Originally Posted by
Plume145
After spending the afternoon trying some noodler's samples with my beloved glass nib dip pen (hand-blown murano glass, in a custom color way) and having the nib end up with unidentifiable sediment stuck in the grooves after only a couple of shades, thus turning the nib from perfectly clear to a shady, sickly greyish, I have now sworn off the stuff for good. I know people advocate for 'good pen hygiene' as the cure-all, but really, you couldn't imagine better pen hygiene than I used in this case: a GLASS pen (NOT plastic like most FP feeds), dunking in water with the ink still wet ON THE PAPER let alone the nib, and swirling vigorously to lose the ink, then dunking and swirling again in a cup of clean water. And still - a tint, from just one or two inks. A pen cleaner bath helped some, but it certainly isn't back to what it was.
We can probably draw a box around the problem that doesn't encompass the entire brand. Some of the cellulose-reactive (bulletproof) colors do leave a residue on glass and metal surfaces (at least). Ironically, I'm not sure I've ever seen this layer form on
plastic, though I would not go so far as to surmise that it doesn't. Anyway, if you transfer Noodler's Heart of Darkness from one bottle to another, you will see this residue of it left behind on the bottle. I have tried solvent-based approaches to removing it from the inside of the bottle, but in the end I do not know of any household solvent that works at all, let alone a "safe" and effective one. And yet, if one reaches in with a finger or cloth, it wipes
easily off the surface. After having such trouble removing it by circulating and soaking liquids, it seems rather dramatic how easily it is removed
mechanically by wiping. My inexpensive ultrasonic removes it, also, though effectively cleaning it out of the recessed parts of the nib and feed is not immediate.
It is not my purpose to defend it, rather to describe and explain it, to make it a known phenomenon rather than something unexpected and potentially misunderstood.
Should it be feared? Is this residue dangerous to pens?
I don't know. I have no evidence of that. I have conducted a pen dry-out experiment with Noodler's Heart of Darkness, and there were no difficulties flushing out the pen. It merely took longer. Flushing vintage inks out of vintage pens also takes awhile. I can't rule out that the residue might react with some other ink, but the residue seems inert, and it never seems to build up. I have yet only seen what appears to be one layer, and one layer only.
But if it's not actually dangerous, is it still a problem? For me, yes, it is somewhat, though I use my ultrasonic cleaner with some regularity, and my pen hygiene is sufficient to remove it. Still, I tend to relegate these inks to c/c pens.
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