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Testing Noodler's Inks


Larry Barrieau

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First.....BBS was reformulated, because it not only stained, but ate pens.....now it only stains.

 

""""Which other pen vendor(s)/makers negate warranties on pens filled with Noodler's Inks except Indy Pen Dance? And would there be ways to check if it has beeen filled woth Noodler's?"""

 

Rick Propas, the Pelikan Guru repairman.....said his warranties was not good for Noodlers Inks..perhaps that is where the Pelikan not repair rumor came from.

Was that Chartpack...or Pelikan Hanover?

 

......Ron Zorn.....said Noodlers .... and or other supersaturated inks were eating rubber sacs within weeks to months when they should last years.

 

I living in Germany only got two ( expensive imported ) Noodler inks that I had delivered to my motel in the States by Goulet some years ago. Apache Sunset, and the ever so slow drying Golden Brown....which takes a full page of writing on a second sheet before one can write on the back of the first.....I can live with that....a bit. From my looking in Ink Reviews the only other Noodlers ink I'd want is the Ottoman Azure.

Luckily I'd not put them in a sac pen.....and do extra high maintenance with the two I have. Clean after every load....unless I have it in my Ahab. :rolleyes: .... :P

 

Richard from my memory, recommenced only Waterman inks...over all inks..........and who made his Gateway or similar named inks....that did not go over here on the com?

Was it Nathan?

 

Pen manufactures design their feeds for their own inks....not others, and Penengineer(sp) who designed the Lamy feeds had a great thread here about Lamy treating it's feeds with an acid to make it as rough and ink holding as the sawn Ebonite. It is the roughness of being sawn, holds the inks better than pressed plastic.

I've not taken off my nibs to look at top side the Lamy slick bottomed feed, which has no external buffering....which is somewhat odd....when you get down to it. That feed looks as slick as the '20's early '30's feeds.

Edited by Bo Bo Olson

In reference to P. T. Barnum; to advise for free is foolish, ........busybodies are ill liked by both factions.

 

 

The cheapest lessons are from those who learned expensive lessons. Ignorance is best for learning expensive lessons.

 

 

 

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First.....BBS was reformulated, because it not only stained, but ate pens.....now it only stains.

 

Presumably you have proof of this and read it somewhere where we can all read it? otherwise it's just more hearsay in a topic plagued by hearsay.

 

....Noodlers .... and or other supersaturated inks were eating rubber sacs within weeks to months when they should last years.

 

And sacs turning to mush with the only contact being air when they should have lasted years, means? I really don't know what it means.

 

Richard from my memory, recommenced only Waterman inks...over all inks..........and who made his Gateway or similar named inks...

 

I didn't want to mention this for fear of incurring the wrath of this site and getting banned, but the inks you are referring to are 'Gate City' inks. There is a truly fascinating and intriguing backstory to this that will explain an awful lot. If you Google hard enough you can dig up all the gory details. I will say no more about it. :ninja:

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First.....BBS was reformulated, because it not only stained, but ate pens.....now it only stains.

 

Presumably you have proof of this and read it somewhere where we can all read it? otherwise it's just more hearsay in a topic plagued by hearsay.

 

....Noodlers .... and or other supersaturated inks were eating rubber sacs within weeks to months when they should last years.

 

And sacs turning to mush with the only contact being air when they should have lasted years, means? I really don't know what it means.

 

Richard from my memory, recommenced only Waterman inks...over all inks..........and who made his Gateway or similar named inks...

 

I didn't want to mention this for fear of incurring the wrath of this site and getting banned, but the inks you are referring to are 'Gate City' inks. There is a truly fascinating and intriguing backstory to this that will explain an awful lot. If you Google hard enough you can dig up all the gory details. I will say no more about it. :ninja:

Hi Uncial, et al,

 

I've been holding my tongue, too. When I first joined here, (and before), I spent a lot of time pouring through the back pages.

 

The inks actual brand-name was Everflo... and they were definitely made by Noodlers.

 

I was never able to find the exact threads, (they were probably deleted), but it seems there was some kind of big rift between Richard and Nathan which caused the inks to have a rather short production life.

