Noodler’S Safety Pen - Problems

[Pen_andy]

 

Alright, so back on topic then:

 

 

 

Here's my Noodler's safety pen fully disassembled.

 

 

As you can see, there is no helical cam like on some other safety pens -- so you do not need to twist the pen. I think Nathan suggests a twist to break the static-friction and get it moving; but after that you just want to pull up or down.

 

On mine, the action was much smoother/easier with only one O-ring. Someone here said the second was to provide extra resistance so that you could flex more without accidentally pushing the nib back in.

 

You might want to try using only one O-ring, or putting silicone grease on the inside of the barrel at the back.

 

 

 

If you're still stuck with the nib half-way:

 

Maybe empty the ink and pull the nib/feed so you can push from the front?

 

Were you using an ink that'd make the o-rings swell? He found a few of the solvents used in some artist inks caused swollen o-rings which would make the mechanism difficult to move... if those don't un-swell in water, you may have to cut them out with a knife or something.

Thanks for this. Using pliers (with rubber and under) I managed to pull the sleeve off and then the rod moved with some brute force (did not manage to disassemble further). It’s working now, so let’s see how it is tomorrow. As for ink I just used Diamine Sherwood Green, nothing controversial I hope.

 

Thanks for the help.

 

Andy

 

PS: I did not intend to start an avalanche of love/hate Noodler’s. I have an Aha that works well.

[woleizihan]

These pens at least should write well out of the box without needing any adjustments. There's no reason why they shouldn't write well out of the box.

Well, it was what I thought before and I still don't like pens that don't perform well right out of box. However, there are reasons I can think of to explain the existence of these pens.

 

Fountain pens still have some utility values but the whole fountain pen community is moving towards hobby/ luxury items. As a tool, fountain pen should work well right out of the box. However, as a hobby, people also care about entertainment per dollar/ time wasted per dollar so for people who enjoy fiddling with pens, the pens that require adjustments have a great value. For an extreme example, think of the unrestored lots on Ebay, they provide great entertainment per dollar for people who enjoys pen repairs.

 

It's more like personal preference than expectation. If you like fiddling, buy pens that require some, hopefully cheaper than the well functioning alternatives. If you don't like fiddling, buy pens that perform well or factor in the cost of,nib work. I feel more like in between. I use fountain pens for most of my works so I need a solid, well performing pen and performance right out of box matters. I also play around with my pens after work, for which I care about fiddling per dollar as well as what I'm getting after the fiddling.

 

Again I stress that I think it's more of a personal preference than expectation. It's not about one shouldn't expect perfect out of box performance. It's more like understanding what you want, understanding what the pen will give you and making decision based on those. You can change your expectation pretty fast but not your preference. And changing preference to buy a certain pen will not work out in my experience. I was looking for a solid pen with large ink capacity to carry. I saw the Visconti HS and I was aware of the issues for nibs. I told myself I could tune the nibs myself and it would be fine. Unsurprisingly, I got a bad EF with uneven tipping and wrote like an M. However, even after grinding the nib to a great CI, which I like a lot, I still don't feel good about carrying it with me psychologically and ended up keep it in the sotrage.

 

And for why Nathan is selling these pens, I think he is making money and people will buy them should give enough reason.

Edited January 24, 2018 by woleizihan

[ASCIIaardvark]

Fountain pens still have some utility values but the whole fountain pen community is moving towards hobby/ luxury items. As a tool, fountain pen should work well right out of the box. However, as a hobby, people also care about entertainment per dollar/ time wasted per dollar so for people who enjoy fiddling with pens, the pens that require adjustments have a great value. For an extreme example, think of the unrestored lots on Ebay, they provide great entertainment per dollar for people who enjoys pen repairs.

 

If you like fiddling, buy pens that require some, hopefully cheaper than the well functioning alternatives. If you don't like fiddling, buy pens that perform well or factor in the cost of,nib work.

 

Again I stress that I think it's more of a personal preference than expectation. It's not about one shouldn't expect perfect out of box performance. It's more like understanding what you want, understanding what the pen will give you and making decision based on those.

 

Well stated - I hadn't thought of it that way, but that's a good insight.

 

After learning to fiddle on Noodler's pens, I found I liked being able to nib-swap & carve up the ebonite feed so much that I now mostly buy pens where I can do that.

 

When I get a pen, I spend maybe a week writing with it and adjusting it, trying different inks, etc. Once I'm settled, it stays pretty static 'till I decide to put a different nib on it (but that's another way to spend more time with a pen I'm not using much anymore).

 

 

To Donald2's point, the pens where this adjustment is possible have, in my limited experience so far, written less well out of the box. I didn't think of it as a marketing decision, but there probably is some of that in why the pens work that way.

