My husband is becoming increasingly frustrated with his Noodler's Bullet Proof Black and Polar Black. The problem is that they take too long to dry and smudge quite a bit. He needs a black ink that is waterproof, making brands other than Noodler's not an option.

So the question is: which of the Noodler's waterproof blacks dry the fastest and smudge the least, while remaining 100% waterproof? From reading the reviews, it seems that the answer is either Old Manhattan Black or Borealis Black, but I would love to hear from people who have direct experience with these in comparison to the standard BP black. Also: just how waterproof is Borealis Black?

Thanks in advance,
QM2

If you cut them with some water (I forget what proportion I used, but experiment with a small batch to find it), then the drying time increases greatly. Plus, the ink is so saturated that the color does not change at all.

As for Borealis, I have not used it, but it is not bulletproof and allegedley has a high resistance to water, but is not actually waterproof.

-Nkk

Thanks, Nkk.

Has anybody had direct experience with how waterproof Borealis is?

Subjectively, I would recommend the Old Manhattan black exclusively for the Fountain Pen Hospital. It is not bulletproof,
but stnads up to water quite well. It is my favorite of the Noodler's (and all other) blacks.

m

Wait, I thought FPH's Old Manhattan Black was "permanent" -- doesn't that mean waterproof?
And, in your experience, does it dry faster than other Noodler's blacks?

Borealis Black dries very quickly (near instantaneous from the supplied Preppy on my current Moleskine Cahier). Of course (sigh) everyone's mileage varies, so if your husband is writing with a broad stub on coated magazine paper, his experience will surely be different.

I don't have OMB, so can't compare.

I posted a water test of Borealis Black about a month ago. (See it here.) It held up to running water very well, and was still perfectly legible (although pretty gray) after a 4-hour soak followed by a 1 min session in the microwave in boiling water. It ain't perfect, but it's better than any other non-bulletproof black I've ever seen.

Thanks for that information and the link to your water test -- for some reason I missed that when browsing the Ink Review forum.

My husband writes with XF nibs on Rhodia and Moleskine, so variation from your experience should not be too great. My only concern is the waterproof aspect, because he wanted it to be on the same level as BP black. But I guess you can't have everything.

No, you can't have everything. Show him the water tests, ask him if he frequently boils his Moleskines in water in the microwave, and if not, is the Borealis good enough?

He might also try Legal Lapis. Dries in a Moleskine nearly as fast as the Borealis, works well in all pens except dry writers (or so I've heard), and it is bulletproof.

Legal Lapis is my go-to ink; I am on my 2nd bottle of it. It is impeccably waterproof (considerably better than Bulletproof Black) and I love the slate-blue colour. But alas, my husband needs black. I agree that the Borealis is sufficiently waterproof, so I hope he thinks so too. Thanks again for your replies!

QM2

If you have a few hours to spare try Noodlers X-Feather.... I have had gloss paint dry quicker

Yes, that's the sense I got from the reviews! Staying clear from it.

It also seems that Heart of Darkness dries slower than the standard Bulletproof Black -- is that accurate?

It would be great if there was a chart of all the Noodler's blacks, rating them for waterproof-ness, dry time, etc.

What, no mention of Swisher's Midnight Black?!

Wonderful ink!

It flows like a thinner, more traditional ink. It dries almost instantly, even on Rhodia and Clairefontaine. It is basically an ink composed of 80% traditional and 20% bulletproof dyes; if you soak it in water or bleach, the line will lighten, but you are left with a very legible gray afterwards. It mixes a lot better than Bulletproof Black, especially w/ non-Noodler's inks. Because it runs like ink rather than paint it also works well in a wider range of pens, at least in my experience.

The only real downside is that it will feather like mad if you're using it in a really wet nib on Rhodia, or in a normal-wet nib on crappier papers.

IMHO, it's a worthwhile tradeoff, and I've not even filled a pen w/ Noodler's Bulletproof Black since I got a sample of this stuff from someone. A lot of folks make a 1:1 or 2:1 mix of Bulletproof Black and Midnight Blue to get the balance of properties that they want. The more Bulletproof Black used, the slower the drying time, less feathering and a higher proportion of bulletproof dye. I don't bother mixing it, myself.