 

This is just guesswork on my part... I wasn't here back then... but this is what I was able to piece together... what the rift was about... I have no idea, but perhaps the falling out was over the same issue Richard apparently has with those types of inks... that would be my guess.

 

 

- Anthony

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The full name of the ink concerned was 'Gate City Pen Company Everflo Ink'. Quite a mouthful really.

Edited by Uncial
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As for melting feeds, I've never seen any pictures of melted feeds purported to be from the effects of Noodler's.

 

The picture is on one of Richard Binder's pages, linked to under "destroy pens" in Welch's post #49 above.

 

Now melting sacs... Maybe inks do have an effect though.

 

They apparently can. Parker filed a patent for an ink with a copper inhibitor back in 1948, so that they could use copper-based dyes:

 

It has been found that many otherwise highly desirable inks cause deterioration of rubber, and therefore shorten the life of fountain pens having rubber parts. It has been found that deterioration of rubber by inks is especially rapid where the inks contain as the dye component a copper compound. It also has been found that deterioration of the rubber portions of fountain pens is caused by inks which do not contain a copper compound but which inks have been found to contain traces of copper as an impurity. It is well known that copper and its compounds are active catalyzers of deterioration of rubber due to oxidation, even where well known anti-oxidants are incorporated in the rubber.

 

I wondered whether that was what Richard Binder was referring to when he wrote "Some other Noodler’s inks, whose identities I have not yet pinned down, will reduce latex sacs to goo. This destruction occurs without the presence of metal...".

 

Anyway, some inks, or ink components, have been identified as being destructive, but I haven't seen any Noodler's inks causing damage to my own pens. Also, R.B. refers to Noodler's bulletproof inks clogging pens, and all I can say to that is that I've been using bulletproof Black in one of my pens, a Cross Radiance, continuously and sometimes with months passing between flushes, since somewhere around 2004 -- and I haven't had a clog in the pen.

 

I guess that's my contribution to the anecdote pile :) .

Edited by Tweel

fpn_1375035941__postcard_swap.png * * * "Don't neglect to write me several times from different places when you may."
-- John Purdue (1863)

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Poor hygiene, leading to the mixing of inks which have differing pHs can damage a pen, too, but I wouldn't warn against the inks...I'd just stress how to clean.

 

Some of the broad statements like "Some other Noodler’s inks, whose identities I have not yet pinned down, will reduce latex sacs to goo. This destruction occurs without the presence of metal" can lead a reader to believe they should avoid ALL Noodlers ink. He posted that warning years ago and yet he's never shown any effort to resolve which specific inks are so damaging.

"Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination."

Oscar Wilde

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First.....BBS was reformulated, because it not only stained, but ate pens.....now it only stains.

 

Presumably you have proof of this and read it somewhere where we can all read it? otherwise it's just more hearsay in a topic plagued by hearsay.

 

Right here on the com.........and often........but as you say I don't have a selfie of it....so it never happened....right.

I really don't doubt my own word....but then I don't link every thing under the sun like you do....I wonder why?.............there was a huge sigh of relief from the folks wondering what pen to use with the stain master BBS.

It is my understanding BBS fades :o (that supposition came out much later)....but that would be unfair....after all it was not linked..........but I read it more than likely in Inky Thoughts.

In I had no pen cheap enough to use with it, nor was willing to pay a fortune for an imported ink.....chucked it in the nickle knowledge bin. Why don't you ask Amber on that...she'd know for sure.....does BBS fade? She did a real good fade test on hundreds of inks.

 

I remember talking to my brother long after he moved back to the States....before cell phones even :yikes: ....some 'friends' of his didn't believe he lived in Germany....because his newest passport had no stamps...and we were not much into picture taking....the dammed fool when he came to visit had us stop at every border to get it stamped. When we didn't have too, in it was the EU, not a bunch of little countries. My advice to him was to tell them to go to hell. No one needs such friends.

