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Noodler's Bulletproof Blue That Is Well-Behaved? Stub-Friendly?


arcfide

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So, I've been testing out various Noodler's compared to some of my other inks, and I have run across an issue. I have 54th Mass. and Legal Blue to test so far, and I have noticed that both of them penetrate and spread extremely heavily. Feathering is worse with 54th, but I think spreading might be worse with Legal Blue.

 

On 24lb. standard bright white copy paper from Walmart, I swabbed Noodler's black, 54th, and legal blue, and put them up against Platinum Blue Black.

 

Even with large globs of ink, the Noodler's Black and Platinum Blue Black did not bleed through to the other side, showed no feathering, and didn't really spread at all. On the other hand, Legal Blue and 54th both wanted to bleed, and the moment even a little bit more than a light coat go to the page, they would bleed. 54th feathered the worst, and at heavier levels of ink on paper, the Legal Blue had a little bit of feathering at the heaviest drops.

 

This also matches what I've seen on better, paper, where the blues will penetrate through pretty much anything (Apica, Clairefontaine, Rhodia, &c.) and bleed through the other side, and will spread like mad.

 

I rather like the blue tone of Legal Blue, but I'm wondering, is there any blue toned bulletproof blue ink Noodler's makes that is well behaved enough to work in a stub nib, even on good paper?

 

The issue, as hinted at from the above tests, is that the stub nib, since it lays down a pretty heavy amount of ink relatively, and is meant to provide line variation, suffers from any spread and penetration worse than a typical nib. With a fine or medium nib, Legal Blue is perfectly serviceable, but if I use it with a stub (Pilot 912 SU and Platinum Music), the result is not workable. In either case, too much ink goes down and the result is bleeding or pushing the limits on that front, and the spread is so great that the line variation is greatly reduced and difficult to control.

 

Looking at other water resistant and semi-bulletproof blues that Noodler's has, I suspect that something like Baystate Blue and others might work a little better, but I'm specifically wondering about the exceptionally bulletproof inks.

 

Put another way, what the toughest (in terms of bulletproofness/eternality) blue ink from Noodler's (aiming for amore blue - light blue blue instead of a dark blue black) that would be well-behaved enough to work in a stub nib and not ruin the line variation and usability of the pen? Does any such ink exist from Noodler's?

 

Obviously there are a lot of perfectly good alternatives, from the many pigmented and iron gall inks across the board, to a number of non-permanent inks. But I'm very curious about this specific slice of the ink world, of the cellulose reactive bulletproof inks in the true blue - light blue black color spectrum.

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Hi Arcfide,

 

You might find this useful; check out the Bulletproof section and research the blues that appeal to you in the FPN ink review section.

 

https://www.jetpens.com/blog/noodlers-fountain-pen-inks-a-comprehensive-guide/pt/902#Bulletproof

 

 

I'm unable to make any personal recommendations because I'm not a big fan of the BP inks; I tend to get nasty clogs and usually end up throwing the pen in the garbage rather than go through the hassle of unclogging it, (I don't put waterproof inks in any pen that cost more than $25/30).

 

I guess I don't use the pen enough... usually just once or twice a month for writing checks to pay bills and that's all. So, I get a lot of clogs... those inks have to be used more regularly.

 

At any rate, hopefully that link will be of some use to you.

 

 

- Sean :)

Edited by corniche

https://www.catholicscomehome.org/

 

"Every one therefore that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven." - MT. 10:32

"Any society that will give up liberty to gain security deserves neither and will lose both." - Ben Franklin

Thank you Our Lady of Prompt Succor & St. Jude.

 

 

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You might find this useful; check out the Bulletproof section and research the blues that appeal to you in the FPN ink review section.

 

https://www.jetpens.com/blog/noodlers-fountain-pen-inks-a-comprehensive-guide/pt/902#Bulletproof

 

 

I'm unable to make any personal recommendations because I'm not a big fan of the BP inks; I tend to get nasty clogs and usually end up throwing the pen in the garbage rather than go through the hassle of unclogging it, (I don't put waterproof inks in any pen that cost more than $25/30).

 

I guess I don't use the pen enough... usually just once or twice a month for writing checks to pay bills and that's all. So, I get a lot of clogs... those inks have to be used more regularly.

 

At any rate, hopefully that link will be of some use to you.

