I was at the pen show last week and I saw a bottle of Noodlers Britannia's Blue Waves at the Pendemonium table. So I bought one and may Dad bought the last bottle. The ink looks super cool and also super thick.

I decided to put some in my Japanese Urushi Lever Filler that I bought from Stan Klem. The pen wrote very nice until I decided enough was enough for the night. The next morning, I tried to fire up my pen and the pen would not write. It seemed clogged because there was no ink flow. I know that the pen was in excellent working condition because I had some noodlers black in it and there was no problems. So I decided to clean the pen out and put some Sheaffer Scrip Black. Problem solved. Sometime highly saturated ink will not flow correctly in a vintage pen.

Ok, so what, you say. Well I filled up my Pilot VP and it was working well, I have a broad nib in it so it flows quite heavy. Same thing happened with the clogging. I left the pen alone for about 2 hours and when I came back the VP was clogged. Again, I washed the pen out and put in some Pilot black. Problem Solved.

I tried a few other pens and the same thing happened.

I am wondering if I got a bad batch of ink, which happens from time to time. You cannot blame Nathan for that, stuff happens!!!

I cannot find anything in the bottle that could cause the stoppage. No SITB Stuff in the bottle, no fungus or anything to include sediment. So I am at a loss!! The ink looks super thick and I am wondering if anyone else had the same issue. I will send Nathan an email to let him know my problem. I am just curious to know if this was an isolated incident or if it is reoccuring. I guess it is always a good thing to contact the ink chemist to let them know of any potential problems.

I Have to admit that this color is off the wall beautiful and I would love to use it.

Has anyone else had this problem or do they own the ink? I am curious to know about everyones experience with this particular ink. I am 100% sure that this was made for the British Market, again the ink is called Noodlers Britannia's Blue Waves.

Thanks in Advance

TNS

I have the same problem with El Lawrence, which I really like except that I don't seem to be able to use it much!

I'm going to try adding some water to a small amount and try that, since running a bit of water over the nib restores perfect flow --- until I don't use it for an hour or so!

I've tried it in a Hero 329 and a Parker 21 Mk II -- I guess the next thing will be a Snorkel just on the off chance that's better, but I suspect I will need to dilute it some.

Probably too much dye coming out of solution in the nib slit and between nib and feed, and that clogs things up.

I may try it in an old Wearever with a huge ink slot in the feed, too, just for thrills and spills, but I expect much the same behavior.

Peter

I have bottles of Blue Waves, Highland Heather and El Lawrence with the same results, they will not flow in any pen I own. An overnight in a Retro 51 Scriptmaster II (notorious for drying out) caused me to buy a ultrasonic bath to clean it in to get it working with WM SSB.

I didn't throw them out, but I won't use them for anything other than a dip pen.

--Roy

I don't have the others, but Highland Heather does dry out particularly quickly.

The only pen I have that works with El Lawrence is a Lamy Safari with both a F nib and a 1.1 ital nib.

I've tried many, and Noodlers inks of various colors have jammed almost every pen I've ever put them in-with the exception of a modern Cross with a fairly wide F nib and a modern Pelikan. One of the Noodlers browns I had was absolute sludge. I gave a bottle of Brahmin blue to a friend as a gift and it disabled her pen.
Like another respondent, I now use Noodlers-nice colors- only with dip pens.

Few drops of InkSafe should do the trick. Or maybe some water to thin the sucker out...?

My BBW had the same issue, although it didn't clog/dry up that quickly- more over the course of a few weeks? This was in a fine decimo nib. Same deal with the exclusive UK and Russian inks I've tried.



I recommend this was well- I added a bit of Tryphon InkSafe to my BBW, and put it into an ED'd Platinum Preppy- now it starts up after weeks of lying around without a hitch The stuff is not expensive, and a little goes a long way.

Perhaps the environment has something to do with it. If I have any flow problems with Noodlers I simply add water and a few drops of kodak photo flo wetting solution. For my more expensive piston fillers, I would go for fully soluble inks like Waterman or Sailor inks.

I've posted about this before -- and covered it in an ink review as well -- the only ink that has given me this kind of trouble with flow and clogging was Noodler's Highland's Heather, which is part of Noodler's UK Eternal Inks. I gave the bottle away. It went to OldGriz, who tested it and posted his impressions here. He reported that it began to behave the same way. I did a search and realized that others had also reported flow and clogging problems with the Noodler's UK Eternals Inks. I was under the impression that Noodler's reformulated these, but perhaps not.

I also had a problem with Noodler's Apache Sunset running dry (horrible flow), but no clogging. I used a drop or two of dish washing liquid soap in the bottle and it sorted it out for the time being. I will sometimes get suds in the converters when I'm filling a pen with it because I have to shake the bottle to get any colour consistency.

I see this drying out with my new favorite, Noodlers Red Black. Actually the only ink I currently use that does this. I've been keeping a scratch pad on the desk and need to give the pen what I call a priming stroke of about 1/4" because the ink seems to dry on the nib. It doesn't exhibit this problem anywhere except on the nib. I like the color so much this issue doesn't bother me and once I get it started there's no other problems.

I have a bottle of Britannia's Blue Waves. I have never used it in anything but a Sheaffer NoNonsense pen with an italic nib. It works OK there. Same luck with Fox Red, and Legal Lapis. If I use these inks repeatedly with no flush between fills, the feed gills begin to grow furry dye deposits, but the pens have never plugged up.

Paddler

Same here. To use it, dilute it 50% with other turquoise (southseas blue works well).

I have had no problems with "The Sun Never Sets". With "Empire red" in my less-tightly-capped pens, I have to prime it each morning by dipping the pen in a drop of water on a piece of scrap paper. This has not been a large enough problem to make me try diluting it or adding wetting solution.