Hell, he didn't have a selfie of himself almost getting kicked in the rear, by the Changing of the Russian Guard at one place, .... just a chunk of the old barb wire wall.....why else would one have a chunk of 9'x6" ill made rocky concrete........the pipe one is better constructed..........well we were told not to take our Brownies with us, in we could get arrested for taking a picture of East Germany at night on a train with the shades ordered down or East Berlin.

 

 

....Noodlers .... and or other supersaturated inks were eating rubber sacs within weeks to months when they should last years.

 

And sacs turning to mush with the only contact being air when they should have lasted years, means? I really don't know what it means.

I assume....oh, forgot what that makes of you and me....that the word ink wasn't necessary, it wasn't water turning them to mush....but did mark in my memory...Ron Zorn said that.

As I said!!! Why don't you ask him...if he said that or not?

 

My bad.....I should have a separate hard disk backing up all the information I read. In my word might be doubted at any time. Luckily I don't have such 'friends'. Nor do I doubt my own word.....when wrong I do admit it....and I have remembered wrong......or drew wrong conclusions....which I did not in this 'conversation'.

 

Richard from my memory, recommenced only Waterman inks...over all inks..........and who made his Gateway or similar named inks...

Here I asked Nathan?.....???????

 

I was close enough for hand grenades ...Gate something....for an ink I'd never waste the huge American postage fees for :yikes: .... nor waste a thought on buying an American made version of a for me living in Europe cheaper, cheaper original Waterman inks.

 

As someone attested to, (don't know if he had a link to it :rolleyes: )....but oddly I take Anthony's word. Nathan made some of Richard's inks..............or all of them.......all I know is they faded from the market much faster than I expected.

 

That was a long time ago....perhaps before you joined Uncial....even if it wasn't, so what?

Edited by Bo Bo Olson

In reference to P. T. Barnum; to advise for free is foolish, ........busybodies are ill liked by both factions.

 

 

The cheapest lessons are from those who learned expensive lessons. Ignorance is best for learning expensive lessons.

 

 

 

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I'll repeat: I have never had a Private Reserve nor a Noodler's ink, of any kind, at any time, either clog up or in any way damage or effect a pen. In fact, I have never had ANY ink do either of these.

 

I have never let a pen sit unused with ink in it for more than 3 months. I can't attest to what happens with a pen that suffers serious neglect (3 months is neglectful enough, and I usually make sure that I empty and flush a pen every month). I consider longer lengths of disuse a form of user error, not ink error.

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Poor hygiene, leading to the mixing of inks which have differing pHs can damage a pen, too, but I wouldn't warn against the inks...I'd just stress how to clean.

 

yup

 

common sense

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I've left Noodlers Bulletproof Black sit capped in a clear Kaweco Sport for well over a year. Not only didn't it explode,turn into a pillar of salt, or implode into a blackhole, it worked immediately upon uncapping.

 

(What an amazing $25 pen, no?)

"Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination."

Oscar Wilde

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Do you think I'm a chocolatier?

"Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination."

Oscar Wilde

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I thought you were Steamboat Bill, Jr.!

fpn_1375035941__postcard_swap.png * * * "Don't neglect to write me several times from different places when you may."
-- John Purdue (1863)

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Posted by Bo-Bo:

Right here on the com.........and often........but as you say I don't have a selfie of it....so it never happened....right.

 

I really don't doubt my own word....but then I don't link every thing under the sun like you do....I wonder why?.............there was a huge sigh of relief from the folks wondering what pen to use with the stain master BBS.

 

Sorry, I think you misunderstood me. Like I said earlier, all inks stain...being a stain and all. Some are stubborn. BSB is known to be particularly stubborn but not permanent (there are ways and means of removing it simply by refilling with another ink). The query regarded the reformulation of BSB because it ate pens.

 

And sacs turning to mush with the only contact being air when they should have lasted years, means? I really don't know what it means.

I assume....oh, forgot what that makes of you and me....that the word ink wasn't necessary, it wasn't water turning them to mush....but did mark in my memory...Ron Zorn said that.

 

As I said!!! Why don't you ask him...if he said that or not?

