Noodler's Nib Creaper

[countrydirt]

This is my first attempt at a review on the FPN. My photography skills are questionable, my writing skills are feeble, but I have a passion for handwriting and fountain pens, so here goes!

 

I decided to try out a couple of pens to consider as a possibility for Christmas gifts. Brian at the Goulet Pen Company was gracious enough to etalk me through some considerations for inexpensive pens. He reviews several of them on his blog . Much buzz has been astir about the $14.00 Noodler's Nib Creaper fountain pen, a piston filled inexpensive pen. I thought I would check it out.

 

My first impression about this Noodler'spen was it was fun to see the internal mechanism. My second thought was a question as to what ink I would "deflower this virgin" with. I set my eyes upon Noodler's Navy. Filling the pen is dead simple. You remove the blind cap on the barrel of the pen, run the piston down to the end of the barrel, place the nib and part of the feed section into the ink and cycle the piston twice. That's it. Pull the pen out, wipe off the nib and feed, replace the blind cap and get down to writing.

 

The Nib Creaper holds an impressive amount of ink. It appears to be at least twice as much as is held by a Lamy, Waterman or Cross converter and about twice as much as a Reform 1745 German school pen with a similar filling mechanism. I expect it also holds about twice as much as vintage Sheaffer lever fill pen. This could be a problem if you tire of a color quickly and would rather not write it completely out, but it should be very simple to dump the ink back in the jar and flush and fill again with your next choice.

 

The nib is a steel nib in a F or perhaps M size. The nib says Noodler's Ink. In writing, it is smooth and leaves a consistent line. I have not written with it enough to determine if it will have any type of shading or line variation. But for my use, smooth and ease of use is important.

 

If I compare this pen to any type of rollerball, ultimately it will be much more economical. The pen cost $14 and a 3 ounce bottle of Noodler's ink costs $12.50. So I have $26.50 invested. I expect I will be able to fill this pen 40 times at a minimum per bottle of ink so my cost per fill is around $1.16. I think each bottle will last much longer than that, getting my cost per fill down to about a quarter. Tell me you can find any rollerball pen that costs that little and will provide as much ease of writing.

 

Pictures are here!My link

Edited November 28, 2010 by countrydirt

[xuan87]

I love this pen as well and i will say that the nib is a F, almost bordering on the EF side. Another economical pen you could check out is the Noodler's Creaper Rollerball pen, great pen too

[SusanS]

Well crums, I ordered the Noodlers FP not the Creeper version or maybe it was right before Goulet had the creeper. Now I need to order a Creeper too!

Edited November 29, 2010 by SusanS

[countrydirt]

Well, it is hard to beat the price!

[Wickwack]

I just got my Nib Creaper, loaded it with Black Swan in Australian Roses and love it! It does have a fine point but writes with just a touch of scratch on the paper - just enough to like!

[vickiehof]

I just got my Noodler's Creaper and filled it with Noodler's Bad Blue Heron. For an inexpensive pen, it writes very well! I like to try new pens and the price was extremely reasonable.

[Truppi327]

My rollerball creaper is filled with standard bulletproof Black and my ventless fp is filled with Baystate Concord Grape. They both write like dreams and I couldn't be happier.

[willhopkins]

I got mine a week ago and love it but for one problem—it will write about twenty characters before running dry (not skipping—just no ink whatsoever). I can shake it a bit to force some ink down the feed, but then I get the same problem. Pushing the piston to remove air bubbles gets the same result. I even left it upside down in a cup for a few days and it still had no flow. It writes well and smoothly when the ink is flowing, but this feed problem is a real bummer. Anyone else have this problem, or suggested solutions?

[Truppi327]

I got mine a week ago and love it but for one problem—it will write about twenty characters before running dry (not skipping—just no ink whatsoever). I can shake it a bit to force some ink down the feed, but then I get the same problem. Pushing the piston to remove air bubbles gets the same result. I even left it upside down in a cup for a few days and it still had no flow. It writes well and smoothly when the ink is flowing, but this feed problem is a real bummer. Anyone else have this problem, or suggested solutions?

 

Make sure the tip is pushed in sufficiently and that the feed is into the section far enough. Maybe there is a gap or too much space that makes the ink get lost or slowed down too much.

[pen2paper]

Please do keep reporting,

Photos, handwriting samples appreciated! *

*FPN rule.. didn't happen unless there's a photo to prove it

[willhopkins]

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll check on the nib and section, and post an illustrative writing sample tomorrow.

[countrydirt]

I have not lost a fountain pen...yet. For 4 days, I thought I had lost my Nib Creaper. But, I found it. I wrote 5 words and completely dry. So, I gave it a little "shake" and it began writing again.