 

Thanks for the suggestions! It does help, but it doesn't fully answer the questions. I think based on what I see, the only likely candidate for colors in the range I'm looking for are Kung Te Cheng, based on what I have already in stock (Legal Blue and 54th). Of course, that means I'm looking at one of the more problematic Noodler's. LOL

 

The big question for me is the lines that these inks are laying down, and it's been very hard to get an accurate feel for this. The reviews I see show various normal lines, but not a lot of the reviews show stub nibs and the line quality of the stubs on various paper. Additionally, while many of these reviews say that they didn't get any feathering or bleed through, my experiences are not the same. A lot of times I get serious spread on good papers and plenty of bleedthrough. Most of the reviews I can find don't actually show the back side of the paper they were writing on with a wet stub to see what they are like.

 

It's like there's this one little corner of ink behavior that I must fall into that no one seems to review: what is the line quality and controllability with stub nibs (such as the Sailor or Platinum Music nibs) on a variety of paper with regards to spread, line variation, and bleedthrough? I've been browsing the review index of the Noodler's colors, and I keep seeing people refer to some inks as well-behaving that I would *not* consider well behaving at all, so I have trouble fully believing them. I find that some of these inks, I know from experience, only behave well with round ball-tipped fountain pens on reasonable paper with relatively fine nibs and only if you don't care about the controllability of your line (for instance, being able to write with very, very small amounts of whitespace or counters in your letters. A test for this, for me, would be to see how small of a very small o or e could be written with very wet pens on various papers using these inks, where the internal spacing/counters for these letters is reduced and reduced without creating a single blob of ink. No one seems to remark on this, or if they have, I can't seem to find it.

 

If anyone has answers for these questions relating to Legal Blue, 54th, and Platinum Blue black (as my reference inks to compare against) and can compare against Bad Blue Heron, Bad Belted Kingfisher, and Kung Te Cheng, I would really want to see that. If not, then I might be forced to do it myself!

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I have some of the inks you mention: 54th, BBH (sample only) and KTC, however I never used them in stub nibs for the exact reasons you are seeking a remedy for. Of the three the best behaved is hands down KTC. My BBH is, I think, an odd duck because it's very beautifully saturated and behaves better than I could see on reviews; I'm hesitant of getting a full bottle because I have the feeling that it won't be anything close to the sample I have. 54th is the worst, only really works on Tomoe, maybe Rhodia with finer, drier nibs. A shame really. I heard, and you seem to confirm, that bulletproof Black is the best in regard to behaviour.

 

I find it very interesting that, among this multitude of Noodler's Bulletproof stuff, you mention Platinum BB as one of your reference inks because it's a "simple" iron gall ink, not a cellulose-reactive one. In my experience IG inks are MUCH better behaved than not only bulletproof inks, but even ordinary dye-based ones. So if you're willing to compromise on your brand fidelity I think you'll find what you're looking for pretty easily among the many IG inks out there. KWZ, Rohrer&Klingner, Diamine, Platinum, Akkerman... take your pick. Personally, for wet and broad nibs I'd say start with Rohrer&Klingner, either Salix or Scabiosa, you won't regret it one bit.

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Maybe a visit to the ink recipes section of FPN can help you.

 

I ain't totally sure 'bout specific inks. I've got a number of bottles of Koh-i-noor and MB permanent blue to run off first. I do also like BSB a lot but it is neither well behaved.

 

Yet, in the inky recipes section you may find some water dilutions that will preserve the colour and properties of the ink and largely improve its behaviour. I understand that, at least for BSB, dilutions up to 1:1 may be beneficial. You may likely find advice for the others there.

If you are to be ephemeral, leave a good scent.

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Yet, in the inky recipes section you may find some water dilutions that will preserve the colour and properties of the ink and largely improve its behaviour. I understand that, at least for BSB, dilutions up to 1:1 may be beneficial. You may likely find advice for the others there.

Hello Arcfide,

 

This is good advice.

 

Use distilled water... the bank breaking 99 cent investment will return 10 fold... believe me. ;)

 

The high surface tension in the water will help control the feathering and bleeding issues.