 

I've read and re-read this bit and I still can't make top nor tail of it which I guess is where I am with my melting sacs. It relates to sacs and specifically Parker 51 aerometric units turning to mush without any contact with anything other than air and the plastic they came in. Now, granted you can call it hearsay because I didn't take a picture of it at the time, but I'm not alone in this experience which leads me to wonder about the quality of some rubber being used. I'm not a chemist, so I don't know why this happens, but I clearly can't blame Noodler's Ink. I have had one sac turn to mush in a pen. That pen only ever got Parker Quink Black. It would probably be a bit of jump to conclude that the ink did it.

 

I was close enough for hand grenades ...Gate something...That was a long time ago....perhaps before you joined Uncial....even if it wasn't, so what?

 

I didn't write it to bate or goad you. I was just mentioning the name of it. Curiously enough, I used fountain pens before I joined this forum and I even read this forum for a long time before I took the plunge and signed up.

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Good about scouting the joint first.

I jumped right in, in my 'collection' of inherited pens was worth more than the E-5 I was going to sell the pretty one for at the flea market.........back before the Last Depression, This Osmia-Faber-Castell 540 was worth $250 :yikes: and my P-75 $225. :o...........I'd paid @ $22 for it...but that was silver backed money. (wasn't going to sell that one.)

3qPLO3y.jpg

 

Thomas/Kaweco would have been real happy to buy it for E-5...I'd sold the smoke swirl gray Esterbrook for E-1, the few other inherited German pens for the same.

Had I not obeyed my wife and looked up the prices.....I'd have a wonderful collection of single malt scotches.

Instead of 70-80 pens, 60 inks, and 40 papers.

 

I started with fountain pens again, some ten years ago....one was a Esterbrook, from according to the lever, '48-52........so the pen and it's sac was some 60 years old or so. The pen sat empty for some 15 years, in my wife's Aunt's drawer, 15 in ours...In I was not using my single (bought in 1970) P-75 at all.

 

Sac pens were no longer popular in Germany...hadn't been since the early '30's when Pelikan Dragged Kaweco, Soennecken and MP in to modern times. So I don't think it got a new sac in the '70-80's. So I think it was some 60 years old.

It when it started to get mushy and die, took about a year of occasional use.

 

When one read here when I got here....10 years before....a rubber sac'ed pen....(not the P-51 fiberglass based one,) had a life time of 30-40 years as common....one can wonder about the modern sac's decade.....and wonder about the much, much less.

There were many posts on sac pens that were very long lived, 20-30 or even 40 years was claimed; as more or less normal.

 

Seeing I believed mine was older, could easily believe a 30 or more year life time of a latex rubber sac.

 

There was much complaints about Chinese rubber sacs.

 

The came the 'good' news...the I believe it was the White company the major sac maker had been resurrected. ...........Well soon there were reports the sac's weren't as good as before.

But back then....what @7 years ago....no one was putting 1&1 together and blaming supersaturated inks for sac failure. .............

Supersaturated inks were rare until Noodlers.

 

I don't know if White is still making sacs.

I got out of sac pens except for a handful.

 

I forgot to add the supersaturated Parker Penmann inks (one of the very first supersaturated inks), caused so many repair problems they had to stop making them....but that was back before anyone actually 'cleaned' a pen.....so there were many problems.

Edited by Bo Bo Olson

In reference to P. T. Barnum; to advise for free is foolish, ........busybodies are ill liked by both factions.

 

 

The cheapest lessons are from those who learned expensive lessons. Ignorance is best for learning expensive lessons.

 

 

 

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  • 3 years later...
On 2/21/2018 at 8:06 AM, minddance said:

Does that mean that Binder's credibility is to be diluted and that all Noodler's inks are completely safe?

 

I am willing to learn :)

The problem is, he's developed his opinion based on what his customers tell him when they come in with their item needing repair, not on any controlled experiment. There have been some here at FPN who have done some controlled tests and could not recreate what was claimed in terms of damage. That's not to say that the wrong combination of things, repairs made with poor quality materials, etc., could be part of the problem. But as to specific damage caused in a specific way,well, it just hasn't been verified by any rigorous testing.

I supposed anecdotally, you could say that Noodler's is safe simply by the huge volume that must be sold on a regular basis without any complaint related to damage.

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