Is Noodler's destructive?

[AzJon]

Ok, this is a serious question. Does anyone have first hand experience with Noodler's either melting a sac or eating a feed? If so, which ink was responsible? Are there inks in the Noodler's line up that you've heard cause problems with sacs or feeds?

I want to set up an experiment with some left over sacs and a few ebonite feeds from Fountain Pen Revolution to safely test the supposed destructive powers of Noodler's ink. Wouldn't it be nice to have an answer other than the blanket, "well, [insert name] says that it destroys pens!"

Of course... if someone else has already attempted this little idea and I just couldn't find the test/results, please let me know.

[mhosea]

Ebonite feeds are famously impervious. AFAIK, there have been no claims whatsoever that Noodler's inks will harm an ebonite feed. We've seen some photos of chemically melted plastic feeds in pens that had BSB in them, in one case at least a situation where the pen was left to dry out. It was a Sheaffer cartridge pen, so probably the same feed as on No-nonsense and Preludes. This would be an easy test to replicate. Richard Binder claims that BSB will damage the translucent feeds on Pilot Vanishing Points, but as far as I know, he has never conducted a controlled experiment to replicate it. Chemistry results like this should be easily repeatable, so it should be easy to promote it to a scientific conclusion. It's just that nobody has done the work, or perhaps the truth is that nobody cares enough about getting this right to sacrifice a Pilot feed. Likewise, Rick Propas says that Noodler's inks will damage Pelikan piston seals. Again, apparently there has been no effort to replicate it in a controlled experiment. I'm not saying or even suggesting that these claims are untrue! I'm kind of thinking they are true, modulo a missing detail here and there, like particular ink colors and some particular environmental factors. I'm just saying that anecdotal evidence is what one uses to form hypotheses, not conclusions. More anecdotal evidence doesn't substitute for a controlled experiment, and I suspect the perception of the situation is skewed by confirmation bias at this point.

I don't use Noodler's inks to any significant degree, personally. I have bought probably 3 dozen bottles, and each for this specific reason or that one, they just haven't been my favorites. I sold them all (or gave them away), save one bottle of the limited edition King Philip Requiem, which I use only in a King Philip Ahab and the Charlie pen I got with the ink. The reason I mention this is that the first inclination of people who think anecdotal evidence is good enough to establish the facts in a case like this, not to mention people who are inclined to follow certain people as gurus who are not to be questioned, has invariably been the ad hominem argument that the reason anybody might remain skeptical is that they have some attachment to Noodler's Inks. Nothing could be further from the truth in my case.

Anyway, I've conducted some long-term experiments with Noodler's inks and sac trimmings, cutting a trimming in half and storing one half in Noodler's inks and the other half in either Waterman blue or distilled water with phenol as a preservative. I started doing it after a particularly impressive claim that amounted to the idea that Noodler's Black had made a Snorkel sac melt in a matter of minutes. This was a situation where the sac had not previously been exposed to any Noodler's Inks. If it had taken a year or two to do it, I would not have been very interested, but minutes??? This I had to see first-hand. Needless to say, I never saw it. I had sac fragments in a dozen or more different Noodler's Inks for about a year, if memory serves. I had one sac fragment melt in Noodler's Blue within about a year, but my follow-up experiment with more trials failed to replicate the result. It's still running, I guess, but I haven't checked it in awhile. The principal objection to this test is that just immersing a latex sac fragment in ink in a sample vial doesn't do a very good job of imitating use in a pen, since in a pen, there's ink on one side of the sac and air on the other, and in the pen there's usually an increase in concentration due to some evaporation. It's a cogent criticism, and my only response is that I agree, but the experiments I am doing are all I am willing to do. There's also shellac and plastic, not to mention residues of other inks, etc. in real use, and ink preservatives are not 100% effective, raising the possibility some biological involvement. Another criticism is that Noodler's is (supposedly) notorious for changing formulations without mentioning it, raising the possibility that some formulations of the same-named ink might be damaging while others might not be. Again, what can I say? It's a good point. Maybe it's not such a good argument for never trying anything, but it certainly undermines a negative result.

I would recommend caution with ruthenium-plated nibs (e.g. the flat black Pilot Vanishing Point). This type of coating does not seem very tough, and I think quite a lot of inks might have an effect. Be that as it may, the last ink I used on one before noticing plating damage around the nib slit was a Noodler's ink (and not BSB).

[BCDDiggler]

I have used/use several Noodler's inks in a variety of pens without noticing any particular issues. These include Noodler's Ebonite Konrad, a re-sac'd Waterman Hundred Year, Lamy Safari & Al-Star, Pilot Metropolitan, Platinum Preppy, Charlie pen, Parker 41, Jionhao 159 + x450 and Pilot Parallel. Inks were Tiananmen, Heart of Darkness, X-Feather, Burma Road Brown, Kung te-cheng*, and Apache Sunset (off the top of my head). None of these inks have a lot of unique properties.

I would agree with mhosea that there are risks with a number of inks with properties depending on the makeup of pen AND ink. For example my J. Herbin 1670 Rouge Hematite is a bit of a challenge to clean out of a demonstrator (and feed).

