Hi everyone! I'm searching for some suggestions as I'm trying to change my opinion of Noodlers.

I will happily state for the record that Noodlers is one of my least favourite ink brands. I've purchased 4 bottles so far, the famed bulletproof Black, Zhivago, La Coleur Royale and Luxury Blue. Two I purchased for their bulletproof properties and the black I've still kept for this reason.

The nib creep of Luxury Blue and the feathering, as well as the not so impressive colour (to me at least) caused me no end of grief. I gave it away as soon as I had the opportunity to. LCR went soon afterwards as I thought it didn't have the impact that PR Tanzanite did (which is one of my favourite inks, colour wise). I kept Zhivago as it shades beautifully in my Pilot Parallel pens (where nib creep isn't an issue! )

Anyway, I've been reading about everyone else's passion for Noodlers and I thought perhaps to give it a shot again. I'm looking for recommendations for Noodlers inks. I'm generally open with what colour although I'm not fond of teal or green inks that have too much blue in them (they just turn me off... ).

Most importantly, the ink must have MINIMAL nib creep. I can't stand nib creep, it makes me terribly twitchy and inclined to wipe the nib of my pen clean compulsively. I tend to be more partial to rich blues and purples as well as browns more on the red end of the scale (no pale washed out stuff) and very dark but vibrant blood reds.

...so, hit me with those suggestions and draw this unbeliever to the Noodlers dark side

Two Noodlers inks that I use a lot are Navajo Turquoise and FPN Galileo Manuscript Brown. I have used them mainly in Piot VPs with a variety of different nib units, but also in a M nib Parker Duofold and 45 and have not experienced problems with nib creep in any of them.

I have and use some Noodler's inks, but I am not an expert on this brand. I can only comment from my own experience that it seems not to be the ink so much as the pen I use it in. I get no nib creep, or very little, with most of my pens. Some pens, like my Esterbrooks, will not take Noodler's ink at all. Just 2 cents for what it might be worth.

I get occasional nib creep with my Noodlers, but it doesn't worry me at all - why is it such an issue?

Could you expand on that please Frank?

I'm having some skipping problems with my first Estie in which is Noodlers Walnut......

When you say they won't 'take' Noodlers in at all, what do you mean?

I don't like nib creep, it makes me twitchy and focus more on the ink that's spilling out of the top of the nib rather than what I'm writing. I'm likely to spend more time wiping ink off the nib than I am actually using it. I guess it's just a personal quirk, I prefer my nibs spotless on the top and the Noodlers I've tried just doesn't lend itself to that.

Aysedasi asked:

"Could you expand on that please Frank?"

Yes. If I so much as fill one of my Esties with Noodler's, the nib creep starts. I can stand the pen upright in a cup, and the nib will start wicking ink. If I lay the pen down on a flat surface, so much ink wicks off the nib that the cap will start filling with ink. It is perfectly awful. But, if I empty the pen and refill it with another ink (like MB, Pelikan or, my favorite ink for vintage pens, J. Herbin), the problems vanish and the pen is well disciplined and fun to use.

Note that others here have claimed their Esties do fine with Noodler's inks. I can only convey my own experience, and that experience has been very bad.

I hope this little bit of info helps.

Ah, thanks for that Frank. I have some nib creep with my Estie but its consistent flow that's my problem at the moment. I confess I've never had nib creep to the degree that you and feiye describe - I'd probably be a lot more worried if I did!

You know, Noodlers' inks aren't necessarily for everyone. Based on what you've said about your problems with them, your dislike for the colors generally, and so on, maybe you should stick with the ink brands you are using that you are happy with. Save yourself some money, time, and grief, and save the rest of us the guilt of having made recommendations in good faith that you tried and hated or were disappointed in. There's a lot to be said for all those Diamine and Private Reserve colors.

If I understand it right, nib creep is generally associated with bulletproof ink components. It sounds to me like if you choose to try Noodler's again, you may want to stick with the conventional Noodler's inks. I will say I also have not noticed nib creep with the 1946 inks I own (Baystate Blue and Concord Grape).

My only experience with Noodlers is with the Lakeshore Spruce colour. Major nib creep!

Feiye, there are a few colors that really are worth mentioning, because they keep getting mentioned again and again...

Green Marine -- it's not as saturated as Penman Emerald or Ebony Green, but it's close, and shades real well, and leaves a charcoal grey (totally legible) when wet. No nib creep, great flow, no feathering, no spreading, great line variation. It's like the best of both worlds (a saturated ink that can't be lost when wet). It's candy apple green in dry writers, and gorgeous deep emerald in wet writers, and green-black in vintage flexies (but will take a long time to dry in vintage flexies. Either water your ink or avoid Noodler's (and PR) if you're using vintage flexies. There are some exceptions, but generally, PR and Noodler's are too saturated to be used with vintage flex, and the writing dries incredibly slowly, sometimes not at all.

