I'm almost scared to say this, but...

I tried Noodlers black. It is good? Yes. Is it really good? Yes. Is it excellent? Almost certainly yes. Do I love it to bits - er, no. Why not? I don't know!

You all know it is a rich, dark, smooth-flowing black black that will outlast any paper known to man . It is all of that.
I filled my Cross Townsend with it and there was that indefinable "This is not quite 'it'" feel as I wrote.

What am I talking about?

Well, the Townsend has a medium nib and with many inks I get some lovely line width variation and shading without any effort. Noodlers black swamped that, and with it the pen wrote like a broad nib - just a plain black line - OK a perfect, plain black black unerasable line, but just a simple broad black line.

So, I know the pen is great, and I expect the ink to be great, but the two together did not hit it off for me

Never mind - it gives me a reason to try it in other pens to find the right combination because I think I need this ink available for all those important legal things. There is a pen out there somewhere calling for this ink

Chris

You should start seeing variation on miserly flow type pens. Seeing as this was targeted as a legal/super permanent ink, most would want their writing/signature to be in a consistent line, in my opinion.

-Bruce

Thanks Bruce. I can see this is a rich ink but I simply have to experiment to find the right pen for it.

I'm sitting facing a pile of 27 business cheques that I'm going to sign after lunch using this Townsend/Noodlers combination, then I'm flushing the pen and going to try Noodlers in another pen. I know the right combo is out there...

Chris

I am using it (Noodlers Black) in my two Sailors, a 1911-M (F) and a 1911 (MF.) It works wonderfully with these nibs.

I should add that the journal in which I am writing didn't do so well with these same pens using Aurora Black. It feathered a little.

My Noodlers Black does perfect on the Hero 100, but the color seemed off on the Pelikan 200 EF (appeared almost gray-black).

Noodlers Black is staying on my Hero 100.

I just got a bottle of Noodler's 'Judicial Black', which I tried with my Pelikan M400. I thought it was horrible: minutes later, the ink was still wet on the page, and smudged badly if it touched another piece of paper. Well, I suppose I could use blotting paper - but I never had to with my standard Pelikan 4001 Brilliant Black. I've just tried it with a thin nibbed Chinese pen, a SZ.Leqi, and it is much better behaved there. So, I'm not going to flush the Noodlers down the sink - for one thing, I'm frightened of what it would do to my drainage system - but I imagine the bottle will last quite a long time.

I just tried the Pelikan M400 with the Pelikan ink, too, just to see that the smudgy, wet lines weren't a part of the pen, rather than the ink: it dries quite quickly and neatly.

Is that a new Noodler's ink, or is that just the Noodler's Black that we've been familiar with for the past four years or so?


Is your drainage system made of cellulose?

Judicial Black is one of Noodler's 'Singapore Series', which is probably more or less some of their standard colors packaged especially for the Singaporean market, or possibly even for one outlet in Singapore, Aesthetic Bay. Some of the other colors are near blacks, but this one was the blackest and densest. I have inked one fine-nibbed pen with the Noodler's and it works quite well, so I might use it in that pen for workday writing, and Pelikan 4001 for journaling with the M400.

Noodler's Singapore Series

I was only joking about damaging the drainage system - it just does seem to be an ink that, while it obviously has great value, should be handled with care and respect, and not necessarily be used as an all-purpose standby ink.

Aarrggghhh! I looked at that page and once I saw the Majestic Orange bottle the monitor started huffing and puffing! I'm going to have a Sun tan from looking at that ink!

But some of those do look to be very interesting inks. Thanks for the link.

i got Noodler's Black at the LA pen show. it looks grey out of my Duke pen. i was expecting something close to the pilot varsity black. not even close. i tried the black in another fountain pen with a broader italic nib that writes wet and got the same results.

I use Noodler's black for my journal writing, just in case my journal is still around in a 100 years, it still can be read. Anyway, I use XF or finer nibs, which works very well with Noodler's Black. I also use Pelikan inks for letter writing, which gives a finer line than Noodler's ink using the same pen.

Like Betty, I have pens that come out looking grey-black with Noodlers Black - two in particular (a stubbed Pel 800 and a fine Lamy 2000), and I've not been able to figure out why. And on the Pel, it's markedly so. It's not a matter of those pens having low ink flow. Anyway, I love Noodler's Black and would say that it's my go to ink these days. I love it for my journaling, especially since my journals do end up in situations where they can get, and have gotten, wet.

Los, did you shake the bottle before siphoning the ink? That might have something to do with your results.

Erick

One of the things I’ve come to really love about Noodler’s Black, and most of the inks I’ve ever tried, is that they come out differently (sometimes markedly so) when used in different pens.

I don’t know if this will show all that well, but this below are pics of a writing sample of four different pens filled from the same bottle of Noodler’s Black. Each is, to my eye, a different shade of black – I put the samples from darkest to lightest. The Pel is the most noticeably different, but the Parker also has an interesting grayness to it. Anyway, the reason I posted this is that I think the variations aren’t a function of the ink so much as the pen it’s in. Of course, any given bottle could be from a bad batch or something, but my experience is that just about every ink will come out on paper differently, according to the particulars of the pen that’s putting down the line.

I do grok your pen zen ink thing Chris. The right ink needs the right pen.

erick,

i let the bottle sit upside down for a few hours while i ran errands. i came home, gave it a good shaking, and still got the same look. i think the pen writes a little dry, but the Noodler's black is not as rich looking as i thought it would be from everything i've read.

los

I know the feeling I have two Noodler;s blacks... Polar Black and Heart of Darkness... I really really really WANT to love Polar black, but somehow some way HoD is my preference.

Shake the bottle vigorously before using the ink. The stuff settles. And see below.


All inks can indeed look different in different pens, and with different papers, but shaking the Noodler's Black, and the other "bulletproof" inks, is a real necessity.


Hmmm, not at all my experience. The upside down part may just not do it. A good, vigorous shaking is what it needs. Maybe your bottle is so close to full that the shaking didn't give it enough motion that everything could be mixed back up again.

Sometimes the culprit for grayish Noodler's Black ink is the pen. I sometimes get this when I've just flushed my pens with water to load new ink. Before filling up your pens again, try letting the nibs/converter panels dry on tissue paper or soft cloth. It also helps when you let the barrel of pens like Pelikans stand upright on tissue/cloth to get rid of excess water before loading your ink.

thanks for all the tips. i'll try pouring out some ink, and giving it a good shake. OT, i emailed pilot, and they don't sell their Varsity ink in bottles.

just wanted to update my experience with noodlers black. after cleaning the pen, and widening the tines with a razor, the pen is writing much wetter, and the ink much darker. as black as i had expected. it is my favorite ink now. i put it in a new pilot capless, and it is grey. i now attribute it to my being left handed. when i pull both pens, the ink is nice. when i push, grey. the Duke pen, writing wetter now, is the same, push or pull. nice, wet, and black.