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Noodlers Heart Of Darkness


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Thanks for the review.

I picked up a bottle a while back (mostly to get the Charlie pen :blush:) -- but I'm finding that this is a great ink. It's pretty water resistant, fairly black (okay, there's very little as black as Noodler's Old Manhattan, but that has bleedthrough issues on some papers), dries faster than Noodler's Black, and is very well behaved in general. And this from someone who is not overly interested in black inks. We'll see what happens when I finally decide to flush the pen out (I refilled the pen at one point with some distilled water, but then put more ink in the Charlie because I didn't know how much writing I was going to be doing when I was on vacation last week (especially since I had some other pens besides me as well).

HoD is one of those inks that doesn't get the buzz of some inks (pro OR con), which is a shame. It's sort of the ink that everyone forgets about. Admittedly, I figured that I could give it away to someone if I didn't like it. Now, instead, it's become one of my "go to" inks.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

"It's very nice, but frankly, when I signed that list for a P-51, what I had in mind was a fountain pen."

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I prefer Noodler's Black, but when conditions mean I can't use that ink, this is a great replacement.

 

And I'm glad there are people like you willing to take the time to do a detailed review of ink.

Proud resident of the least visited state in the nation!

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I prefer this over Noodler's regular black 98% of the time. The long dry time and forever smudging regular black seems to have pushed me to HOD for a deep Noodler's black.

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I keep a pen inked with HOD for addressing envelopes and writing checks. I recently started using HOD to write on Avery labels, for food containers. I find it to be a very useful ink.

Auf freiem Grund mit freiem Volke stehn.
Zum Augenblicke dürft ich sagen:
Verweile doch, du bist so schön !

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I received a bottle of HoD with the Charlie. The jury is still out on the pen-it has a Jeckyl and Hyde nature for me. The ink is quite nice. I just loaded a Parker 51 Special with the juice, and it's making a nice line and staying well behaved. The big bottle means I've got a long time to pass final judgement.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Does anyone prefer HoD to Herbin Perle Noire? I ask because PN is my go-to ink, but I am curious about HoD. It would have to be really good to improve on PN's all-around good qualities.

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  • 2 months later...

I'm going to chime in as not loving this ink.

 

The best thing about this ink is that it's super saturated and dark. I was looking for something darker than X-Feather, which was looking greyish to me, and this satisfies that urge.

 

It also dries pretty quickly. No problems there.

 

HOWEVER

 

It seems more prone to feathering than some of my other inks. To the point of mild feathering on a Franklin-Christoph notebook that is otherwise VERY fountain pen friendly. Post-it notes and such are a complete mess. It's like I got a completely different ink from all the folks talking about how well behaved this ink is. It's far from the worst I've bought, but it's well down the scale for blacks.

 

Even a fairly dry writer will tend to leave a little extra drop of ink at the end of a line and HoD wants to turn those into little pom-poms of feathering.

 

It also seems very prone to gumming up pens if it starts to dry out in them, making it fairly high-maintenance. I tried keeping it in a Platinum desk pen, but it gummed it up to the point that charging the feed w/ the converter won't successfully restart it.

 

I usually clean any traces of ink off of my nibs after filling, but this ink seems determined to leave me with at least one ugly black smear no matter how hard I try to clean it up.

 

ON A BRIGHTER NOTE

 

I think it'd be about perfect in an eyedroppered 0.2mm Preppy. The super fine line and dry writing would avoid the feathering problem, and those things never dry out so it wouldn't gum up the works. I have some in a Platinum 3776 with UEF nib and the super fine lines look stunning.

 

My bottle came with a Charlie, which I never got to work. Ink just dripped out through the feed no matter what I tried.

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  • 2 weeks later...

HOD is my favorite black. Besides its permanence, it is quick drying on everything except really smooth papers like Claire Fontaine, Rhodia, and Black n' Red. For those, I have to drop back to Pilot Black for a quick drying, non-smudging black. I've found that HOD will still smear days after it has "dried" on smooth paper, even though the line remains permanent. Noodler's Black is a really deep black, but dries more slowly than HOD and smudges like crazy.

 

I keep a TWSBI Mini inked on my desk with HOD to write checks and address envelopes. I don't have any problems with it drying on the nib or clogging the feed. In fact, it starts up every time even after more than a week of non-use.

Favorite pen/ink pairings: Edison Brockton w/EF 14K gold nib and Noodler's 54th Massachusetts; Visconti Pinanfarina w/EF chromium conical nib and Noodler's El Lawrence; Sheaffer Legacy w/18k extra fine inlaid nib and Noodler's Black; Sheaffer PFM III fine w/14k inlaid nib and Noodler's Black; Lamy 2000 EF with Noodler's 54th Massachusetts; Franklin Christoph 65 Stablis w/steel Masuyama fine cursive italic and DeAtramentis Document Blue; Pilot Decimo w/18k fine nib and Pilot Blue Black; Franklin Christoph 45 w/steel Masuyama fine cursive italic and Noodler's Zhivago; Edison Brockton EF and Noodler's El Lawrence; TWSBI ECO EF with Noodler's Bad Green Gator.

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"The quick brown fox ..." was replaced by "Exterminate all brutes" as Mr Kurtz' exercise in demonstrating penmanship.

 

The horror, the horror ...

 

Further notes on HOD

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Thank you!

Fountain pens are my preferred COLOR DELIVERY SYSTEM (in part because crayons melt in Las Vegas).

Create a Ghostly Avatar and I'll send you a letter. Check out some Ink comparisons: The Great PPS Comparison 

Don't know where to start?  Look at the Inky Topics O'day.  Then, see inks sorted by color: Blue Purple Brown Red Green Dark Green Orange Black Pinks Yellows Blue-Blacks Grey/Gray UVInks Turquoise/Teal MURKY

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Very nice review. Thank you for providing it.

 

I have to admit I am not a big fan. Actually I am not a big fan of Noodler's inks. I don't care for the formulation of the ink. But NHOD does seem to be a popular black.

 

For me, I prefer Aurora Black, or Delta Black.

"Today will be gone in less than 24 hours. When it is gone, it is gone. Be wise, but enjoy! - anonymous today

 

 

 

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Noodler's HOD and Black seem to be a matched pair. HOD is more saturated, and has more wetting agent, so more ink goes down, and so it may bleed or feather more before it dries than standard Black.

 

I use Noodler's Black in wetter pens and HOD in dryer pens, and that way, they seem to give me matching behaviour.

fpn_1412827311__pg_d_104def64.gif




“Them as can do has to do for them as can’t.


And someone has to speak up for them as has no voices.”


Granny Aching

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  • 3 years later...

I'm a big black ink fan and HOD is one of my favorites.

 

I use this and Kiwa-Guro, another rich black ink.

 

HOD writes a little wet sometimes and can write too thick a line where Kiwa Guro is more tamed and can be dry sometimes, so they compliment my rotation and pens nicely to achieve an agreeable black.

 

I do have Noodler's Black on me just in case because it is an inexpensive ink that writes decently on cheap paper, but I haven't used it for a long time. It can write a bit gray for me and the color is lacking IMO compared to Kiwa-Guro and HOD.

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"The quick brown fox ..." was replaced by "Exterminate all brutes" as Mr Kurtz' exercise in demonstrating penmanship.

 

The horror, the horror ...

 

Further notes on HOD

This is the way the world ends,

Not with a bang, but a whimper.

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