Navajo Turquoise -- some may disagree, but it seemed like one of the prettiest turquoises in a comparison someone once did here. I find the color to be so striking and beautiful. I don't like blues, but I love this color. Operability is great. I know you said you don't like teals, but this seems to be THE turquoise to have if you're going to have one, since it's one of the bluest, and it's so ineffably gorgeous.

Apache Sunset is great if you like a novelty ink. It shades SO amazingly. This is one of the exceptions, which you could use with vintage flex, and should. But it's the type of thing that most people don't like to use for regular writing.

there have been a fair share of both lovers and haters of Red-Black, which will be like Zhivago... An ambiguous color that some will swear is not what it's supposed to be. I haven't tried it, but I think it should be worth mentioning, because when people love it, they LOVE it.

I personally love Golden Brown. It gets mentioned sometimes here as one of Noodlers' best, especially because it is like Green Marine... it is a semi-bulletproof color but is not so close to black (like Red-Black and Zhivago are). It's another of those "best of both worlds" inks. But the operability is a little poor, in my opinion. It's dry, and the bottle needs to be inverted before filling to get a consistent color (the dyes seem to separate over time, sometimes making it more yellow-gold, sometimes making it more black. But the shading, and semi-waterproofness make up for it. Sonia_Simone once called it "sexy" and said to me "va va va voom!" and I think I agree, although I'm not really good with those sorts of matters. The ink can be a bit light for a brown. It's totally readable, but it'll look feeble compared to a dark brown. Kiowa Pecan is nice, a bit darker than GB, better flow, no separation, and still has shading, but I personally find GB to be more attractive.

Since you don't like nib creep, I'd say stay away from the real-bulletproof inks. There are some winners there (I personally like the Swisher's Eternal series, for the great flow and operability, but the nib creep can be bad with them) but you'll get plenty of waterproofness from GM, GB, KP, RB, Zhiv...

Ottoman Rose is a red-rose-burgundy-magenta that really LIFTS off the page. ROSE PETAL COLOR, no joke. I don't know about the operability, as I haven't used it, but I've seen paper samples on multiple occasions, and it always looks eye-popping rose-petal-red to me...

Widowmaker is a rosy red. It doesn't pop the way Ott.R. does, but it is bright and saturated, and fairly close to a medium red, but a bit darker. Many people say it's bloodlike, but I always look away when there's fresh blood to be seen, so I can't really comment on that.

Matt, thanks so much for the info!

I'll have a try of your suggestions next time I'm in a pen store - the Golden Brown and Red Black do sound interesting but the no nib creep on the Green Marine is a big plus. I have tried Navajo Turquoise before and while it is a beautiful colour, I can't seem to picture myself using it.

I love the colour range of Noodler's inks.But sometimes that nib creep does get irritating.Why?A few reasons:
1-It defeats the purpose of having a beautifully designed nib when it is constantly covered in ink.One never sees the nib!
2-It coats the inside of the cap.Yuk! I have to clean mine once a day.

I have had the cap twist off and get ink on the inside of my sportcoat too.Yuk again.

The inks i have the least problems with are MB's,Diamine and Stipula.

Jim

Nibs that are coated with some sort of color material (like the black ones in many but not all Lamy Safari/AlStar pens, and the colored Platinum Preppy nibs) attract much less Noodlers-waterproof nib creep than bare-metal nibs do.

Also, nibs that are completely hooded with a non-metallic body material (Parker 21 and 51 but not the 100; several Hero and Wing Sung models that imitate the 21 and 51) hide the creeping from view and from touch.

The least-creeping of the completely-waterproof Noodler's I've tried is the standard Black, which has behaved well enough for my purposes even on bare-metal nibs (Esterbrooks are close to but not over the edge of my tolerance with N's std Black). Luxury Blue, Glacier Blue, Legal Lapis, and Violet Vote creep a lot.

The non-retailer-exclusive, partly-waterproof inks (all containing some of the black), as Melnicki reports, don't creep very much.

This is a great thread. I wanted to use bulletproof ink at work, but the only pens that I can tolerate it with are my Parker 51s. With anything else, the ink is all over the place. The non-bulletproof inks that I have used, like Forest Green and Midnight, seem to be fine. Guess I will stick with my P51s til I go through my bottles of Legal Lapis.

Joel