Prejudice Against Noodler's Ink

[fncll]

In my experience there's far more prejudice against Noodler's ink than dislike, most based on what I'm now seeing are some ideas that may be true of a few inks but certainly not all.

[southpaw52]

In my experience there's far more prejudice against Noodler's ink than dislike, most based on what I'm now seeing are some ideas that may be true of a few inks but certainly not all.

Very well said and true. There is a prejudice against Noodlers, and many that strongly dislike the ink. If Noodlers was anywhere as bad as some proclaim, the company won't be in business. Do I use Noodlers yes but personally prefer other ink brands first.

[radellaf]

Wow this is a breath of fresh air. I've been avoiding here & FPN in an effort (largely successful) to save money after a layoff, but eventually the unheard episodes of the podcast called to me. Also, google landed me here when I was investigating what happened to Montblanc Lavender after someone in Ep. 72 said Montblanc Burgundy was discontinued. Burgundy Red was still on their website, but I didn't see Lavender Purple...

So, having come from years of FPN, and seeing this topic raised, I was expecting the worst. After all the red banners, deleted threads, and admonitions by moderators that I "should have run my post by {them} first", how could a forum possibly not implode with flames or lawsuits (from whom I can't imagine)...

But, here's the thread, and it calmly covers all the angles. Cool. FPG, FTW.

I'll add that I have twice had a problem with a Noodler's ink. I have at least 50 bottles and have been using it since the inception ~2005. All other experiences are that the colors are great, but yeah, some feather (Summer Tanager OMG), and some (black) I like better diluted 10-20% with water. I thoroughly clean pens, but I can't claim "good hygeine" as I will leave inks in pens for over a year, only every few months adding distilled water to replace volume lost to evaporation. Which makes some pens, sadly Noodler's own Nib Creaper pens, very hard for me to use as they evaporate close to completely in only a month or two.

So, problems:
1. Basic Bulletproof Black - a bottle from no later than 2006. It would leave a residue after many months in a pen. If you turn over a bottle of black, and within a minute the bottom is still opaque, I'd have concerns. I had a pretty permanent coating on the inside of a TWSBI Vac 700 Smoke. Like, scraping with a Q-tip wouldn't remove the black coating kind of permanent. Ammonia didn't work. Soap did nothing. Isopropyl alcohol took it right off, along with the lube, but in retrospect I should have used the 100 proof Vodka instead. The inside of the barrel is a little fogged now, and with research it seems ethyl is safer than isopropyl for polycarbonate. Or maybe it was the ink not the alcohol, but still, for future reference... I refilled the pen with an 80/20 dilution from a new bottle of black, and after many months there doesn't seem to be any residue. The new bottle also doesn't require more than a little shake for the bottom to become clear enough to shine a flashlight through, whereas the old bottle took a heavy shaking and was never completely clear.

2. Bay State Blue. A bottle from the year it was released. The Cape Cod is still fine (though feathers as bad as Tanager), but the BSB grew little mold colonies on the surface. I filtered it through a coffee filter, which revealed that the glass bottle was "stained". With effort and solvents I cleared it up, but wow was that blue stuck on there. Mold re-grew maybe a year later, and I pitched the bottle. This was about the time some repair guy talked about melted Namiki feeds, of the type used by the Pilot 78G. I have a few, and filled one with the moldy BSB... left it for at least 6 months, and it's fine. Not even really stained. I also got a new bottle of BSB for another 78G, with the same results. No mold grew in either pen, or the new bottle. The new bottle shows no residue clinging to the glass. Nor is the red plastic 78G stained. Feeds are fine. No feeds should be hurt by pH 8-9 ink -- water with a pH of as high as 9 is hard, sure, but still safe drinking water. My old Greg Clark ink sampler says that Sheaffer Black is 9.1 and Pelikan Red 8.8. Platinum Black was the highest at pH 9.9, but the Parker Superchrome inks are in another leage -- listed at pH 12.1 (~160 times stronger). Is there a mystery ingredient in some BSB that has heartburn when combined with a mystery bad batch of plastic used in Lamy or Pilot feeds? Maybe...in theory... but I'm not buying the pH as a cause.

So, as with any ink, if it's moldy or sticking to the bottle, might not be so safe.

[Mori45]

I accidentally left HOD in a pen and although it took weeks to soak it out, but no irreparable damage was done. Some Noodler's inks do leave a film and can stain, but that's hardly unique--Sailor's Kiwaguro inks will do the same in my experience.