 

I've seen studies that show Ikea furniture owners are more satisfied with and attached to the furniture they made than people who bought finished furniture. I suspect it's the same with me -- there's definitely a deep satisfaction when I get the pen working *exactly* the way I want.

[IndigoBOB]

The Noodler's pens are "Buy at your own Risk". They are tinkering pens that are known to have QC problems, which has been my experience as well. My Charlie pens work great, but the Konrad Ebonite pens I have tried have had cracks on in the inner piston mechanism OOTB as well as poor polishing on a section that made it abrasive on my fingers.

 

I like the pens, I like the idea of them, but I think the execution of them falls short.

 

They are purported to be for those with a low budget, but if I was recommending a pen for someone on a low budget it would be one that didn't also require the expenditure of a tinkering kit and possibly a better nib.

[Thefoxhole]

Anyone having the leaking issue? Mine leaks just enough so when I push the slider and pull it back it leaves just a few drops of ink.

[Donald2]

Does it leak with the nib fully extended out in the writing position?

[Pen_andy]

Mine does not leak at all. If you overfill it then it will leak obviously. It will also leak if you decide to open the pen as any other pen nib down

[ReadyFireAim]

Noodler's Safety / Creaper nib & PR Avocado Green.

Just checked and my $5 nib goes from about 0.2 - 2.0 mm in that last line.

not bad for a nail.

Edited January 25, 2018 by Nail-Bender

[Thefoxhole]

Does it leak with the nib fully extended out in the writing position?

It leaks from the Piston assembly. After use. Very small amounts.

[matteob]

I take it people are sealing up with silocone grease?

[ASCIIaardvark]

Does it leak with the nib fully extended out in the writing position?

had some ink on the back of mine just once, but I never identified how it got there -- could've been from pushing the nib out or maybe using it with one O ring was problematic or even a drip from filling.

[benborgmeyer]

my safety pen leaks from the bottom section when i try and extend the nib. not just leaks, but ejects ink. frustrating. anyone have any idea what the problem is?

[inkstainedruth]

I think that most people would like their fountain pen to write well out of the box. This thing about tinkering with the pen isn't very fun to do with a brand new $55 fountain pen. At least, for me it isn't. I suppose that I will try my 4 at some point in time to see whether or not they are any good. The problem that I have is that I do not know what to do or how to adjust my Boston safety pen if it doesn't write well. I don't want to accidentally break anything on the pen. Hopefully, it will not be hard to get the pen to write well.

 

Even pens that are "right out of the box" will need to be flushed out to get rid of any manufacturing residues.

At this point I have about a dozen Noodler's pens -- a bunch of freebie Charlie eyedroppers, four Konrads (including one ebonite one), three of the Flex Creepers, and the Boston Safety, which just came in the mail about 2-1/2 hours ago. Plus two other Konrads which I lost.

ALL have worked well out of the box except for one of the Charlies (which drooled and burped badly); and one of the resin Konrads can't be posted. Maybe I have good pen karma (I am good at finding pens in the wild for phenomenally good prices on occasion). Or maybe they're not as bad as people say -- I can't even smell the supposedly bad odor of the vegetal resin people talk about (you should read the extremely long at this point thread about how "expensive" pens are garbage and not worth the money people pay for them...).

And yeah, I think you DO maybe have a bad attitude. When I said in another thread that I had one of these coming in the mail, and someone asked how many, I said "One -- I'm not greedy...." Because I KNOW how hard it has been to get these to market in any appreciable numbers. I had talked to Nathan Tardif at the Commonwealth Pen Show last fall, and he said he'd been having production issues (not the least of which trying to explain to the manufacturers that everything inside the pen had to be ebonite). And then YOU go buy four of them and whine about them without having even bothered to try them.

Maybe you should not buy any more pens from ANY company until you do a little research and due diligence about the brand/model. Just sayin'....

Oh, and while people talk about the issues with nibs drying out with the vegetal resin pens, I've had that. But I'm ALSO having that with the Pilot Decimo I got a few weeks ago -- and that pen cost more than 2-1/2 TIMES as much as the Boston Safety pen. YMMV

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[benborgmeyer]

I agree. Noodlers pens bring lot of joy to my boring broke life.

[inkstainedruth]

Well, I now have the pen inked up, after flushing it out, and removing the nib and feed scrubbing with a toothbrush and soapy water, then rinsing it well (there was a fair amount of dark colored junk that came out of the insides, BTW) . There is a bit of a learning curve on how much to fill the pen, and also in how to retract the nib. But so far so good, and other than with retracting the nib, I like the pen a lot. Especially since it's ebonite -- which has a warmth to it that some other materials don't have. Kinda wish it was a different color, though....

I decided to go for broke and fill the pen with KTC (may as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb... ).

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[ParkerDuofold]

...There is a bit of a learning curve on how much to fill the pen, and also in how to retract the nib...

