Noodler's Rabaul Red

[Mongo]

This is a review of Noodler's Rabaul Red, one of the "V-Mail" series of inks. I purchased this ink from Swisher Pens.

 

http://i665.photobucket.com/albums/vv16/dmoeller60/Rabaul%20Red/RabaulRed-Bottle.jpg

Rabaul Red is a saturated, slightly orange red. It shows good shading, though not as dramatic as some of the other inks in this series (e.g., Operation Overlord Orange).

 

I've matched the images in this review as closely as I can to the original pages, but there are too many variables to assure that you'll see the same colors as I do.

 

http://i665.photobucket.com/albums/vv16/dmoeller60/Rabaul%20Red/RabaulRed-bagasse.jpg

 

http://i665.photobucket.com/albums/vv16/dmoeller60/Rabaul%20Red/RabaulRed-HP.jpg

 

http://i665.photobucket.com/albums/vv16/dmoeller60/Rabaul%20Red/RabaulRed-Moleskine.jpg

 

I used this ink exclusively for the last week. It performed well in the five pens in which I used it, including nibs from extra fine through broad. Its dry time on some papers (HP Premium Choice Laser paper, Mead Cambridge notebooks, and Tops Docket Gold notebooks) is impressive, drying in a under two seconds even from a very wet pen. It's not quite as well behaved on Staple's bagasse paper, though the combination was still usable.

 

Please let me know if you have any questions or comments.

 

Thanks,

Dave

[Mrsal]

nice review, thanks!

[bardharlock]

Thanks for the very thorough review, Mongo. That's a very impressive color and array of nibs and papers upon which you tested it!

[PatientType]

Yes, thank you. It is good to know what is available out there and the characteristics of the inks. What I found especially interesting was the fairly clear difference in appearance of the ink, even using the same pen, on the different paper types. Color and shading seem pretty constant, and minimal feathering is visible but line width and absorption see to vary a lot.

[Mongo]

I should probably have said that the magnification isn't constant between these pictures. The appearance of differing line widths is probably related to that, though I don't have the pages next to me to compare the actual line widths.

 

The thing that really struck me was the difference in drying speed on the two papers. On the bagasse paper, it's average-to-slow to drying, whereas it's pretty quick drying on some other papers. I've seen this behavior before in inks that perform appreciably better on "good" papers while being difficult to use on others (e.g., the Swisher Pens bottled ink). A few of these V-Mail inks were the first I've seen with such a large discrepancy in dry times despite working acceptably on all of the papers I tried.

 

(edited to correct spelling)

Edited August 17, 2009 by Mongo

[pmsalty]

Thanks for the wonderful review. Red's are peculiar and this is one I like.

PMS

[Mongo]

Thanks very much for your kind comments. I've enjoyed working through the V-Mail inks. They're different from both Noodler's standard inks and bulletproof/eternal inks, and I found a lot to like in them. I'm using Dark Matter exclusively this week. Once the review of that one's done I plan to do some comparisons between the inks in this series.

 

-- Dave

[dandelion]

A lovely red in a very cool bottle. I have too much ink right now (even reds), but could happily buy this just for the bottle. I like your photos.