Noodler's does have some of the most "interesting" properties on SOME of the inks. Baystate Blue, the polar series (cold proof), the bad series (laser proof)... Others like Noodler's black are the mainstay of many users in a variety of pens. R & K's Sallix also has a bit of a reputation, a modern "iron gall" ink. I don't have personal experience with any of these though.

So I have had a few sac pens, aeromatic, vacuum, converters and piston fillers; as well as few Noodler's inks (a EDC is a sac filled with Apache Sunset) in several of them. No unusual (in my experience) affects on any of them.

*NOTE: KTC can be fast to dry and require a bit more soaking than most of my other inks. No worse than any of my J. Herbin 1670 so far.

-BCD

[AzJon]

anecdotal evidence doesn't substitute for a controlled experiment, and I suspect the perception of the situation is skewed by confirmation bias at this point.

That's kind of what I was wondering re:use of Noodler's inks. There seems to be a bit of a witch hunt against Noodler's. Lots of claims, even evidence, without anyone bothering to do any work to confirm whether or not it was a Noodler's ink that was, ultimately, the culprit. I have the strong suspicion that a lot has to do with what ink was previously in the pen before being introduced to a Noodler's ink.

I can use myself as an example: I don't own any Noodler's inks almost entirely due to the warnings and fear around using them in vintage pens. Thanks for your great response!

[katherine]

I have only used Noodler's Heart of Darkness and only in my Metro and Ahab -- both have been fine, even when I left the Ahab untouched for so long that a lot of the ink dried up. I've been warned by several people that it stains easily (since it is a permanent ink) so I've avoided using it in harder to clean pens or pens where I may care about staining.

Greg Minuskin also has a bunch of pictures on his blog of things supposedly eaten by Noodler's inks... but who knows. :)

[AzJon]

I've seen the images on Greg's site before. They very well may have been caused by using Noodler's ink, but if someone is going to make a claim, particularly a scathing one, it is better to back it up with some empirical evidence, IMHO. If it is being caused by Noodler's, I haven't seen a post where the actual ink is named. If even one Noodler's ink has the ability to eat a feed or sac, it does the whole FP community a great disservice not to report it.

[katherine]

I bought a pen from him a couple months ago (which I ended up returning due to a leak) he warned me not to use any Noodlers, Private Reserve and/or any inks designated "permanent" in it. He seems to generally have pretty strong opinions though, so ymmv.

I suspect people aren't willing to "do science" on this because it's not worth the risk of damaging a pen. Also, it may depend on the particular material used to make the pen or other factors like how long the pen is left to sit, etc etc. But, I totally get your sentiment, but like (I suspect) other folks, am not willing to do science on my pens.

[tandaina]

Greg will basically tell you to use Waterman Blue and nothing else.

I own ink from just about every manufacturer out there, including a bunch of Noodlers. Never, ever have I experienced an issue with Noodlers. The stories continue, but I have never seen any problems with the regular Noodler's inks. (Baystate blue is the notable exception that even Nathan would tell you to use with care.)

[mhosea]

I've seen the images on Greg's site before. They very well may have been caused by using Noodler's ink, but if someone is going to make a claim, particularly a scathing one, it is better to back it up with some empirical evidence, IMHO. If it is being caused by Noodler's, I haven't seen a post where the actual ink is named. If even one Noodler's ink has the ability to eat a feed or sac, it does the whole FP community a great disservice not to report it.

What I favor is simply this:

1. Report what you actually see. Give background details on what happened, as much as you can remember. Try to avoid sweeping conclusions, but feel free to state your concerns/worries as such. Say what you think, if you want, but toss in some wiggle room. Be honest about what you don't know for a fact. Case in point from a different context, it's common for people using telescope eyepieces with Barlow lenses to claim that Barlow lenses have poor light transmission because the image they see through the telescope with a given eyepiece gets noticeably dimmer when they add the Barlow in. But this is a misinterpretation of what is happening. The Barlow lens increases magnification, so adding it in is somewhat like moving the screen farther from a projector. Yes, the image gets dimmer, but the effect is almost entirely due to magnification, not to the tiny loss of light transmission inherent to adding in another lens system. People can be quite sure of their conclusions in the matter because they know they see a dimmer image with the Barlow than without it, but their analysis of why they see it is wrong. Respect this possibility always. It can happen to anybody.

2. If you really want to help the FP community, and if you have the means, try to design and conduct experiments. They don't have to be perfect experiments. Even if the results don't prove anything, you might inspire somebody else to do it better. What I always wanted to do with my experiments was actually demonstrate the problem repeatedly so I could hopefully inspire Nathan to investigate from his vantage point (someone who knows exactly what's in the ink). I was never worried about false negative results because I never intended to be able to show that the ink was actually safe, but lacking repeatable positive results of harm, I don't have anything for him.

3. If you are going to make definitive claims that substance X does this to substance Y, then you should be able to back it up with experiments that demonstrate substance X doing exactly that to substance Y, this being especially true if you are screwing with another man's livelihood.

