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Noodler's Black Swan In English Roses


lgsoltek

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Thanks to Mishka5050 for sending me a sample of this to try. It's a brownish bricky red. The colour is not bad and the water resistance is quite a nice surprise. But for someone like me spoiled by KWZI and Sailor, it feels rather dry.

 

Splash

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Sample

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Edited by Lgsoltek
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Thanks for the review. However, I find it sometimes looks quite brown. :mellow:

 

Agreed.

Thanks for the review, but this is one I'm not getting a full bottle of....

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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  • 1 month later...

Thanks for the review and beautiful writing samples.

I wrote a page in my Leuchtturm1917 journal a half hour ago using this ink and it is still wet. First I used this ink in a pen with a medium Bock nib really liking the big color. But it was very wet and slow drying, easy to smudge, and resulting in some smears.

Thinking Noodler's inks will go best in Noodler's pens I filled my Ahab with it, but the results were much the same, slow drying on most paper. It needs an absorbent paper.

The idea of using this ink in a work environment or EDC is out of the question. Is this a specialty ink, not necessarily made for everyday use? That is how I see Noodler's Apache, which is also slow drying. The other Noodler's ink I have is Army. Army takes less time to dry.

True confessions: I'm new to bottled inks. I have written with a FP for forty years, but almost always employing cartridges. My other bottled inks are Sheaffer black, Iroshizuku Yama-budo, and a dozen Sailor samples. The other inks might take 30 seconds to dry at the most.

Am I missing something?

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Thanks for the review and beautiful writing samples.

I wrote a page in my Leuchtturm1917 journal a half hour ago using this ink and it is still wet. First I used this ink in a pen with a medium Bock nib really liking the big color. But it was very wet and slow drying, easy to smudge, and resulting in some smears.

Thinking Noodler's inks will go best in Noodler's pens I filled my Ahab with it, but the results were much the same, slow drying on most paper. It needs an absorbent paper.

The idea of using this ink in a work environment or EDC is out of the question. Is this a specialty ink, not necessarily made for everyday use? That is how I see Noodler's Apache, which is also slow drying. The other Noodler's ink I have is Army. Army takes less time to dry.

True confessions: I'm new to bottled inks. I have written with a FP for forty years, but almost always employing cartridges. My other bottled inks are Sheaffer black, Iroshizuku Yama-budo, and a dozen Sailor samples. The other inks might take 30 seconds to dry at the most.

Am I missing something?

Noodlers inks have always been slow to dry. I had ink splashes that weren't dried after a month. That's why I have pretty much sworn off Noodlers inks. There are so many other well behaved inks out there.

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Thanks for the review and beautiful writing samples.

I wrote a page in my Leuchtturm1917 journal a half hour ago using this ink and it is still wet. First I used this ink in a pen with a medium Bock nib really liking the big color. But it was very wet and slow drying, easy to smudge, and resulting in some smears.

Thinking Noodler's inks will go best in Noodler's pens I filled my Ahab with it, but the results were much the same, slow drying on most paper. It needs an absorbent paper.

The idea of using this ink in a work environment or EDC is out of the question. Is this a specialty ink, not necessarily made for everyday use? That is how I see Noodler's Apache, which is also slow drying. The other Noodler's ink I have is Army. Army takes less time to dry.

True confessions: I'm new to bottled inks. I have written with a FP for forty years, but almost always employing cartridges. My other bottled inks are Sheaffer black, Iroshizuku Yama-budo, and a dozen Sailor samples. The other inks might take 30 seconds to dry at the most.

Am I missing something?

You aren't missing something. We'll throw Apache Sunset in here as well, but Noodler's made a line of 'shading' type inks. They are this one, Black Swan in Australian Roses (I'll talk about later), Blue Nose Bear, and I think I'm forgetting one. Maybe I'm not, but the point is they were made to shade incredibly in certain fashions. Yes, many Noodler's inks don't ever seem to fully dry.

 

I find the English roses to not have as good of properties as the Australian version. This includes flow, smoothness, and especially color. English looks muddy to me and just... eh. I agree with Chrissy on the it looks brown half the time. Also, the dry time on Australian is better I'd say, at least on the cheap copy paper I'm forced to write on 95% of the time. I haven't lately, but at one time I used BSiAR as my daily ink for many months and had little to no issue with it.

 

Noodler's sells fast dry inks - the Bernanke line and the newer one, a red, made in honor of Bernie Sanders. I assume because of the name similarities and Nathan's disagreement with the politics of both men. I've tried the Bernanke line of fast dry and it works pretty well. Dries almost instantly and doesn't feather too badly on most paper. I know Private Reserve makes fast dry inks and there other inks specifically for fast dry or just well know to dry quickly. As a general rule though, fast dry inks will be more prone to feather - it's the nature of chemistry and physics. Noodler's ink, X-Feather, which is meant to not feather (hence the name!) can take a long time to dry.

