giving off anything. So it's had a chance to settle into the surface a little bit. First we're
going to try the acetone out. You never know. This could surprise us. So, what i'm gonna do here is
find a clean spot on our wonderful rag here. Let's just see if it does anything.
Wow...
Well would you look at that... that's incredible. And all it took
was a dollar store bottle of acetone! What wha what the hell? I don't know.
Let's try this again a little bit because - yeah like you can just - it's not even...
it doesn't even take time. What is this crap? All right guys. Well i could remove the rest of this
tag but like, you saw it right on camera. This came off just with a little bit of acid. It's
not like i used almost any of this. But as far as buffing goes, to me this is buffed. There's
no ghost of a tag anywhere; it's just gone and if you really wanted to you could get a lot of this
blue stuff off. Like look at how much has come off onto this towel, just with a little bit of
acetone. See? Son't underestimate the acetone guys. That's uh that's the lesson here. So,
i guess what we'll try right now is we'll move over to a separate tag so that none of
this acetone residue is making any kind of impact while we try out this just off the shelf graffiti
remover. Let's move over and try and - can you see that - try and buff this Ralo tag. Okay,
this off-the-shelf stuff, it should be in good working order. It does say apply it,
leave it on for a few minutes, so i'm gonna spray this on here, go watch something for a little bit
and then we'll come back and try and see if it did its magic to this buff proof ink.
I don't mean to be pessimistic, but i just sprayed this on and it's already
taken some of this off, but let's not jump to conclusions. Let's see what happens.
Okay guys, i let this buffing liquid sit here for a few minutes
so it's gonna be the "buff proof ink" i will say
versus your graffiti remover. Let's see what happens right now. Just so you're aware,
i'm not using the part of the towel that had the acetone on it. I'll use a nice separate part here.
Well again, you're definitely not seeing a ghost in the part i was able to remove.
This part's a little bit thicker and it's clearly having a bit of trouble with that,
so let me just try and reapply here and see what this can do.
Oh wow.
Okay well that answers that. And here's your proof. It's coming off. Obviously
this is an inconvenience but frankly that to me doesn't constitute buff proof in any capacity
when you're off-the-shelf graffiti remover has just obliterated that Ralo tag. Very very sad.
We covered the towel. Okay so, you saw what you saw there; i don't need to say anything about
it. But i want to sit down with you guys and just talk about one thing that is important to
know about sort of these staining inks, because there's a certain culture surrounding graffiti
implements that are meant to cause a little bit more destruction; and i know you guys
are about to be like, "whoa whoa whoa Sciz, what are you trying to say here?" Well just
sit down with me in our little studio and i'll explain what I mean. How about that. Okay guys,
what does one say about this grog buff proof ink? Well first and foremost this is not what buff
proof means. This is not a buff proof ink and i'm not gonna defend it too much. Yes it failed. But,
at the same time it's hard to make something that is buff proof, but at the same time,
they claimed it was buff-proof and it is not buff-proof! So they really sort of dug their
own grave in that regard, especially because i'm not as an experienced buffer. I just went to
a hardware store and said, ?hey, do you have something that removes graffiti?" So,
it's not like i knew exactly what to use on this. This is probably what anyone would get
if they went and asked for something that removes graffiti. So frankly...
i don't know how else to put it. But what i wanted to talk about - i feel like you guys should hear
this - a lot of people don't know but the most important parts of my videos really are the end.
That's where i sort of uh speak a bit more frankly about some of these products and stuff like this.
And just what i wanted to convey about this stuff here and anything like this stuff is,
and i said something similar in my video about how weatherproof every single graffiti formula
is (you can check that video in the top right hand corner where the cards are) i said in that video,
i'll say it again. For me, graffiti has never really been about being super inconvenient to
people and leaving ghosts of tags with stuff like this. The part of graffiti that is the
part that i think most of us really enjoy is the actual creation process, whether it be scribbling
a tag in four seconds or making a huge wild style piece at a free wall that took you the whole day.
There is a certain part of the graffiti community that really enjoys the destructive aspect of it
but to me that's not really the main point of graffiti, whether you do it legally or
illegally. So, it's important to keep that in mind. So, to bring the conversation back around
to this buff proof ink, if you're looking for something that's buff proof, this isn't what
you want to use. If you're looking for something that's frankly a pretty well put together ink,
a very consistent formula, i really enjoyed sort of that it was a little bit thicker compared to a
lot of inks and kept a bit of you know the nice three dimensionality on those drips,
then this isn't a horrible option either. It's certainly cheaper than some inks on the market.
I will say this: there's plenty more graffiti products on the market; I have a playlist
which i'll link on screen now which has a good 70 - 80 videos in it, i'm sure now. We do plenty of
graffiti reviews here on the channel. Maybe check a few out. I'll put a couple of the best ones
on screen for you. I hope to see you over there in one of those! Check out some of the other series
on the channel. If you want some merch that you can't get from anywhere else that have all been
hand designed, digitally polished, check the first link in the description for some shirts
like these. You can get them without the logo too, that's good too, it's all good. But i hope to see
you in one of those videos i was mentioning just now, in a second. Until then, peace!