[Plume145]

But it's essentially true that many inks "flee at the sight of water." I use Noodler's black when I'm addressing an envelope, and I tend to use inks that are at least somewhat water-resistant when writing in my journal or signing documents or writing checks. I've seen the result of coffee or water on things I've written with typical inks that aren't water-resistant, and it wasn't pretty. Oh, actually I guess it might have been pretty in an artistic way, but not readable.

I address envelopes with whatever's handy/whatever looks pretty, and then buff some Microglaze on it. awesome stuff lol.

[writingrav]

But it's essentially true that many inks "flee at the sight of water." I use Noodler's black when I'm addressing an envelope, and I tend to use inks that are at least somewhat water-resistant when writing in my journal or signing documents or writing checks. I've seen the result of coffee or water on things I've written with typical inks that aren't water-resistant, and it wasn't pretty. Oh, actually I guess it might have been pretty in an artistic way, but not readable.

I address envelopes with whatever's handy/whatever looks pretty, and then buff some Microglaze on it. awesome stuff lol.

Never heard of the stuff before. It looks like a great idea. Thanks!

[cwent2]

Perhaps, but I just use a piece of Scotch tape over the address and return address on the envelope or use a candle and rub it over the same area. Tape or wax works well for me.

[AndyT]

I address envelopes with whatever's handy/whatever looks pretty, and then buff some Microglaze on it. awesome stuff lol.

Excellent. Impoverished graphic designers have been known to use cheap hairspray as a fixative, too.

[snedwos]

Yay candle wax! Been there done that.

[Plume145]

ugh, I don't know how to multiquote here lol - I thought it would carry over into my reply but it didn't. Anyway!

Microglaze can be a bit of a faff because you need to buff it if you want it to blend into the paper completely. But compared to tape, it doesn't show at all even if you didn't buff it so great. Haven't tried the candle trick because I don't really have any handy lol - only scented candles and they're mostly colored. I rarely use dinner candles so I don't have stubs! lol

The hairspray trick is great, I've used it when I was on holiday and I made something quickly like a greeting card. When you're somewhere a bit off the beaten path you usually can't get fixative, but there's bound to be some chick with a big can of Elnett around, lol. The only thing is it tends to yellow pretty fast apparently - there's no need to go hog-crazy and demand guaranteed 100 year survival or anything, but with hairspray it can take as little as weeks apparently, which is kind of a bummer. Still, great if you do lots of pencil drawings and such that are workups, to be able to handle them at least. And it usually smells better than fixative!

[Jim2100]

Hi,
I just read most of the posts here and finally decided to clean my Lamy Safari that has had BSB in it now for three weeks or so. I have three pens filled with this ink. A Preppy, a Safari and last week I put it in my brand new Vanishing Point. To say that I am or was apprehensive is an understatement.
I cleaned the Safari since it was the first to be filled, before I heard any of the stories about BSB. I had already made some 5% Bleach cleaning solution, just in case. I flushed it with clear water and no more. After several bulbs of water, it ran clear. Then I cleaned the converter thinking that that would be my problem. Nope, none there either. Both cleaned up very well with nothing but water.
Several days ago I took an empty ink vile and filled it with BSB to see if it would stain the plastic. Yep it did. I used the cleaning solution and flushed it a few times, then put some clean solution to rest in it for a few days. And as I looked at it tonight after my cleaning session, it too is perfectly clear. Not stained and the plastic is not foggy.
So I am relieved.

Jim

P.S.
I filled it with Noodler's Antietam.

[kaisnowbird]

I find the plastic of the Lamy converter to be of excellent quality. Most ink never sticks or stains.
However, the edge of its opening is in such a shape that it retains just a little bit of extra ink in there that makes it harder to clean thoroughly.

[85AKbN]

pen hygiene? sink / workplace hygiene. get a small baking or cooking pan from the $0.99 store. use paper cups for flushing, run water when emptying, or better yet, flush the toilet, pour inky water into the whirlpool.