 

If you're looking for a general ink that doesn't feather much, dries fast, is permanent, and super easy to work with, from the Noodler's line I'd suggest Heart of Darkness. Plus, it's black as the soul of most demons!

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I put this ink in a Noodler's flex pen. I thought the color was very nice. I was set to put it on my wish list. Then it wouldn't dry on the areas that were heavily pooled up. Hours later, it still didn't completely dry. This was in a Neponset pen. Later I didn't write with any pressure, and it dried okay. I am on the fence, but leaning towards not getting it in the future, because of drying time. The color in my pen was often a color similar to Oku-yama, but the pooled spots were dark brown. I loved it. I haven't tried water in it yet, and I hear that may help with the drying time.

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I haven't tried water in it yet, and I hear that may help with the drying time.

 

What ratio of water to ink do you recommend?

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I like this ink. It is a great match for one of my Conway Stewart pens with a crisp cursive italic nib. I like the color and the shading. It is well-behaved in terms of flow and lubrication.

 

I have used this ink for several years and never particularly noticed that it dries slowly. Having just read this review, I wrote a few lines with this ink on a Rhodia pad then attempted to smear the text with a lint-free paper towel. I found that the ink resists smearing after 15 seconds or so. Since I blot my text routinely on letters and checks, this ink would not be a problem for me.

 

I have gifted this ink to a couple of friends, including one professional calligrapher, and had nothing but positive feedback.

 

Now, the bottle I have in current use is at least two years old. Maybe the formulation has changed. Anyway, it's one of my favorite inks, even though I don't use it very often.

 

David

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Dally, I don't have a recommended ratio. I plan to use a very small amount, and work up from there. I don't have a bottle to play with, I only had a sample bottle. So I will just apply a drop or two into the pen, and start from there.

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  • 3 months later...

David, I am sorry I must've missed your post before. I still want this ink, because it was lovely. Adding water does help. I only had a sample. I don't mind a 15 second dry time at all. But hours or days is a big problem. I have a few Noodler's inks, and I guess I've been lucky so far. I don't remember where I got this sample, but it had to be one of two places. I don't know how old that ink was from the sample I got. A new bottle could be the same as my sample, or just fine. Even if it took a few minutes to dry, I could live with that. Thanks for your comment. I guess you could say I'm on the fence about it. If I knew it would dry okay, I'd order right away.

I like this ink. It is a great match for one of my Conway Stewart pens with a crisp cursive italic nib. I like the color and the shading. It is well-behaved in terms of flow and lubrication.

 

I have used this ink for several years and never particularly noticed that it dries slowly. Having just read this review, I wrote a few lines with this ink on a Rhodia pad then attempted to smear the text with a lint-free paper towel. I found that the ink resists smearing after 15 seconds or so. Since I blot my text routinely on letters and checks, this ink would not be a problem for me.

 

I have gifted this ink to a couple of friends, including one professional calligrapher, and had nothing but positive feedback.

 

Now, the bottle I have in current use is at least two years old. Maybe the formulation has changed. Anyway, it's one of my favorite inks, even though I don't use it very often.

 

David

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  • 8 months later...

I recently tried a sample of this ink and I love it. I'm usually not a fan of reds, but I think it's beautifully done.

 

I felt the hue to be quite elegant, standing out, easily legible from a vibrancy of color that was still dark yet not vivid like many of the other reds preventing me from enjoying them beyond short bullet points, corrective notes, or additive comments in what I was writing.

 

One of my favorite Noodler's inks I've tried. One of my favorite inks I've tried.

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Thank you for your review... I like the name of the ink more than the hue itself but it has an interesting morbide note.

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Aussie roses is my favorite ink of all time. Might try picking this up too.

Selling a boatload of restored, fairly rare, vintage Japanese gold nib pens, click here to see (more added as I finish restoring them)

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So glad I stumbled onto BSIAR first. It is a beast to wash out of a white t-shirt though. You'd better like pink is all I will say.

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Yah, I finally picked up a bottle of it. I don't know why it took me so long since I enjoyed the sample as much as I did.

 

I also have a sample of the BSI Austrailian Roses I have to give a proper trial with as well.

 

EDIT: just tried BSI Australian Roses in an FPR Muft. It is a lovely ink.

 

I do prefer English Roses, though. I feel that even though it's a red, it is conservative enough to even use as a daily writer, which I wouldn't have expected from an ink with this much red.

Edited by IndigoBOB
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Thanks for the review! This was the first ink I bought after I jumped down the rabbit hole. It's never been a favorite since to me it looks like dried blood. But it is well behaved. I just don't have anyone to whom I feel the need to send subtly threatening letters.

Yet another Sarah.

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