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

Hi all,

 

For those of you out there in FPNLand, who will be working with a safety pen for the first time, like our Ruth... may I suggest using plain water or plain water with just a couple drops of vegetable dye in it, (for improved visibility, if needed), as the "ink"... it might prevent a lot of swearing and/or tears during the process of the learning curve.

 

 

- Anthony

 

 

P.S.: Just for the sake of disclosure, I don't have one yet, but after reading Ruth's comments, it sounds like a prudent thing to do.

 

 

EDITED for typo and to add text.

Edited February 27, 2018 by ParkerDuofold

[chalkdust]

My Noodler's Boston Safey arrived yesterday. I took Anthony's advice and used water only at first to lean a little. Well, I used a bit of soap in the first water too. With one of the washings and rinsing, a little flake of ebonite came out, so I am glad I did the washing. I found no leaks with water in the pen, so I poured out the water and put X-Feather ink in. Though part of my practice with water to see how full it can go before danger of ejecting ink when extending the nib, I found it difficult to actually see the level of the ink in the pen. I forgot to tap the pen's back on a table to help ink get to the back of the pen, so I suspect I did not get a complete fill this first time. But no matter, really.

 

The first couple of pages I wrote with it, I found that it would starve for ink at about half a page. The remedy, of course if to retract the nib and let it bathe then extend the nib and keep going. But It seemed strange that the feed did not feed the nib well.

 

But after letting it rest over night, I find today that there is no issue with starvation at all. I have written many pages today and it has not stopped working at all. There are no leaks yet.

 

Mine is the chestnut color (model 13002). I have some other swirly ebonite colored pens on which the proportions of black to color did not match on the body and on the cap. Those are distracting to me. This chestnut Boston Safety does not have that problem, All the parts look very similar and work together very well. One thing I noticed is that the imprinted "Boston Safety Pen Noodler's Ink Company" is essentially invisible on this swirly brown and black. I can only see it by first feeling where it is, then getting a flashlight or other bright light source and carefully inspecting it. I find the pen to be attractive.

 

A little context: I am not an artist. I do not intend to use the specialized inks with bonding agents. I like to tinker with things and understand my equipment (e.g. I prefer prime manual focus lenses for photography over zooms or auto-focus lenses). I plan to use this safety pen when I travel by air.

Edited April 26, 2018 by chalkdust

[chalkdust]

One other thing I forgot to mention...I watched Nathan Tardif's videos about the pen more than once in order to set my expectations. One thing he stresses is that only clockwise twisting should be used for extending or retracting the nib. I noticed that the video currently at Pen Chalet where I purchased my pen (great service from them by the way) shows some counter-clockwise motion sometimes. I really recommend only clockwise, like Mr Tardif explained. There is no screw mechanism that extends or retracts or locks the nib. There is only the friction of the o-rings. Counter-clockwise twisting is used ONLY for disassembly of the pen. I suspect that kind of twisting motion could be the cause of many leaks and reports of problems with the pen. Just my opinion.

[chalkdust]

First problem encountered and resolved. The nib did not retract when I pulled back on the rear. It just stayed in place extended. It wrote, of course, and did not leak. Because the cap has that metal rod in it, It was no problem to cap the pen, which pushed the nib unit back into the body. The cap still sealed well, and the pen never leaked. But I left it until I could get home and disassemble the pen and see what the problem was.

 

It turns out that nothing broke. But the ebonite piece that holds the nib and feed had come off of the piece behind it. So I screwed it back on. I put a bit of silicone grease on the o-rings and on the threads on the piece on the back of the body and put it all back together and inked it. It still does not leak and works fine. But I suspect the problem could happen again because the screw threads on the part that came loose could come loose again. So, if it happens again, I may put a bit of teflon tape on those threads to tighten them a bit.

 

Do I still like the pen? Yes, even more so now because I see how easily fixable it is. I will report back with any other significant experiences of problems or fixes.

 

Oh, by the way, my pen is an chestnut ebonite purchased in late April 2018, in case people try to guess about timing of quality issues in manufacturing.

[pepsiplease69]

I would suggest two things.

 

1- Whenever deploying AND retracting the nib, only turn the rear knob in the the direction which wont make it unscrew. You can turn it in either direction ( there are no threads) you just want to break up the static friction so that it glides smoothly. Therefore its recommended to keep turning the knob while moving up or down. Dont just push straight up/down.

 

2- Take the whole thing apart and try to understand how the mechanism operates. Try to identify which part is getting stuck. Apply some silicone grease to it. I think its the green rubber collar just behind the nib. I think its okay to apply some lubricant there. Keep the grease away from the feed and nib. If it gets into the ink channel it will start obstructing the ink flow.

 

I have not read everyones reply but just chiming in on my own.