 

Dilution with dw would probably also solve my clogging problems - and if it weren't for the beautiful smoothness of the bold point Uni Signos - I probably would have been compelled to think of that myself. :D

 

 

- Sean :)

https://www.catholicscomehome.org/

 

"Every one therefore that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven." - MT. 10:32

"Any society that will give up liberty to gain security deserves neither and will lose both." - Ben Franklin

Thank you Our Lady of Prompt Succor & St. Jude.

 

 

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I have a good assortment of Noodler's bulletproof blue inks. At the moment I don't have any advice for which inks to use since I've tried only a few with a stub nib. I can suggest to stay away from Dostovevsky. It works okay on Clairfontaine paper but still has a slight amount of feathering. On cheaper papers it looks like a bird's wing.

 

I have a pen with a 1.5 mm stub that is currently uninked. When I get home this evening I'll write some lines with all my bulletproof blues & post results.

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I have a pen with a 1.5 mm stub that is currently uninked. When I get home this evening I'll write some lines with all my bulletproof blues & post results.

 

If you do, it would be really helpful to post the thin and thick lines separately as well as then combined in a "zig zag" pattern and small "o" letters to see how the ink flows. I've found many ink tests have writing, but the handwriting of the user isn't sufficient to gain a good idea of how the stub actually performs with that ink.

 

Thanks for even considering it!

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Here's a dip test of noodler's liberty elysium using an ahab "flex" on copy paper

 

The photo shows my memory of the color (fine nib) but is brighter than the actual

 

signal-2020-09-03-164155-1.jpgsignal-2020-09-03-164155.jpg

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I have some of the inks you mention: 54th, BBH (sample only) and KTC, however I never used them in stub nibs for the exact reasons you are seeking a remedy for. Of the three the best behaved is hands down KTC. My BBH is, I think, an odd duck because it's very beautifully saturated and behaves better than I could see on reviews; I'm hesitant of getting a full bottle because I have the feeling that it won't be anything close to the sample I have. 54th is the worst, only really works on Tomoe, maybe Rhodia with finer, drier nibs. A shame really. I heard, and you seem to confirm, that bulletproof Black is the best in regard to behaviour.

 

I find it very interesting that, among this multitude of Noodler's Bulletproof stuff, you mention Platinum BB as one of your reference inks because it's a "simple" iron gall ink, not a cellulose-reactive one. In my experience IG inks are MUCH better behaved than not only bulletproof inks, but even ordinary dye-based ones. So if you're willing to compromise on your brand fidelity I think you'll find what you're looking for pretty easily among the many IG inks out there. KWZ, Rohrer&Klingner, Diamine, Platinum, Akkerman... take your pick. Personally, for wet and broad nibs I'd say start with Rohrer&Klingner, either Salix or Scabiosa, you won't regret it one bit.

 

Thanks for confirming that at least my experiences aren't unique with regards to some of these inks. I can confirm that 54th appears to be the worst offender for me compared to others. I just did an ink swab test on a cheaper quality Tru Red composition notebook that I received from Staples that has the sugarcane paper, and I can confirm that Noodler's Black is the only black ink that I have that didn't bleed through that paper. It's not particularly pretty, but at least it was reasonably well behaved on cheap paper (on better paper, that's another matter). Of course, all my iron gall inks performed much better pound for pound, and the only conventional ink that didn't bleed through that paper that I have and tested was the Tsuki-yo ink, but I think that might be down to not being able to put down as heavy a swab as I did for the others.

 

I totally agree with you that I'd be happy with a lot of the iron gall inks that are made today, and there is quite a good and wide selection of these inks now. But, I have to admit, among the iron galls, I *really* like the Platinum Blue Black ink, color, behavior, and overall design (both of the total package/bottle, and the ink itself). I am sure that a lot of the others are also quite good, though many of them are too dark for my tastes.

 

I'm really looking into the Noodler's more for intellectual nerd/geek factor relating to inks. I know that iron gall inks work well, are well behaved, and are a lot less corrosive than they used to be, and that they also deliver a pretty good permanence and archival quality when paired with good, acid-free paper. But there's an intellectual curiosity and obsession in me that wants to find the best I can with regards to the cellulose reactive inks, simply because those inks are fundamentally different than iron galls. If I were sitting down and recommending/judging what's more practical and better, then I think the iron galls would have a strong case to be made in a lot of cases, but the cellulose reactive inks have a fun edge and extremism to them (archival extremism) that it's appealing, and I kind of want to figure them out, for lack of a better term. That's really the drive behind playing with Noodler's so much. Otherwise, it would be too easy to just go and pick up my favorite iron gall inks in my favorite colors and call it good, but I'm too obsessive to let mere practical solutions get in the way of finding strange and extreme ways of getting to a marginally/theoretically more optimized solution along one dimension (permanence), despite, or perhaps even because, of the challenges involved.