Not accurate. HOD dries very quickly. At least in my experience. Of course, I don't have any problem with the speed of either Polar or standard bulletproof black drying, so that may not mean much to your husband.

And the basic rule is that nobody ever agrees with anybody else about Noodler's characteristics.

YMMV, to the max. No that one likes to say "to the max" in polite company.

I never had problems with drying time and HoD or Bulletproof Black, except for when making out shipping labels or writing checks, so maybe I'm just relaxed and slow otherwise.

Aaron

I'm not sure that's true. I hear that there is a particular Sailor black ink (the carbon one) that is bulletproof. It's not their "jenteel" line. Search for the ink's review in this forum. Another company also makes a carbon ink, but I forget which one now. I don't think Noodler's is the only way to go.

I emailed Nathan about fast drying inks and he told me that Heart of Darkness is the fastest drying bulletproof ink. I can get the email if needed.

Hmm, talk about conflicting information! I am beginning to fear that my only option is to buy all the inks and compare them, and I really want to avoid that.

Does Nathan give additional details in the email? If he says that it is "the fastest drying bulletproof ink", that may mean faster than the standard BP Black, but slower than Old Manhattan or Borealis, since those are not entirely bulletproof but waterproof & eternal. ...Or does it mean that HOD dries even faster than Old Manhattan or Borealis?..

If I may jump back in again ...

I fear you are asking for information at a level of detail that no one, short of a testing lab, can provide. Borealis and HOD both dry very quickly. I can write a single short word with Borealis, lift the pen, and rub my finger over the word and it does not smear -- on Moleskine paper. Would that be true on any paper? Who knows? I can write a single short word with HOD, lift the pen, and run my finger over it immediately, I will get a little gray ghostly shadow of a smear. If I wait a second or two before running my finger over the HOD word, there's no little ghost at all. On Moleskine paper. Would that be true on any paper? Again, search me. Standard bulletproof Noodler Black on newsprint is smear-proof faster than you can get your finger to it. On Moleskine paper from my Falcon F nib, it's nearly as fast to dry as HOD, and perceptibly "slower" than Borealis. On something else, it takes longer. As is the case for any of the other inks discussed.

And I may be wrong, but I think that what I have told you is consistent with what the previous poster reported Nathan saying. HOD dries faster than standard Noodler Black (and per Nathan, faster than OMB or whatever the other variety/varieties of bulletproof black may be). It does not dry faster than Borealis (in my experience), but then Borealis is not bulletproof (and it is not waterproof -- you have my tests to demonstrate that -- or eternal -- you have Nathan's word on that). I don't think there's any conflict here.

It's the ink AND the nib AND the paper (AND probably your local climate -- it's very dry here, and I sit in an allegedly air-conditioned office in my house, which is even drier). Each combination will give different results. Nobody is going to sit down with a stop watch and measure the ink drying time across the range of possible combinations. And if they did, the data would still be useless.

More to the point, if it is your husband's need for a fast-drying, virtually archival, and tamperproof black ink that must be met, he is the one who needs to be buying and testing ink. One never argues with one's own results, whereas anyone else's results are merely that other person's opinion. He can always sell the stuff he can't abide to someone else on FPN.

I just kind of copied and pasted the relevant parts of the email. I hope Nathan doesn't mind. This is in the middle of the email so some of the context is a little lost. Emphasis is mine.


Generally/rule of thumb the cheaper the paper, the faster the dry time. No need to spend more money on paper. For example, for about $3 one can buy an entire ream of standard Georgia Pacific Copy paper (lined and holed too, if needed)....which has a dry time of less than 1 second per inch at a speed of 10 inches per second when using the fine nibbed pen enclosed with a bottle of Heart of Darkness. Higher end papers can be as slow as 14 seconds per inch when using standard Black. So, the paper you use will affect dry times as well as the ink. Humidity will also slow dry times - 99% humidity will slow an instantaneous dry time ink at 30% humidity (such as midnight black) to a relative crawl of 4 seconds. If the paper, ink, and humidity are right - instantaneous dry times with a fountain pen can be expected (especially the "quick dry" Swisher Pens ink line and "SwishMix" eternal inks).

