Lexington Grey - Noodler's

[visvamitra]

Noodler’s is one of the companies that don’t need any introductions. Nathan Tardiff is a legend and his work is well known by fountain pen and ink afficionados. Not everyone is crazy about Noodler’s inks but I enjoy most of the ones I’ve tried so far.

Thanks to fantastic Lgsoltek and Amberlea thread I'll have a pretext to re-review 52 inks this year. I'll write for a week with an ink before adding some thoughts.

My choice for week three was Noodler's Lexington Grey.

Lexington Grey is, undoubtedly, an interesting ink - how many bulletproof greys do you know? It does show some feathering and bleedthrough on some papers, but - on the other hand - the drying time is almost instant. If you tend to use good quality paper you won't be bothered at all.

The ink is legible on most papers even when used in dry and scratchy nib. It has nice muted tone and is easy on the eyes. If you're bored of using blue and black but hesitant to start with vibrant res and purples, grey may be an interesting alternative.

The ink is 100 % water resistant. You can soak it for days and the color won't change at all.

The question you have to ask yourself before getting this one is whether you can forgive feathering in case you use mostly absorbent copy paper. I think that Lexington Grey is well engineered and well priced ink.

Drops of ink on kitchen towel

Color ID

Color range

Tomoe River, Kaweco Classic Sport, broad nib

Leuchtturm1917, Kaweco Classic Sport, broad nib

Rhodia, Hero 9300, medium nib

No-name notebook, Hero 9300, medium nib

[T4TEXAS]

Thanks for the review. I bought a sample a couple of years ago ans liked it, but did not buy a bottle. Should move it up on my want list.

[dompred]

That feathering... It was the reason I returned my bottle. The light blue-turquoise feathering was noticeable -and very frustrating- for almost every paper I tried it with every pen, even the drier ones.

[Drawing61]

Thank you for the excellent review. I love this ink because of its feathering, not for writing but for sketching.

[Tas]

My favourite and only "true" grey.

Thanks visvamitra for another rock solid review.

[ethernautrix]

NLG used to be my favorite gray ink -- and it still ranks way up there among my favorite grays -- until I tried Faber-Castell Stone Grey. I do like NLG's bulletproofness, though, but the ink is a tad darker than FCSG.

 

Great review, visvamitra! Dziękuję!

[Tas]

NLG used to be my favorite gray ink -- and it still ranks way up there among my favorite grays -- until I tried Faber-Castell Stone Grey. I do like NLG's bulletproofness, though, but the ink is a tad darker than FCSG.

 

Great review, visvamitra! Dziękuję!

 

Don't start luring me out of may safe waters ethermatrix . . .

 

I've long been drawn to Faber Castell Stone Grey. Atikka's many sketches and exquisite calligraphy have often been a siren call to its charms

[julia239]

The feathering would make me crazy. This is not the ink for me.

[kcwookie]

I like the color and the quick dry, but it shows through badly on Clairefontaine paper. Unfortunately, the show through is a show stopper for me.
 

I also found that if the bottle has sat for a while, it will separate. You need to make sure that you shake the bottle very well before filling your pen.

[inkstainedruth]

Hmmm.  Good to know.  I seem to recall my sample of it being somewhat paler in color than I was expecting.  And I'm having the same issue with the bottle of Legal Lapis I picked up last weekend at an estate sale (interesting color, but thinking it needs to maybe be in a pen with a broader nib, or that it's otherwise somehow not quite what I was expecting the color to be -- or that it's a different "batch").

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth