Noodler's Ink?

[goby]

I have used Noodler's ink in every FP I own. Never had a problem, but you have to keep in mind that they have a huge variety of colors. I have only tried maybe twenty-five of their colors so far. There is so much variation in their inks that it would really be hard to apply a review of one against a different color. They so have lines of ink with similar properties, like the Eels, Polar, Warden's, etc. I have been really liking the Eel and Wardens lines, but I would suggest looking at the properties PDF on the Noodler's website and avoid using waterproof inks in pens that do not get used for long periods.

[VAgal]

So far the three Noodler's I have tried have all been bulletproof: Bad Green Heron, Bad Belted Kingfisher, and 54th Massachusetts. I like all three with BBK being my favorite. I have had a little nib creep with BGH in my Bexley and Noodler's Rollerball. I haven't noticed any nib creep with the other two.

[Lothianjavert]

I use several Noodler's inks in my normal rotation. They all behave well: Shah's rose (love the vivid hot pinkness), Habanero, Black Swan in Australian Roses and Zhivago (my husband's favorite) get used frequently. Violet and midnight blue are also nice well-behaved colors. I have used them in a wide variety of pens from vintage to modern and have had no problems. I'll be picking up a few more colors soon to add to the ever growing ink collection.

 

 

[TSherbs]

As others have said here, love my Black Swan in Australian Roses! I also favor the X-Feather Black--some people have bemoaned a slow dry time, but I have not found this to be so and it is a great, deep black with no feathering. Doubleplusgood.

[DorothyGale]

I love and use Noodlers. My two faves right now are Concord Bream and Dragon's Napalm. I use it in most of my pens (I have one old student Mont Blanc inked up with a Pelikan Black because I am trying to use up the bottle.)

 

That being said, I hate the bottle. They should make a bottle with an ink well to make filling easier once you get to the bottom of the bottle.

[hoppes no9]

My ink of the month is Air Corps Blue-Black which is also likely to be my permanent daily ink. Red-Black is also a big favorite.

 

 

Two of my favorites too. Along with Zhivago and Blue-Black. And Sequoia. And 54th Mass.

 

Where to stop?

[warblerick]

I'll toss this out. For some reason, Noodler's products just don't seem to do much for me.

 

Based on my admittedly limited experience with inks, I have found other inks that do almost everything better for what I do. However, Noodler's is still pretty much the undisputed king of on-page toughness.

 

Got Polar Blue because, well, I admit, I can be forgetful with pens in the winter. Discovered it freezes in the not-so-cold double digits (teens) negative F temps. Didn't seem to like being frozen.

 

Got a new bottle of Bad Belted Kingfisher and still trying to figure out what the small masses that look like undissolved dye are.

 

Had a bottle of the blue that shall not be named.

 

Have a bottle of luxury blue that while looks interesting in the bottle, is not so interesting dried on the page.

 

A bottle of Old Manhattan Black is en route. Will have to see how that one does.

[warblerick]

I agree with you regarding the Noodler's Luxury Blue. Looks great in the bottle, but rather underwhelming on the page. Sort of washed out and lifeless. Too bad, as I think I have 3 bottles stashed away somewhere. Also have a few others, some of the bulletproofs, and just recently I filled a pen with Polar Black, only to find it also looked rather weak on the page. I thought it was more BOLD than that. Maybe an old bottle?

 

Anyway, the only Noodler's I use anymore is Antietam, which flows nicely, doesn't skip or clog my pens, and looks pretty great on the page. Starts out kind of blood red, then dries to a more brownish red.

 

Using more Diamine inks these days...

 

Rick

[GallBladder]

Today I would like to discuss Noodler's ink.

 

We get a lot of that here. Try a google search on

 

site:www.fountainpennetwork.com Noodler's Ink

 

Try adding "safe?" to the end of that search to get some of the juicier ones to come out on top.

Always good to get a heads up about how to Google the site, but I welcome the question, and since he only has a few posts to his account, can't be expected to all the ins and outs of FPN as yet... but your note is a good reminder to all.

 

I like Noodler's but a nibmeister has put the fear of Jehoshaphat in me. I now use it on modern pens only, but those include nice ones like my Sailor Profit. BSB has been relegated to dip pens and less expensive steel nibbed users like my Sheaffer No Nonsense.

[WOBentley]

I love them!

I don't use supersaturated inks in hard to clean pens but that is not brand specific.

Favorites: Black and Blue both eel and regular, Gruene eel, catalpa and CSB (Australian exclusives), North African Violet ( ), BSIAR, Apache Sunset, all three of the FPN inks.

[tfwall]

I like Noodler's but a nibmeister has put the fear of Jehoshaphat in me. I now use it on modern pens only, but those include nice ones like my Sailor Profit. BSB has been relegated to dip pens and less expensive steel nibbed users like my Sheaffer No Nonsense.

 

You might consider buying one of the Noodlers branded pens. They have been specifically designed to work with the these inks. No need to worry about using your nice pens when you find you need water-resistant coloured inks.

[krz]

I use mostly vintage pens. No worries. BP Black, Ottoman Azure, Benevolent Badger Blue (BP), #41 Brown new formula, Lexington Gray (BP), Aircorps Blue-Black, Walnut Brown, Liberty's Elysium Blue. All favs.