"Heart of Darkness" has the most rapid dry time of any of the extreme bulletproof inks (resists even many of the most brutal industrial bleaches once permitted to dry upon cellulose paper) - and every bottle of "heart of darkness" includes a free clear construction demonstrator eyedropper pen. Cost wise it is the best deal, because it is competitive by a wide margin with ANY of the fraud resisting inks sold in roller ball form at major retailers such as WalMart and Office Max (you can also refill many rollar balls with Heart of Darkness ink if you are in a tinkering mood to open them up). For example, a standard rollerball advertised for its fraud resistance costs about $2.73 and contains approximately 1/75th the volume of ink in equal density to a bottle of "Heart of Darkness". The math is compelling: $2.73 X 75 = $204.75 Now, Heart of Darkness at many retailers sells for less than $20....that is akin to removing an entire digit of cost in comparison to the wasted resources of disposable pens.

Does it have to be Noodler's?

Two other waterproof options:

Gutenberg Urkundentinte G10, black iron gall ink available in 30 ml and 1L bottles.

Sailor Kiwaguro black ink (not identical with the quite water resistant regular Sailor black ink), available in bottles and carts.
FPN test: http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/in...showtopic=73379
Another test with water test: http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/in...showtopic=77621

Bill: I was not implying that your information was inconsistent with xmattxyzx's post. There are several reviews out there that claim HOD takes very long to dry, longer even than the standard BP Black. There are also reviews stating that Swishmix Black has the shortest drying time out of all the bulletproofs. So what I meant by my comment is that in general, there is great deal of conflicting information. And I agree that in theory it would be best if my husband bought and tested all the inks. But that's tricky, as he works in the ER and hardly has any time to eat, let alone comparison-shop for inks. So given that my schedule is freer at the moment, I thought I'd do the research for him.

Regarding the non-Noodler's suggestions -- thank you and I will check them out!

QM2

It would be great if Noodler's Black were the ultimate ink for every situation, but unfortunately for many of us it's more optimized for use on poor-quality paper. The smudging is caused by dried ink sitting on top of ink that has actually bonded to the paper. This generally doesn't happen on poor-quality paper, where the ink also dries very quickly, but the anti-feathering properties that allow it to work so well in this case apparently causes the ink to pile up on decent paper, take forever to dry, and smear when exposed to water. Note that the ink that bonded with the paper is indeed fully bulletproof--it's the excess ink that smears.



If you need the ink to be completely waterproof, then Heart Of Darkness should be an improvement on decent paper. All of the others are not completely waterproof or UV-resistant like the bulletproof or eternal inks.



Do you mean that this decreases drying time? I've done this and it works, but I've found that mixing Black with another bulletproof ink that has the desired properties works even better. I've never measured exact ratios in these cases, but just a little bit should make a noticeable difference in terms of faster drying, less or no smearing, and better flow through some pens while keeping the resulting ink quite dark. The tradeoff is that the mix won't work as well on poor-quality paper. The other ink I use is usually Aquamarine because it has the desired properties and seems to be as utterly bulletproof as Black (maybe that doesn't matter in this case, but if I had to choose...).



I like it a lot, too, and maybe if you added a little bit of it to Black, the resulting mix will still look black but behave more like how your husband wants it to behave. As long as the ink doesn't pile up and dry on top of the paper, then it will be as waterproof as Legal Lapis.



It's good of you to bring up alternatives, but from what I've read on artist forums, these carbon inks often have similar problems as Noodler's Black (possibly for different reasons), such as smearing when wet because of excess ink (an important issue for artists who draw with ink and then paint over the result).

Iridium, thanks for your reply.

One thing I want to point out, is that I do not find BP Black entirely waterproof in the way that is useful to me. On a variety of papers, both my husband and I find that, if you spill a liquid (coffee, water, rain droplets, spray from ocean waves, etc) onto a page that has writing in BP Black, the ink will run even if it has been dry for days, months. So it is waterproof in the sense that under no circumstances will liquid remove all the ink from the page-- which is a useful quality if fraud is your concern -- but it is not waterproof, at least in my experience, in the sense that the ink does run (therefore ruining the visual professionalism of the document) under contact with liquid. Legal Lapis, on the other hand, does not do this. I can liberally pour liquids over my patient notes and the writing will not budge. For me, this is the important quality of water-resistance, and not so much the fraud-proof element. But I have not yet met a black ink that does not run at least a little under spilled liquids.

On a different note, we bought Borealis Black at the local Bromfield Pen Shop and tried it. My husband finds the degree of water resistance sufficient, but finds the colour not quite as dark as BP Black. Looking at the two together, I am not sure I agree with that. But I think will get him Heart of Darkness as well.

On that paper, with that pen, you are putting down more ink than can react with the paper. If it doesn't react with paper, it is quite washable (comes off your hands for example). You could try cheaper paper, drier writing pen, or diluting the ink with a little water to thin it. It will (almost) "never" dry on glossy, coated paper that blocks the cellulose reaction. I have problems trying to use a highlighter over it.

If it gets wet, it may be better to wash it with lots of water and get off all the ink that's going to come off.

I'm not sure you want to hear this, but there ARE journals where the ink dries much faster..... It's the paper as much as it is the ink.

I am open to that idea in theory, but we are using Moleskines -- so how much more absorbent can the paper be?

Anyway -- happily, this is not a problem for me because I myself do not use black inks. My favourite BP inks -- Legal Lapis, Hunter Green, Highland Heather (reformulated) and Victoria's Royal mint -- do not have this issue at all. I was just surprised to see it with BP Black.

JohnS-MI: Yes, washing the paper is a good way to make it look presentable after spilling something on it!

Right, although I gave what I believe to be an accurate description of the reason for this effect, the end result is that Noodler's Black can be decidedly less than waterproof on many types of paper. I'm just letting you know that I don't dispute what you said, as it has been a disappointment to me in this way, too. In order to be fully waterproof (or "bulletproof"), Noodler's cellulose-reactive dyes require adequate penetration of the paper, and as currently formulated, Black often falls short of this requirement.



That's because Legal Lapis is a very "wet" ink (i.e. it has low surface tension). Black is actually also very wet, which is why it also creeps on some nibs, but it has certain electric properties intended to prevent feathering that allows it to bead up on denser, smoother, less absorbent types of paper nonetheless, which is something you won't see Legal Lapis do. What I've done, as described earlier, is slightly dilute Noodler's Black with an ink such as Legal Lapis, which seems to greatly reduce this effect, making Black completely waterproof on a wider variety of papers.

I should have some time later today to experiment with various mix ratios and papers, so I'll do that and post the results tonight or early tomorrow. Experimenting and comparing with Noodler's Heart Of Darkness should be interesting, too, but I'll need to obtain a sample of that ink first (I've been intending to switch because of this very issue but I wanted to use up my current bottle of Black first, while saving a little for special purposes).



I believe that Borealis Black is intended to be the absolute darkest ink that Noodler's can come up with while having some resistance to water (it's not a cellulose-reactive ink), although I guess different people can perceive contrast differently in addition to colors.



Heart Of Darkness is designed to be darker than Black, I believe, as well as faster-drying, which hopefully means that it's more like most of Noodler's other bulletproof inks, and won't leave behind loose dried ink that runs when exposed to water. Please keep the rest of us informed of your results.



Right, and it's more a combination of the paper and ink formulation as a whole than it is the dye itself--relatively absorbent paper has no problems with Noodler's Black, and I've had absolutely no issues with running when using Black in mixes. For instance, I just tested the fake Legal Lapis (Illegal Lapis? ), which is a mix between Aquamarine and Black that I've been using lately, and it does not run when exposed to water, even when written on the front side of a Post-it Note (a severe test of this issue). By the way, I'll use real Legal Lapis in my mix experiments later today.

OK, now I'm a bit confused--last night I tried to reproduce the issue of Noodler's Black running when exposed to water, but could not on any of the types of paper I used. I've definitely seen this effect before myself (although I haven't tested it for a long while), and we're not the only ones. It's possible that I haven't tried the right type of paper, so I'll make another attempt later. It may also be possible that the low humidity that my area is currently experiencing is allowing the ink to be absorbed more rapidly and completely, ameliorating the problem or eliminating it altogether for the time being.