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Here's a dip test of noodler's liberty elysium using an ahab "flex" on copy paper

 

The photo shows my memory of the color (fine nib) but is brighter than the actual

 

attachicon.gif signal-2020-09-03-164155-1.jpgattachicon.gif signal-2020-09-03-164155.jpg

 

Does the Ahab normally have such a wide unflexed line? Would you say that is typical relative to other inks?

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Yet, in the inky recipes section you may find some water dilutions that will preserve the colour and properties of the ink and largely improve its behaviour. I understand that, at least for BSB, dilutions up to 1:1 may be beneficial. You may likely find advice for the others there.

 

 

This is good advice.

 

Use distilled water... the bank breaking 99 cent investment will return 10 fold... believe me. ;)

 

The high surface tension in the water will help control the feathering and bleeding issues.

 

Dilution with dw would probably also solve my clogging problems - and if it weren't for the beautiful smoothness of the bold point Uni Signos - I probably would have been compelled to think of that myself. :D

 

Thanks for the recommendation to look at recipes (I hadn't thought of that) and also for the reference to dilution. I'll have to give that a try and see what happens.

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Does the Ahab normally have such a wide unflexed line? Would you say that is typical relative to other inks?

The ahab is a fine-medium. I was putting more pressure to put more ink for you. Examine the up strokes of 'N' and squiggles for more typical line width. I feel the width is the same as my other inks.

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The ahab is a fine-medium. I was putting more pressure to put more ink for you. Examine the up strokes of 'N' and squiggles for more typical line width. I feel the width is the same as my other inks.

 

Interesting, thanks for the clarification. It still strikes me as a pretty broad line, but that could just be the Ahab pen if you say it's a fine-medium. I've got a sample of Liberty's Elysium on order so I'll be curious to see how it goes.

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The high surface tension in the water will help control the feathering and bleeding issues.

 

 

So, I gave this a good try and tried it with my 54th and Legal Blue that I have (my samples haven't arrived yet for the other blues). I can confirm that it *does* help bleeding, and feathering wasn't really an issue for me as much as spread of the ink, but unfortunately, even at extremely high dilution levels, the line quality is significantly poorer than other inks. It just still spreads soo much and prevents any good line variation. It makes the stub write more like a sharpie marker, albeit a much nicer color. If this were for a broad or coarse nib, then I'd probably highly recommend this trick as a possible tuning parameter, but it doesn't look like it's a good solution for my stubby problem, at least with those inks.

 

At least with most of the Noodler's Bulletproof blues, it's looking like my use of them will need to be restricted to either flex pens on good paper or medium and finer round point nibs for general writing. Hopefully one of the others will give me better results. I think once I have samples of them all in, I'm going to do a total writing sample of all of them. That should be interesting to compare them.

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I'd suggest adding Ghost Blue (remember to only mix in small quantities). It will make most inks waterproof and does improve the spread / feathering. I only use giant stubs / italics and Ghost Blue is my friend.

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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I'm really looking into the Noodler's more for intellectual nerd/geek factor relating to inks.

Ha! I totally get that!

 

So if you're into cellulose-reactive, Montblanc Permanent Blue and Permanent Back fall into that category, as do Pilot (ordinary) blue, black and blue-black. Pilot stuff however contains less of the cellulose-reactive ingredient so it's not fully waterproof, only water resistant. The upside however is a much better behaviour regarding smudging. I've never tried personally, but friends confirmed that MB permanent inks may not EVER be fully dry on the most glossy papers. They are however, quite permanent.

 

I also wonder what's the permanence mechanism at the bottom of R&K and DeAtramentis document inks... if you asked me, I'd say they are cellulose-reactive dyes...

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It's like there's this one little corner of ink behavior that I must fall into that no one seems to review: what is the line quality and controllability with stub nibs (such as the Sailor or Platinum Music nibs) on a variety of paper with regards to spread, line variation, and bleed through?