[HoLmeslice]

I've used the following Noodler's inks: Black (bulletproof), Apache Sunset, Golden Brown, Black Swan in Australian Roses, & Baystate Blue, with no substantial issues (other than the occasional hard start) in all the following pens (Pilot Vanishing Point, Lamy Safari, Lamy 2000, Parker Sonnet, TWSBI Mini, Hero 616, Pilot Penmanship, Platinum Preppy (BSB only), & Noodler's Ahab). I've also got some Kung Te-Cheng and Whaleman's Sepia which I plan to use (eventually) in another Preppy or a Konrad, whichever one comes first.

All have worked very well for me and my needs, and I've experienced no issues cleaning any of my pens, even in the event that I'd left them inked up longer than expected.

Hope this helps the discussion.

Cheers!

[gbryal]

I haven't seen feed damage. I did leave BSB in a Serwex transparent eyedropper for a while to see what would happen regarding staining. My conclusion is it did turn the plastic blue, and mostly came off if I was able to physically remove it with a solvent; rubbing alcohol worked. I think elbow grease would probably work too with some soap and water. Most pens you would never dream of touching with rubbing alcohol, so I don't recommend this at all. Physical removal with a bottle brush or scraping is not possible with some pens because those parts are not exposed. It dries to a sort of fine sediment that adheres to different parts of the pen. I believe Serwex have ebonite feeds so I suppose I wouldn't see the bad results.

But these are more words and hardly an experiment. I would welcome a real study conducted with some rigor. Meanwhile, BSB just goes into a few of my ebonite feed pens that I am willing to risk.

[TSherbs]

No, they are not.

[Jon Szanto]

The only thing I've ever found categorically destructive about Noodler's is the endless stream of Tardiffian polemic. Destroys my mood every time.

[AzJon]

3. If you are going to make definitive claims that substance X does this to substance Y, then you should be able to back it up with experiments that demonstrate substance X doing exactly that to substance Y, this being especially true if you are screwing with another man's livelihood.

I think that really is the crux of the discussion, isnt' it?

Thank you for your thoughtful reply.

[Sailor Kenshin]

Baystate Blue stained the rubberized section of my ten-dollar Pelikano Junior. Stained, I tell you!

[FredRydr]

Flush the Noodlers from your pen with a good dose of Private Reserve Hot Bubble Gum. :bolt:

Fred

[mhosea]

but like (I suspect) other folks, am not willing to do science on my pens.

I don't actually suggest that, rather doing science with pen parts. Your average user doesn't have a lot of orphaned pen parts, but when you get into restoration and start taking chances on eBay or what not, pen parts seem to materialize whether you want them or not. A Pilot VP nib is worth what? $60-$70 brand new? Suppose you were to drop one and bend it up good. Do you send it to a nibmeister to be unbent, or do you buy another and go on? Suddenly, there's a translucent Pilot feed that isn't really part of a "pen" anymore.

[The Good Captain]

I've had Prime of the Commons in a Pelikan M205 for some years now and there haven't been any detrimental effects that I'm aware of. It gets a flush every now and again, before refilling. Also, I've other 'ordinary' and 'proof' Noodler's in an assortment of pens, without any issues, including Baystate Blue in a Kaweco Dia2, which just loves it!

[TSherbs]

anecdotal evidence doesn't substitute for a controlled experiment, and I suspect the perception of the situation is skewed by confirmation bias at this point.

That's kind of what I was wondering re:use of Noodler's inks. There seems to be a bit of a witch hunt against Noodler's. Lots of claims, even evidence, without anyone bothering to do any work to confirm whether or not it was a Noodler's ink that was, ultimately, the culprit. I have the strong suspicion that a lot has to do with what ink was previously in the pen before being introduced to a Noodler's ink.

I can use myself as an example: I don't own any Noodler's inks almost entirely due to the warnings and fear around using them in vintage pens. Thanks for your great response!

Your fears around Noodler's inks and vintage pens are empirically unfounded, especially if one practices even a modicum of regular pen hygiene.

[jar]

I own and use a few Noodler's inks and have seen no signs of any damage. My big complaint with Noodler's inks supported by a fair size sample is that he fills the damn bottles too full.

[biscuit]

I haven't seen feed damage. I did leave BSB in a Serwex transparent eyedropper for a while to see what would happen regarding staining. My conclusion is it did turn the plastic blue, and mostly came off if I was able to physically remove it with a solvent; rubbing alcohol worked. I think elbow grease would probably work too with some soap and water. Most pens you would never dream of touching with rubbing alcohol, so I don't recommend this at all. Physical removal with a bottle brush or scraping is not possible with some pens because those parts are not exposed. It dries to a sort of fine sediment that adheres to different parts of the pen. I believe Serwex have ebonite feeds so I suppose I wouldn't see the bad results.

But these are more words and hardly an experiment. I would welcome a real study conducted with some rigor. Meanwhile, BSB just goes into a few of my ebonite feed pens that I am willing to risk.

Tardiff's recommendation for removing the Baystate stain is a dilute bleach solution. I tried it on a stained demonstrator and it worked just fine.