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Which Noodler's Flex Pen?


BookCat

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If this is considered a double of my thread about modern flex pens, please delete the other thread.

 

I've been researching modern flex pens as I've been having problems with an Indian one which I bought recently (it won't flow) and can't get an answer from the company.

 

I've narrowed down the options to one of the Noodler's flex pens: Nib Creaper, Konrad, or Ahab.

 

Does anyone have experience with these pens? Which one of the three would you recommend for its flexiness and good ink flow, as well as just the look and feel of the pen? I have read that the Goulet's have great customer service, so I think I can order from them with confidence. But which one?

 

Please help. Thanks. :)

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I have the Creaper and Ahab.

 

Creaper is broken after a few months:

The barrel cracked far too much to be safe to use

 

Ahab broke after a year. One Ahab is left:

The broken Ahab ethier drips ink like a river or at times drops a ink drop from time to time.

 

So far they are hit or miss for me.

 

Not the FP version, But I have a Konrad Brush pen and the piston drove me nutts. It won't fill all the way by hand I need to use the pliers to bring the piston back fully.

 

Okay for the price Noodler's pen is fine. But compared to something like my Justus95. My Justus95 eats my Ahab for breakfast. But it is after all a 300 dollar pen and not a 20 dollar pen.

Edited by Icywolfe

#Nope

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I have an Ahab; haven't had it long and enjoy using it. Not super flex-y and has the occasional nasty habit of blopping a big drop of ink from I'm not sure where. The modest flex I'm fine with and, according to what I've read, I should be able to make adjustments to stop the blop-age, just haven't yet. For $20, I'm happy. It's a fun, inexpensive intro to flex.

Life's too short to use crappy pens.  -carlos.q

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My understanding is that the Noodler's nibs are to be considered "semi-flex" at best. The nibs are the same size on the Ahab and Konrad models, so it would be a case of which you prefer (I have no experience with Ahabs, but understand them to be a bit bigger around, and also not piston-fillers the way the Konrads and FPCs are).

Some people have had QC issues with their pens, but I've done okay with all of mine (three FPCs, three regular -- i.e., resin-bodied -- Konrads, and one ebonite Konrad) out of the box. The ebonite Konrad is probably my favorite -- it's a little bit longer, and seems to be better quality than the others, but of course it's also twice as expensive as the regular Konrads. The FPCs are smaller and lighter, and consequently don't hold as much ink. They're also a tiny bit harder take apart (and I had to replace the o rings on my first one). But I think the smaller nibs may flex a tiny bit more (plus they're less expensive) -- so it's a case of "your mileage may vary"....

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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Icywolfe, if I could justify the expense I'd buy a vintage pen, but I have too many other responsibilities to be able to spend a fortune on fps; with winter coming up, the heating bills take a higher priority, but thank you for your input.

 

ScienceChick, an intro to flex and a cheap pen with which to learn flex handwriting is what I'm looking for. Something I can mess up without undue concern for the huge investment. What do you think of the size of the Ahab? I've watched Brian's vids about it and this seems to be Noodler's largest pen. My hands are on the small size.

 

Ruth, I like the 'inbetweeness' of the Konrad, sizewise and love the look of the acrylic ones (which are as expensive as the ebonite, I think) but there's only one design in stock and it doesn't look very nice. There's one of the normal Konrads which has a rather nice design and is in stock.

 

I think the shipping is $8, so I've just got to convert $28 to £ to convince myself that I can buy this (the cats are mentally calculating the number of cans of catfood I could purchase for the money!). £16.88....mm....I'll make a cup of tea and consider.

 

Thanks :D

Edited by BookCat
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If you like the acrylic pens, Andersonpens.net has some in stock. I couldn't tell if they ship overseas from my tablet but, their customer service and reliability are on par with Goulet.

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Just grabbed this shot on my bench. From left to right: A Lamy AlStar, a Pilot Vanishing Point, the Ahab, and a TWSBI 580AL. As you can see, the size is pretty comparable. It's a good-sized pen, but certainly not giant.

 

http://i1158.photobucket.com/albums/p603/Komitadjie/IMG_20140828_214952_zpsf80b747c.jpg

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Icywolfe, if I could justify the expense I'd buy a vintage pen, but I have too many other responsibilities to be able to spend a fortune on fps; with winter coming up, the heating bills take a higher priority, but thank you for your input.

I was just fed up with Noodler's pens. I found I spent a bit of money to get them to work and still not working.

#Nope

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I have two Nib Creapers and an Ebonite Konrad and I use them quite a bit every day. They're really fun. I don't have any experience with vintage flex (my Pelikan 140 is semi-flex, mayyyybe), but you can definitely have a lot of fun with the Noodler's pens at not that high of a cost. I'd say that one advantage of these nibs flexing to quite a thick line but requiring a decent amount of pressure to do so is that you can use these pens for normal writing quite easily, with a good sense of control for when you want to engage the flex.

 

The Nib Creapers I like to fiddle around with quite a bit. They take a smaller #2 nib, which Nathan Tardif did on purpose supposedly because there are a lot of vintage #2 flex nibs out there? Something like that. I want to buy an old Waterman #2 eventually, I think. My Konrad is honestly my favourite pen and writes beautifully right out of the box- nice and smooth and wet. The advantage of going with an Ahab or Konrad is that you can get #6 replacement nibs for them quite easily, either flex or non-flex ones by Noodler's or even a Goulet nib. I'm toying with the idea of outfitting my Konrad with a 1.1 stuff eventually!

 

Since you CAN adjust the feed in these pens to modify ink flow, it's hard to really say which is best in that department. My Konrad was best out of the box but I have made the Nib Creapers match that.