[inkstainedruth]

Some of the best inks (as far as color) I have are Noodler's; and Kung Te Cheng was the first ink that behaved well in my first Konrad -- everything I tried before that was drippy, *including* Iroshihzuku Asa-Gao, which I know a lot of people swear by as "well-behaving". OTOH, the worst ink I ever tried -- La Reine Mauve -- was ALSO Noodler's. Yuck. Nib creep like nobody's business.
I did have issues with sac failure on a couple of vintage pens with (IIRC) Noodler's Manhattan Blue -- so I'm now a bit cautious, but that also could have been the sacs themselves -- I don't know one way or the other. And it didn't *stop* me from buying a backup bottle of Manhattan Blue when I was in NYC over Thanksgiving.
BSB gets its own dedicated pen -- not because of the brand, but because it's very alkaline and the Bay State Series inks do not play well with others (not even other Noodler's inks). And that pen (currently a Noodler's Flex Piston Creaper) is going to have the ink diluted a bit in future because I had bad feathering issues, which I didn't have with the *previous* "BSB only" pen -- a Guanleming 2001 demonstrator, which had a hooded F nib; unfortunately, I snapped the top of the cap off trying to unhook the clip from the elastic band in a pen case (oh well, c'est la vie -- the Guanleming was a $5 pen that *felt* like a $3 pen....). Hmmm. Maybe I should try BSB in the Guanleming Accountant, which does comes across as better than a $5 pen....
YMMV
Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[inkstainedruth]

I like Noodler's ink. The BSB chases the cat around from time to time, and I had to slap it when it made a pass at my wife, but you know...

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[mhosea]

Well, as for the alleged misbehaviors of Noodler's Ink, I suspect that Nathan is a victim of his own ingenuity insofar as he ventures out of the realm of tried-and-true and experiments with dyes and other ingredients that are not commonly used. Not all the inks are like this, only some, but over the years he has amassed a catalog of inks with possibly the widest ranging set of performance characteristics and features (not to mention drawbacks) that the fountain pen ink industry has ever seen. When discussing Qin Shi Huang with him as I contemplated buying a bottle at the Boston pen show last June, he told me that no other ink maker was using that dye--"I checked," he said. However, if you drop a drop of Waterman Serenity Blue into a vial of clear household ammonia, it all but disappears. If you drop a drop of QSH in ammonia (without the Waterman drop), it turns to a white cloud (a suspension, I presume). If you drop the Waterman in first and then the QSH, you have just made a dark, sticky precipitate that ammonia won't touch. I was performing my experiment in a sample vial, and the first thing that worked to clean it was isopropyl alcohol. It's not like QSH comes with a warning that you need to 1) flush anything else out of the pen very thoroughly before using it, and 2) should avoid ammonia-based flush when you eventually flush it out very thoroughly.

Another thing he is a victim of, IMHO, is shoddy investigatory work coupled with firmly-established confirmation bias when failures occur. I think it is very likely that unfortunate mixings of ingredients have gummed up some sacs and that concentrated BSB (from dryout) has melted a few feeds out there, and you really needn't try very hard to get flow to stop with almost any highly saturated ink if you let it dry out a bit in the pen (which sometimes happens just because of a poorly-sealing cap), but the confirmation bias vis-a-vis sac failures in general has only made it more difficult to identify which inks and flush ingredients might be involved by tossing irrelevant cases in the mix. The "clogging" issues are, IMHO, overblown, but you should flush highly saturated inks regularly, IMHO, or dilute them at least.

[kia]

Just before going to fountain pens exclusively for my writing efforts, I'd thought little about what ink, and only about where can I find these supposed international cartridges. Then I found the forums, and I discovered bottled ink.

My first bottle of ink was Noodler's Red Black. I liked the color and I liked the idea of permanence on paper (even if just the faint black would remain). I was still writing a lot of checks back then, and check fraud was (and still is to a much lesser extent) a problem. So, trying the Noodler's "bulletproofs" was a no brainer for me. I even put them through the same tests I'd seen others do, and I liked the results. More than anything, though, I wanted permanent inks.

I've never stepped away from Noodler's. I've never bought another brand of ink for my personal use. I have dozens of bottles of Noodler's, some here in the house and some in storage, ranging from the small 1oz bottles up to big 16oz bottles.

I also like that Noodler's is a small business here in the USA, and I like to support the homegrown businesses. I like the value for my money and the full to the brim bottles of ink. I don't always agree with Nathan's opinions for the labels of his inks, but I do like the variety of colors available. I also like the fact that I can call up and actually talk to Nathan while he's making ink! He's interesting to talk with, and his mind is going a mile a minute. I sure as heck hope he's got an apprentice, because I would hate to see Noodler's disappear if something happened to Nathan. I simply like Noodler's Ink.