So I can only suggest that you be the one to review it, at your cost of time, effort and consumables (including the ink, which you have to acquire), if you feel it is valuable information to the hobbyist community that its members deserve to have. After all, by and large ink reviews are volunteer efforts by those who don't actually stand to make a profit by selling you the product reviewed.

 

I'm trying to work out the details of my new ink cataloguing system (for my and my wife's personal use), and part of that will be to produce and keep samples of how each ink in the catalogue behaves on three to six different sorts of paper we have, but:

  • we are not at all interested in how the inks perform on office-grade printer paper; and
  • if we were sufficiently interested, we would be using the most recognisable brand/type of laser printer paper in Australia (which is most likely Reflex bright white 80gsm), because that would be most meaningful to ourselves, our neighbours and closest 'fellow' hobbyists in this part of the world, as the single example of such, and definitely not anything US-made or with paper weight designated in "lbs", because that has no meaning or currency here; furthermore
  • I — though unlikely at this point — may do an extra sample on Rhodia white 80g/m² paper (in Dotpad and Bloc Rhodia No.16/No.18 products), of which I bought lots at my expense, because I feel that's a reasonable and meaningful, singular and de facto 'standard' paper available and common in markets worldwide, for a frame of reference against which international fellow hobbyists (as well as we ourselves) can calibrate in our communications, even though that sample will not be in the catalogue because, when we choose an ink to fill our pens with which to write in our journals and notebooks for various purposes, we won't be using Rhodia pads with detachable pages.

From my personal point of view, I produce and publish reviews only because I want to tell others something about a product, and it'd be for one of three reasons:

  • I want to show others something they might want to acquire and/or use, and therefore the appealing aspects — either to me personally, or what I think is important to those I want to influence as consumers with money to spend in the market and keep the industry thriving, which would be good for the hobbyist community — would get primary focus;
  • I'm sufficiently peeved about something that I want to express my displeasure and ideally cause the manufacturer and/or retailer for its 'sins', while still presenting information that is arguable true and falsifiable (as in others can validate for themselves); or
  • I'm just bloody bored and want to say something to someone for my own 'amusement', as an attempt to alleviate that boredom, but with no other agenda.

If anyone has answers for these questions relating to Legal Blue, 54th, and Platinum Blue black (as my reference inks to compare against) and can compare against Bad Blue Heron, Bad Belted Kingfisher, and Kung Te Cheng, I would really want to see that. If not, then I might be forced to do it myself!

You shouldn't be forced at all. But I hope you feel sufficiently motivated or 'compelled' to spend money, find out for yourself, and then still feel passionate enough about it to share the information. We all just add data points that are, by design or by nature, incomplete coverage, and only through reading dozens or hundreds of reviews (with plenty of overlap, yet still plenty of "blind spots" with no coverage) could any individual consumer/researcher expect to get >80% of the information they seek, and decide whether to take the "risk", buy and test the ink, then fill in some more of that void they feel has been adequately addressed for like-minded hobbyists in the vast community.

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

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Ha! I totally get that!

 

So if you're into cellulose-reactive, Montblanc Permanent Blue and Permanent Back fall into that category, as do Pilot (ordinary) blue, black and blue-black. Pilot stuff however contains less of the cellulose-reactive ingredient so it's not fully waterproof, only water resistant. The upside however is a much better behaviour regarding smudging. I've never tried personally, but friends confirmed that MB permanent inks may not EVER be fully dry on the most glossy papers. They are however, quite permanent.

 

I also wonder what's the permanence mechanism at the bottom of R&K and DeAtramentis document inks... if you asked me, I'd say they are cellulose-reactive dyes...

 

I just had a discussion in another thread relating to pigmented inks that indicated that MB Permanent Blue and Permanent Black inks were both pigmented inks, and not Cellulose-reactive. Here's the reference:

 

https://www.fountainpennetwork.com/forum/topic/354925-your-experience-with-pigmented-inks/?do=findComment&comment=4353586

 

I will say that MB Permanent Black is one of my favorite blacks, along with Platinum Carbon Black.

 

I would love to see any documentation on Pilot's standard line of inks being cellulose reactive. Does an ink need to be CR in order to be water resistant if it is not iron gall or pigmented?

 

I was under the impression that at least the DeAtramentis Document inks were pigmented. Most document inks that I've found have been pigmented.

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