 

I don't have an Ahab or normal Konrad yet, either, so I can't speak to their performance specifically. I'm embarrassed to say that I have an Ahab, a resin Konrad, and an acrylic Konrad in the mail to me right now from Anderson pens. I'm out of control! I do really, really, really like my Ebonite Konrad, though. I've held an Ahab before and it was juuuust a bit too big for my hands (I'm a 5'6" woman, if that helps) but I didn't use it for an extensive period of time or anything, so I can't totally write it off. The Konrad is about perfect. I guess I've only had these pens for just over a month, but I do take them around with me every day and use them quite a bit.

 

Anyways! that's my little ramble. I don't know exactly which pen will best suit your needs, but I hope my take is at least a little helpful.

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post-115404-0-59891900-1409290050.jpg

 

I wanted to show a side by side of all of the Noodler's types but I couldn't find my Ahab so I have a Safari, TWSBI mini,Parker Urban, Delta Serena, and Noodler's Konrad Ebonite, Konrad Acrylic, Konrad reg, and a Nib Creeper. Hopefully you can get a bit of an idea when comparing with the previous posters photo of the Ahab.

 

I think of the Noodler's pens, I prefer the Ebonite. Not that they're bodies are drastically different from a reg Konrad, but I like the looks and the tactile feeling of them. A little fussing and any one of them would be a lot of fun to play with... as long as you don't mind inky fingers :D

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Slightly offtopic but if anybody know how I might make the piston move more back on the Konrad it will be great help. My Konrad is about 1 step away from the trash can or giving it to one of my friends when I do put a brush tip on it.

 

http://www.mediafire.com/convkey/a1eb/afis1bc5oezomzs6g.jpg

#Nope

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Hmm... have you had the piston out for cleaning? Could be simply tremendously mis-aligned in the blind cap threads... Or possibly just dirty as hell, it certainly LOOKS cruddy behind the piston... At least to my eye, not having that model myself.

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Hmm... have you had the piston out for cleaning? Could be simply tremendously mis-aligned in the blind cap threads... Or possibly just dirty as hell, it certainly LOOKS cruddy behind the piston... At least to my eye, not having that model myself.

That blue is stuck some where. It's clean and that blue ring was me testing out if it can feed ink.

#Nope

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I wonder if the piston threads are mis-aligned? I know if you don't have them aligned properly in my TWSBIs, and in the 149, the piston won't retract fully...

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I wonder if the piston threads are mis-aligned? I know if you don't have them aligned properly in my TWSBIs, and in the 149, the piston won't retract fully...

I just need to use pliers (and some muscle)to turn the knob fully. that is how I know how much it full filling.

#Nope

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I have the Creaper and Ahab.

 

Creaper is broken after a few months:

The barrel cracked far too much to be safe to use

 

Ahab broke after a year. One Ahab is left:

The broken Ahab ethier drips ink like a river or at times drops a ink drop from time to time.

 

So far they are hit or miss for me.

 

Not the FP version, But I have a Konrad Brush pen and the piston drove me nutts. It won't fill all the way by hand I need to use the pliers to bring the piston back fully.

 

Okay for the price Noodler's pen is fine. But compared to something like my Justus95. My Justus95 eats my Ahab for breakfast. But it is after all a 300 dollar pen and not a 20 dollar pen.

 

Did you do anything special to cause them to crack? I've carried one of mine loose a in pocket (mostly due to being a cheap pen, and I have a few Noodler's pens so I didn't mind using one as beater pen) and it's still going strong months later after plenty of abuse.

Edited by discopig
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Did you do anything special to cause them to crack? I've carried one of mine loose a in pocket (mostly due to being a cheap pen, and I have a few Noodler's pens so I didn't mind using one as beater pen) and it's still going strong months later after plenty of abuse.

It might be the heat around here. LA got some heat for a few months.

#Nope

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Well, Bookcat,

 

Quite a vigorous thread going here. There are a few videos on YouTube dealing with the Noodler pens. From what I gather, the Creapers had too small an ink capacity and nib to keep from railroading when going full-flex. So, the Ahabs were designed. In fact, Nathan overengineered the pen for max ink capacity and a feed and nib that would not railroad. Users liked the Ahab but thought it was too much pen, too big a barrel. So, the Konrad, not so big but with a large nib and hi-capacity feed to perform better in full flex mode. Disclaimer: I have several Konrads and Ahabs but have 1.1 mm italic nibs in all, don't do flex. So if you want a flex pen, the Ahab if you like large pens, else the Konrad.

 

@icywolfe: Yeah, I have lost pens to cracking and piston-filler-failure. Never a Noodler, though. But, to do justice to the Konrads and Ahabs, you should learn to dismantle and relubricate the pen. Also, how to heat-set the nibs, along with pulling and reinserting nibs. Brian Goulet has videos on the Noodler pens, well worth taking a look at them. Nathan Tardiff made the Noodler pens to be worked on, taken apart, and adjusted to a user's preference. I find it a lot of fun to work with the pens.

 

Enjoy, and best of luck,

Edited by Randal6393

Yours,
Randal

From a person's actions, we may infer attitudes, beliefs, --- and values. We do not know these characteristics outright. The human dichotomies of trust and distrust, honor and duplicity, love and hate --- all depend on internal states we cannot directly experience. Isn't this what adds zest to our life?

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Thank you for all the wonderful advice.

 

Icywolfe, are you turning the piston knob correctly? I spent most of last night watching vids about the noodler's pens, including Brian's and saw one which included disassembly. Will try to link a vid.

Skip to approx 5mins 40secs and ignore the writing comparison: sbre mentions earlier in the vid that he hadn't got the Konrad set up properly and has a follow-up video in which he revisits the pen.

 

I've ordered a Konrad regular in the Red State (special edition) design:

http://www.gouletpens.com/v/vspfiles/photos/N14031-4T.jpg

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