Of all the Noodler's Ink and colors I have, the only ones I've depleted full bottles of are Fox Red (have gone through several), Legal Lapis (several), Violet Vote, Heart of Darkness, Lexington Gray, and I'm making a fair dent in the volume of my first bottle of 54th Massachusetts.

I like the saturated colors, but yes, some are problematic. La Reign Mauve is the most so, in my experience. Kung Te Cheng has the worst chemical smell ever, but that didn't stop me from buying the remaining four 4oz bottles from Swisher's when it was disappearing from stock. FPN's Galileo has issues now and again, but I love the color and it's bulletproof. Since it is hard to get my hands on it regularly, I bought what I could of the 4oz bottles when it was available, too. BSB, goes without saying anymore, but I love the "pop" of this ink. It's currently in my white tiger Pilot Metropolitan and it's seen a lot of use in the last few weeks. Yep, there is a very faint blue spot on one of the tiger stripes now, but it is from my fingers, not the pen function.

I have let a couple of nibs get badly clogged, but it wasn't the ink's fault, it was mine for not being diligent in my pen cleaning habits. I have found over time that I really should not have any more than three pens inked up at any one time, as I'm likely not to use more regularly. I end up paying for my bad habits, not the pens' or the inks'. I have had no issues when I've regularly cleaned and flushed my pens. Which reminds me that I need to clean out a couple of pens I inked with their proprietary inks just recently just to test them out.

Well, that was a long post just to say I happen to like Noodler's.

[dr.grace]

I did have issues with sac failure on a couple of vintage pens with (IIRC) Noodler's Manhattan Blue -- so I'm now a bit cautious, but that also could have been the sacs themselves -- I don't know one way or the other. And it didn't *stop* me from buying a backup bottle of Manhattan Blue when I was in NYC over Thanksgiving.

I love the color of Noodler's Manhattan Blue, but I had at least two bottles develop SITB, and it clogged up several pens. So I've stopped using Manhattan Blue. (Maybe it also caused premature sac/diaphragm failure in some pens, but I'm not sure about that. As mhosea says, the evidence is only anecdotal, and there's a lot of confirmation bias.) I use some other Noodler's inks routinely, but some are just problematic. I agree with mhosea that Noodler's inks have to be evaluated on a case by case basis.

[mhosea]

I love the color of Noodler's Manhattan Blue, but I had at least two bottles develop SITB, and it clogged up several pens. So I've stopped using Manhattan Blue. (Maybe it also caused premature sac/diaphragm failure in some pens, but I'm not sure about that. As mhosea says, the evidence is only anecdotal, and there's a lot of confirmation bias.)

If anybody wants to add this ink to my long-running latex-sac-fragments-in-sample-vials experiments, feel free to send me a sample, and then I will add it. Not much ink is required, of course! Although if you have sac fragments at your disposal, it might be better if you do it. The thing sort of snowballed on me. Quite generally the disorganization of the thing is an embarrassment to me, but you know I'm not that interested, and I was sort of hoping that there would be a smoking gun early on.

BTW, I decided early on that distilled water wasn't such a good control because after adding the sacs, something might grow in it, so I transferred my "control" samples to Waterman ink a long time ago. The problem is that I am banking on no failures among the controls--they are all in the same vial. This was not smart, but like I said it started simple-minded and small and now involves about a dozen inks. Now that I have phenol at home I should probably go back to the distilled water for the controls, except with phenol added. That will make the controls easier to check at least.

[inkstainedruth]

I love the color of Noodler's Manhattan Blue, but I had at least two bottles develop SITB, and it clogged up several pens. So I've stopped using Manhattan Blue. (Maybe it also caused premature sac/diaphragm failure in some pens, but I'm not sure about that. As mhosea says, the evidence is only anecdotal, and there's a lot of confirmation bias.) I use some other Noodler's inks routinely, but some are just problematic. I agree with mhosea that Noodler's inks have to be evaluated on a case by case basis.

Thanks for the heads up about the SITB issue -- I will keep a watch out for that. [Grumble grumble -- yet another ink/brand to keep a wary eye on... I've been reading about SITB issues with Herbin inks for the better part of two years.
As for the clogging issue, I have Kung Te Cheng -- so I'm used to that.... Doesn't stop me from using it. Did make me stop using Diamine Sargasso Sea and Scribal Workshops Leviathan; in the case of Leviathan it was really irritating, because I loved the color -- even better than Noodler's (reformulated) Army Green [I was probably in the very small group that was bummed when Nathan went back to the original formula for that].
Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth