A quick water test of five Noodler's Inks: Black, Heart of Darkness Black, 54th Mass Blue, Blue Black, and Red Black.

[Alogusz]

Here is a quick water test of five inks:

• Noodler's Black
• Heart of Darkness Black
• 54th Mass Blue
• Blue Black
• Red Black.

 

The pen used was a Pilot Iro-Utsushi Dip Pen with an F nib.

The paper used was Ledesma NAT Natural Sugarcane Pulp Printer Paper that I got from Amazon.

 

The plain Black looked a little weird at first, almost watered down, (perhaps because it's an older bottle) so I did a few extra lines in BP black above the initial ink samples.

 

For the water test I filled the sink up with water and dipped the paper a few times and then submerged the water test half for about 30 seconds.

 

Blue Black and Red Black had some ink "leakage" (is that the right term?) as did the Heart of Darkness, but I think with HOD it was ink that was possibly on top of the ink that had already bonded to the paper?

 

I would of course trust HoD for something that would require waterproof ink (like an envelope, etc).

 

The Blue Black and Red Black would be fine for everyday use, but they will have some ink "smearing" if they get wet.

 

Guide for the images:

1. The top part is the before and the bottom the after. I copied the after part and put it next to the before part in the top part.
2. The dry ink, and the before and after water inks combined in one image
3. This is the "dry" ink water tested after 18 hours on the left and the "water" test after 15 minutes on the right.
4. A new test sheet (of 2 sheets) before any tests.
5. Test sheet 1: Dry, water before and water after 20 minutes of drying time.
6. Test sheet 2: The left side is the water section after 20 minutes of drying time and the right side is before the water test.

    

 

 

 

 

[inkstainedruth]

Thanks for doing this.  

I haven't tried Noodler's Blue Black or Red Black but have tried the other 3.  I wasn't overly enamored by Noodler's Black, but I do really like Heart of Darkness and 54th MA.  And I see that while even the ones I haven't tried has some smearing when wet, they still appear to be legible....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[LizEF]

Thanks, @Alogusz!  Always interesting to see how inks hold up to various forms of assault.

[yazeh]

Thanks for doing this.

Out of curiosity, how long did you let the inks "cure" or dry?

[Alogusz]

I'd say  about 10 minutes

 

29 minutes ago, yazeh said:

Thanks for doing this.

Out of curiosity, how long did you let the inks "cure" or dry?

[Horseflesh]

4 hours ago, Alogusz said:

The pen used was a Pilot Iro-Utsushi Dip Pen with an F nib.

 

Neat, I did not know this was a thing. 

 

The only dip pens I have used are glass, and while they are fun, they are also real gushers... Forget about seeing features like shading that require the ink flow to vary between lighter and heavier. Do you find this kind of Pilot dip pen to be better in this regard? 

 

[Alogusz]

34 minutes ago, Horseflesh said:

Do you find this kind of Pilot dip pen to be better in this regard? 

 

 

The way the Pilot works is you dip the nib to the halfway point of the nib where the wavy line is at. If you go above that I think you might end up with a gush, etc. I much prefer it to the glass dip pen that I have. I'd start with the F nib. The M nib did seem to have the potential to "gush" as it is thicker but either were better than a glass dip pen as these are basically fountain pens you dip into ink

 

Here is a vid that explains how to use it, etc.

[yazeh]

14 hours ago, Alogusz said:

I'd say  about 10 minutes

 

You might have different results over 24 hours, when the ink has dried

 

[Alogusz]

I took the original test sheet and did a water dip test on the original side, 18 hours later. Similar results.

 

I also made 2 new sheets. The top half I tested after 20 minutes and the bottom half I will test after 24 hours.

I spaced out when filling out the second sheet and put Blue Black in the Red Black cell on one sheet but had space to put  Red Black above.

 

The 4 new scans from today are the "after 18 hours" test , one of the new test sheets before the water, and the two "after 20 minutes"  tests.

 

Tune in tomorrow for the 24 hour tests.

[yazeh]

@Alogusz now that's really interesting. 👍It seems to me that there's more resistance to water after 20 minutes....

Looking forward to the 24 hour test.🙂

In my experience waterproof inks that dry very fast have a greater water resistance.

[Alogusz]

Here are the 24 hour water tests:

 

 

[TSherbs]

I always appreciate these kinds of tests. Thank you for doing them. HOD is my favorite black, but it seems to have fared among the "worst" here (although still plenty permanent for me).

[Alogusz]

I wouldn't say so. The initial test was a bunch of  heavy ink lines right next to each other. The later tests were lines a bit more spaced out (like normal handwriting) and I think HoD performed well. And if you look at the "before" part from the first test sheet that I tested after 18 hours, it did well.

[yazeh]

@Alogusz now that's more like it! I like how you used "normal" lines and enough dry time

Oftentimes, with Noodler's bulletproof inks if written with wet /wide pens, the excess ink would not be able to bind to the paper and thus will be removed by water.