Noodler's Revolution Blue (Goldspot.com exclusive)

[mhosea]

<comments at the end>

Noodler's Revolution Blue on Tomoe River, Rhodia, and cheap made-in-Brazil notebook (front and back). The three swaths are, left to right, Noodler's Revolution Blue, Noodler's Upper Ganges Blue, and Noodler's Blue:
https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8787/18250104805_f8860dcb7b_z.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/tNGykp)https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7775/18246345402_53b2e743b0_z.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/tNnhN7)
https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7740/17629496193_29411bc527_z.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/sRRM1V)https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8879/18223643656_063fe34341_z.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/tLmWmG)
https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8760/18062362120_9316db88d3_z.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/tw7jYy)https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7739/17627476824_5e1f030c7c_z.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/sRFqJd)

Red sheen:
https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8834/18223643386_930fccd3f0_z.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/tLmWh3)

Feathering resistance is good (normal):
https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8792/18063891029_2da425a183_n.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/twfat4)https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8756/17629496273_55b38a5b74_n.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/sRRM3i)https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8792/18251412061_c1f586dd9e_n.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/tNPfWi)

Water resistance is excellent:
https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8889/18063891329_0e3451156e_z.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/twfaye)
https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7753/17629496653_68f8a390e6_z.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/sRRM9R)
https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8881/18251412371_b9a493ffc9_z.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/tNPg2D)

What you can't see is that Noodler's Revolution Blue is a highly lubricious ink and that starting performance is good. Dry times are OK on notebook paper, fairly long (which is not unusual) on the coated papers. Aside from the red sheen (which is unusual for a Noodler's "bulletproof" ink), the surface is normal on Tomoe River (not chalky), slightly chalky on Rhodia, and moderately chalky on the notebook paper. It is less chalky than Upper Ganges Blue in each case, and the color is more blue in every case, though the difference is least significant on the notebook paper. This might be because the reaction that binds the ink to the cellulose fibers is most complete on the notebook paper.

I have not cleaned it out of a pen yet, but cleaning it out of a syringe gave me enough info to suspect that this is going to be an issue. It likes to leave a residue, and it is very quick to do so on the sink. It is reminiscent of Baystate Blue in this respect, but the similarity is superficial at best. The residue left behind by Revolution Blue can be removed by wiping it, but it seems to require a bit more elbow grease than normal for a cellulose-reactive ink. From what I have seen, my ultrasonic cleaner will clean out the residue when using ammonia and water in the chamber, but only just. I will provide an update when I can.

[Lady Onogaro]

Terrific review, Mike! Your very thorough review both tempts me to get the ink and also warns me away from it. So now I am in a conundrum! (Love the color, but I don't want to spend a lot of time cleaning it out of a pen).

[mhosea]

Terrific review, Mike! Your very thorough review both tempts me to get the ink and also warns me away from it. So now I am in a conundrum! (Love the color, but I don't want to spend a lot of time cleaning it out of a pen).

Thanks, and I know what you mean. One possibility is to use it in c/c pens in refilled cartridges. I'd say there are no worries then. If you don't care if your converter gets tinted, then using the converter will be fine. It's demonstrators, ink windows, and such where you want to stop and think twice.

I did clean out a pen last night, the Haolilai. I flushed first with water and then JB's Perfect Pen Flush. I found that flushing was about normally effective at removing the ink from the feed, which is to say, after flushing, I couldn't detect any ink in the feed. A tissue came away clean. As is usually the case, ink remained in areas outside the flow, specifically above the nib (I removed the nib and feed to assess this). So I think normal treatment should keep the pen operating perfectly, but the residue left in the reservoir of the pen, if visible, might be cosmetically annoying, and once this ink gets caught up in the grease on the wall of a piston, I doubt it will come out without the grease. An ultrasonic cleaner helps remove the ink from outside the normal flow areas, the places missed by flushing with a bulb syringe, but it is not instantaneous. Rapido-Eze does clean it out effectively, but then a piston filler would need to be re-greased. It may also be possible to remove it gradually by following up with other inks, ignoring it as if it weren't there. I doubt it will cause any problems when other inks are loaded, but I need to do some more experiments to see if the residue will be gradually removed over time by other inks.