Hod Is Not Noodler's Black!

February 22, 2012

I had steered away from blacks for a while and when I came back to them I experimented with ALL of Noodler's Blacks (well, except for Borealis Black -- not bulletproof or waterproof). I found that each one was a very different beast. I wound up buying Dark Matter because I love the history and properties (i.e. I see some shading) to go along with my Bernanke black for Crosswords and Sudoku. My mother was kind enough to gift me a large bottle of HoD -- now i am hard pressed to justify getting either Bad Black Moccasin or Black for my "official documents" black (well HoD is bulletproof and DM is water proof and fraud resistant..., but I want the others...)Let us not discuss EL Lawrence...

February 23, 2012

Hmm, I must have missed those posts. I don't recall ever seeing anyone say HoD and BB being the same (excluding arguments about "blackness"). If anything I see complaints about HoD feathering.

Anyways, I just wanted to share what I got in an e-mail from the one in charge:

Heart Of Darkness will write and penetrate
many more grades of paper that contain higher clay content and minor polymer
content (though it still needs to reach the cellulose and can't write on
100% coated papers) and can be slightly more feather prone with generous
flow pens when used on recycled papers.

February 23, 2012

Is that a brownish caste I see on the Black examples? It would be nice to find a black that absolutely doesn't have any blue component - great for mixing with browns which tend to have a yellow component (my search is now for the perfect black brown)

February 23, 2012

I never heard anyone (knowledgeable) saying they were the same.

How do you know which are which? Post count or titles? These types of test make it easy of course!
I ask, because that's what got me. I had read HOD was the same as Black several times and went by that data and bought a big bottle of HOD. Thinking I was not missing out on anything in a bulletproof black. I had even read that the plain 'black' has had more research and work put into it than any other ink but just figured that went into HOD. Wrong! Not that I mind having both, but I only intended to buy one bottle of black since I don't use it much.

To some degree a person recently joining and/or with low post counts, or not demonstrating they have used a number of black inks is what I'm getting at. I cannot make sweeping statements of how you know at a moments notice when reading a post--how experienced they are with black inks.

There are people who are extremely knowledgeable about fountain pens and many aspects of their use, but stick to a few brands of inks and have little experience with a wide variety of inks, and/or the whole Noodler's line.

There's no easy way to tell on any forum. You have to hang out a while, and you learn who knows about various topics. You realize that no one knows everything about all aspects presented in this forum.

It's pretty safe to assume that anyone saying that the blacks I mentioned in my previous post are the same is not someone I would consider knowledgeable on this specific subject....and as the OP (Joshua) so clearly demonstrated. I don't read every thread, especially on black ink topics....but have not seen people say HOD & Noodler's Black are the same. If I had seen that, I would have disagreed then also.

Edited February 23, 2012 by SamCapote

February 23, 2012

Is that a brownish caste I see on the Black examples? It would be nice to find a black that absolutely doesn't have any blue component - great for mixing with browns which tend to have a yellow component (my search is now for the perfect black brown)

The older samples of Noodler's Black I've used have all been warm in nature, shaking a glass vial of it and holding it up to a bright light yeilded a red-brown color. This doesn't work with plastic vials because the ink won't stick and sheet down the plastic like it will in glass. The other noodler's blacks like Heart of Darkness are either neutral or lean slightly towards the blue.

February 23, 2012

Honestly the only property of the regular black that I find problematic is that it sometimes gets stuck in the top of a converter. Pure water does the same thing, you may need to give it a couple taps with the finger to get it back to where it needs to be.