HI All...I hope I am not being too foward as to write an ink review here as I do not have that much experience yet with fountain pens .....I have re-discovered fountain pens after a LONG hiatus of just using any old throw away pen......anyway...Polar Black has been disappointing...it makes my Cross Townsend Slate Laquer extra-fine point write like a medium nib...thick lines....and very wet...yet it seems to do fairly well in my Parker 100 extra fine point.....also get the same thick lines in my Parker Sonnet extra fine point pens too.....YET..in my Cross Century extra fine point it is perfect.......I cleaned it out of my Cross Townsend and refilled it with Noodlers Manhattan Black....Definitely MUCH better but it writes like a fine point..not a extra fine point....I won't even say anything about the nib creep...!!!!!!! half the nib gets covered...!!!!! All in all the Noodlers inks are a BIG disappointment for all their hype.....I filled one of my Sonnet extra fine point pens with Parker Quink Permanent Black......WALA...one SMOOTH writing ..precise...extra fine point writing pen..!!!!!

Pete

Pete, it might be the pen. I haven't had good luck with my Townsend - it acts inconsistently all the time - either too much ink or it runs dry. Might be my nib, of course, but I've not been very pleased with the Townsend even after having it adjusted by Bert Heiserman of Pen Haven.

Erick

I think I can confirm that the ink is at least a player in the equation. In my Rotring 600 EF using Aurora ink I get a 0.25mm line. Same pen with Polar Black lays down a 0.50mm line. That's going from an XXF to an F in the same pen (one that has zero flex, btw).

I've been doing some tests since I sent a Rotring 700 to Richard Binder to have it reground. It is a 700 EF that was laying down a 0.60mm line. Richard looked at it and told me that it is putting down a 0.30mm line, which is XXF very similar to my other Rotring EFs. My best and only theory is that I had the Polar Black in it.

When I go to the studio today I'll give a try with the non-Polar Noodler's Black. I don't think the Walnut behaved that way in the 600... hopefully I'm remembering correctly and it really was Walnut in there.

It's also worth noting that if you don't care about an ink's permanence there are a LOT of inks out there that don't spread or exhibit nib creep.

Comparing Noodler's to Quink is a little unfair in that regard. If I lived or worked in a place with temperatures low enough to freeze inks, Quink wouldn't be a contender. And since I do expect "permanent" ink not to wash off of paper with water, Quink similarly isn't even a consideration, no matter how well it behaves otherwise.

This ink is probably a major player in the problem. I got Noodler's Polar and Regular Black from the Pear Tree Sampler program. I tested both in the same Parker Frontier. The Polar had BAD spread and feathering on most of my papers. The Regular black wrote well on everything, even writing pretty well on newsprint (a drier pen is better for that). I bought a bottle of the regular eternal black, and run it ALL the time in a Parker Sonnet (medium nib) and an XF nib Chinese pen. I decided NOT to buy the Polar Black. If you need it, you need it, but frankly I don't write much outside when it is below freezing.

That's really good news. I'd intuited that from using both Polar and Eternal but not comparing them too closely until recently. That's why the Polar (which I bought first) is here at home but Eternal is at my studio. Spread doesn't bother me that much when I write, but it is disastrous when I draw.

And it rarely freezes here in SF. In fact, the few time is has frozen in recorded history I don't think it's been cold enough to freeze regular ink! It only *feels* like it's freezing because none of the houses have any insulation in them. I grew up in New England where waking up to -20F was common, yet it was always around 68F indoors. Here when it's 50 outside it's 50 in my bedroom. I had to move to sunny California for my first experience seeing my own breath indoors! So anyway, I'd probably sell my Polar if it weren't for the novelty factor and the cool bottle.

I got to the studio tonight and loaded up one of my 600s with non-Polar Noodler's Black. the comparison lines that come out of it are roughly 0.25mm, not the 0.50mm lines I was getting with the Polar Black. I'm convinced enough to categorically rule that Polar Black is never going near another one of my drawing pens. I won't mind writing with it (tho I rarely write with black anymore) but I have to be able to count on my drawing pens to put down the line I expect them to.

Neil Gaiman tried the Polar Black recently, according to a recent blog entry of his (and based on a recommendation from someone here, as I recall). He found it disappointing due to the very slow drying time.

My conclusion as well, but with reguard to all Noodler's products....... they make cool bottles (the ink inside however isn't worth a @#$%).

I'm surprised. I know many people consider Noodler's inks to be more trouble than they're worth, but you're the first I've heard say that they are just plain worthless.

As a follow up-I have been using Noodlers Manhattan Black from the fountainpenhospital....so far it has been superb...no nib creep...all pens write smoothly and just glide across the paper....and the color is BLACKER than BLACK..!!!
Pete

I've usually heard the opposite: the inks are great, but the bottles are the wrong shape for fountain pens.

Noodler's Polar inks would be useful right now, where the temperature is hovering around a balmy 0 degrees. Add in a little wind chill, and you get -19. Fahrenheit, that is.

That's why I'm waiting out on buying a bottle of Walnut... I'm sure that it will instantly freeze!

Even if it might not perform absolutely perfectly, Noodler's Polar inks would be useful in times like these so that I can leave my FP in a car without worrying about it freezing breaking things.