[torstar]

"We get a lot of that here. Try a google search on "

 

 

Always one in a crowd that says this, who has time to sift through that?

[psfred]

I suspect some of the clogging and hard starting problems, particularly in vintage pens, are the stuff left behind in ages past. I just cleaned (again) a green Sheaffer Snorkel Statesman, and filled it with Rapido-eze pen cleaner -- I've had too many of these flush just fine but refuse to write properly. No ink goes through the secondary feed into the nib, you have to shake ink out, which is messy.

 

I'd filled it with green ink some time ago and seem to have stored it with the empty pens thinking it had run out when it was only clogged, so I was flushing copious quantities of Marine Green out. However, when I blotted the nib after filling it with Rapido-eze, what did I see? BLUE ink. Quite a bit of it. Petrified, suppose. Finally got all that out, and filled it with Liberty's Elisium for a change, and it writes perfectly instead of grudgingly dispensing slimy green ooze.

 

I wonder how many "clogging" problems are a result of incompatibilities between Noodler's highly saturated inks and residual ink left in the feed from previous use. Noodler's are pretty good about compatibility, but I have had ink make insoluble crud in a pen before.

 

Something to think about.

 

Peer

[FLZapped]

There are inks other than Noodler's? Whaddya know...

[The Good Captain]

There are inks other than Noodler's? Whaddya know...

...a lot.

[akustyk]

A lot of people love Noodler's inks. The variety of colors and properties is breathtaking. And it's a small company, run by a well-respected pen enthusiast.

 

I have had mixed experience with Noodler's inks. My first was Red-Black, and it's just awful. It doesn't flow well, clogs my feeds, separates in the bottle. Clearly, a bad batch.

 

Then I got other inks and it's been hit or miss. Finally, I found one ink that's just pure awesomeness - Noodler's Black. It's a wonderful ink that flows well, looks good, and performs great on just about any kind of paper. It's the perfect black ink, as far as I am concerned. Sure, Aurora black is more brilliant and flows more wet, but it's not water resistant and feathers and bleeds through on bad paper. The list goes on.

 

Most recently, I bought 54th Massachusetts, and it's just an average ink, also with flow issues in several pens I've tried, and it looks kind of like dried mud, not very nice, and, importantly, looks different from the samples reviewed on FPN. Perhaps I got a bad batch again?

 

Oh, I almost forgot, another excellent ink, Lexington Gray. Awesome.

 

So, it does seem like my experience with the inks has been somewhat checked, doesn't it. The same goes for the pens, by the way :roflmho:

[ISW_Kaputnik]

I bought too many Noodler's inks at first because they have such a wide variety, and I didn't spend enough time looking into other possibilities. As it happens, they make two purples that I really like, once they get on the paper, Kung Te-Cheng and La Reine Mauve, and my favorite green, Bad Green Gator. Only, at the moment I don't particularly feel like using green, so the Gator isn't in anything right now. I have KTC in one pen, but several pens that I've tried it in have developed clogging issues, same story with the LRM, and it can take a very long time to clean them out thoroughly when I put the pen away. That makes me reluctant to use them in real favorite pens, although I want them in pens that will do justice to the colors. Oh, and the LRM is one of their more costly inks, comes in 1 oz. bottles and is more than three times more expensive by volume than most of their inks.

 

Of course, you get different stories on these clogging issues, and I may be overlooking other causes, but I can't ignore my experience, either. In any case, my favorite blues are not Noodler's, and I use blue more often than not.

Edited March 10, 2013 by ISW_Kaputnik

[mhosea]

Perhaps I got a bad batch again?

 

Could be. They're all hand mixed, so I wouldn't bet against it. I've found that sometimes problems are solved by diluting the bulletproof inks a bit. I never felt that my Heart of Darkness was even as dark as Noodler's Black. Others have made similar observations, and I read one review that mused whether theirs was a "weak" batch. I've also heard of Heart of Darkness clogging pens. But then recently I tried diluting mine 2:1 ink to water. I thought it would turn more grayish with that much water, but it actually got darker and was then slightly darker than Noodler's Black on copy paper (though didn't seem very different besides feathering a bit more). I guess this was just one of those situations where more was not better.

 

Anyway, it surely isn't going to help all the time because some of the time it's going to take you out of the desirable performance profile in one way or another, but aggressive diluting is worth a shot before giving up entirely on an already-purchased bottle of Noodler's.

[brattpitt]

I bought too many Noodler's inks at first because they have such a wide variety, and I didn't spend enough time looking into other possibilities. As it happens, they make two purples that I really like, once they get on the paper, Kung Te-Cheng and La Reine Mauve, and my favorite green, Bad Green Gator. Only, at the moment I don't particularly feel like using green, so the Gator isn't in anything right now. I have KTC in one pen, but several pens that I've tried it in have developed clogging issues, same story with the LRM, and it can take a very long time to clean them out thoroughly when I put the pen away. That makes me reluctant to use them in real favorite pens, although I want them in pens that will do justice to the colors. Oh, and the LRM is one of their more costly inks, comes in 1 oz. bottles and is more than three times more expensive by volume than most of their inks.

 

Of course, you get different stories on these clogging issues, and I may be overlooking other causes, but I can't ignore my experience, either. In any case, my favorite blues are not Noodler's, and I use blue more often than not.

 

 

So which blues do you use? I'm also a blue/blue-black user.