 

No pictures, but I plan on it being in my pocket tomorrow and we will see what happens throughout the school day!

[willhopkins]

Here's a photo I took of my Rhodia pad after writing with the Noodler's Ink nib creaper fountain pen and Ottoman Azure. I wrote on two pages of the No11 pad, then set it down for two minutes. I picked it up again and this is what I got. Sorry for the link to an external photo site—I forgot to dial down the resolution on my camera and don't have time to resize it. Don't worry, it should just be a browser page, not a download.

 

http://min.us/mvfZbNT

 

EDIT: Also, sorry for the crappy lighting! I need to get around to making myself a lightbox for stuff like this.

Edited December 11, 2010 by willhopkins

[RLTodd]

..........

Edited December 15, 2010 by RLTodd

[comfortableshoes]

Here's a photo I took of my Rhodia pad after writing with the Noodler's Ink nib creaper fountain pen and Ottoman Azure. I wrote on two pages of the No11 pad, then set it down for two minutes. I picked it up again and this is what I got. Sorry for the link to an external photo site—I forgot to dial down the resolution on my camera and don't have time to resize it. Don't worry, it should just be a browser page, not a download.

 

http://min.us/mvfZbNT

 

EDIT: Also, sorry for the crappy lighting! I need to get around to making myself a lightbox for stuff like this.

 

I found that my nib creeper did the exact same thing, I'd write half a page and then nothing. It would take a shake and damp paper towel to get it going again.

 

I don't know where I read it but somewhere on the wide sea of the internets someone suggested that the nib and feed are not adjusted properly. I grabbed the nib and feed with a cloth wrapped around it and gave it a bit of a twist and pulled it less than half a mm outward. I also made sure that the feed was dead center on the nib when I did this.

 

Problem solved. Flow is smooth, wet without being a gusher and made the pen absolutely lovely to write with. This pen will remain in my rotation for a good long time with it writing like this! I'd compare it's flow and smoothness to my Pelikan Go! and my Rotring Esprit, both wet writers with zero flow issues with any ink I torment them with.

Edited December 16, 2010 by comfortableshoes

[willhopkins]

Here's a photo I took of my Rhodia pad after writing with the Noodler's Ink nib creaper fountain pen and Ottoman Azure. I wrote on two pages of the No11 pad, then set it down for two minutes. I picked it up again and this is what I got. Sorry for the link to an external photo site—I forgot to dial down the resolution on my camera and don't have time to resize it. Don't worry, it should just be a browser page, not a download.

 

http://min.us/mvfZbNT

 

EDIT: Also, sorry for the crappy lighting! I need to get around to making myself a lightbox for stuff like this.

 

I found that my nib creeper did the exact same thing, I'd write half a page and then nothing. It would take a shake and damp paper towel to get it going again.

 

I don't know where I read it but somewhere on the wide sea of the internets someone suggested that the nib and feed are not adjusted properly. I grabbed the nib and feed with a cloth wrapped around it and gave it a bit of a twist and pulled it less than half a mm outward. I also made sure that the feed was dead center on the nib when I did this.

 

Problem solved. Flow is smooth, wet without being a gusher and made the pen absolutely lovely to write with. This pen will remain in my rotation for a good long time with it writing like this! I'd compare it's flow and smoothness to my Pelikan Go! and my Rotring Esprit, both wet writers with zero flow issues with any ink I torment them with.

 

Hm, thanks for the advice. I'll do that in a day or two after finals are over. In the mean time, back to the grind stone!

[omicron]

You can take apart a Pilot V5, and refill it with cheap ( .06 cents a refil if you do it right ) pel. ink. And it probably would cost less, as you'd break the noodler's before your V5 nib runs out. I'm not so sure 'most economical writing instrument' is accurate for noodler's

[countrydirt]

You can take apart a Pilot V5, and refill it with cheap ( .06 cents a refil if you do it right ) pel. ink. And it probably would cost less, as you'd break the noodler's before your V5 nib runs out. I'm not so sure 'most economical writing instrument' is accurate for noodler's

I'm not certain where you pulled your 'quote' from...not this thread. I still stand by my original statement that I "challenge" you to find a "rollerball" that is more economical. I love the V5, but it is not easily refillable and I have not been able to keep one longer than about half of the ink being used up. Maybe I am careless

This is a fun pen, cheap and will bleed on your fingers. The nib writes smoothly. I like it.

Edited December 18, 2010 by countrydirt

[juniper]

excellent review. the photo set was great to peek at. thanks for sharing