Noodlers 54Th Gelling In My Pen.

[sharktm]

So a while ago I was using Noodlers 54th in my twisbi mini and everything was fine for a while, until. After the ink sat a few days and keep in mind that I had been using this pen with no problems I look and the ink in my pen had become the consistency of a week jello. Let me tell you cleaning it out was not fun, but it did clean out. Now my question is that is the bottle of ink is still good? I looked at the bottle the other day after letting it sit a few months and it looked perfectly fine. I picked it up and gave it a swirl and it was like water. So should I risk putting it in another pen or toss it?

[Tas]

Loads of people love their 54th Massachusetts, I was one of them until I experienced similar issues to you.
It's upsetting.

I worked hard with dilutions and even photo flo to overcome them but nothing lasted. Frustrated, I ended up binning mine. Shame. I loved its colour and bulletproofness.

It never harmed any of my pens, it just clogged in them.

[silverlifter]

Noodlers inks are a complete crapshoot in terms of quality, consistency and performance. I bought a bottle of 54th Mass and it was a runny mess, more like dishwater than ink.

 

Stick to inks made by professional chemists who know what they are doing.

[Tas]

Noodlers inks are a complete crapshoot in terms of quality, consistency and performance. I bought a bottle of 54th Mass and it was a runny mess, more like dishwater than ink.

 

Stick to inks made by professional chemists who know what they are doing.

I've got a stack of Noodler's inks I'm really pleased with. One bad apple etc etc

[Freddy]

So a while ago I was using Noodlers 54th in my twisbi mini and everything was fine for a while, until. After the ink sat a few days and keep in mind that I had been using this pen with no problems I look and the ink in my pen had become the consistency of a week jello. Let me tell you cleaning it out was not fun, but it did clean out. Now my question is that is the bottle of ink is still good? I looked at the bottle the other day after letting it sit a few months and it looked perfectly fine. I picked it up and gave it a swirl and it was like water. So should I risk putting it in another pen or toss it?

Ink is gelling with the look of a weak semi-liquid on the road to becoming solid....

 

Elementary, my dear sharktm {recent college graduate}....'Tis better to err on the side of caution....Dump the { expletive }

and move on...After all it's only ink................................................................................

This of course is my personal opinion and yours may differ.......I'm no expert.........

 

Fred

It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment...A. Conan Doyle

[Bibliophage]

Stick to inks made by professional chemists who know what they are doing.

I would venture a guess that many of the "old school" inks weren't created by chemists at all. It's not as though the components of ink are truly mind boggling in their complexity. Dye (or pigment), a carrier, a lubricant/surfactant, possibly a binder. Even the biocides are relatively over the counter.

 

If ink required complex distillation, nitration, and more than self flagellation, then I'd agree that chemists should be left to the work. As it is, this is more like titration. (BTW, 'Chemist', in the UK, is someone you visit to purchase medications and makeup. Which probably fits some of the early ink creators. They weren't scientists. Just someone who had the chemicals handy.)

[azbobcat]

So a while ago I was using Noodlers 54th in my twisbi mini and everything was fine for a while, until. After the ink sat a few days and keep in mind that I had been using this pen with no problems I look and the ink in my pen had become the consistency of a week jello. Let me tell you cleaning it out was not fun, but it did clean out. Now my question is that is the bottle of ink is still good? I looked at the bottle the other day after letting it sit a few months and it looked perfectly fine. I picked it up and gave it a swirl and it was like water. So should I risk putting it in another pen or toss it?

Without doing proper tests if the Twisbi mini has a lot of exposed PLASTIC it could be a reaction with the PLASTIC or some component in the ink -- my guess is it is what ever makes it "bullet proof" -- and while I do not know if you can "eyedropper" the mini, if you can, then my *guess* might be that silicon grease in coming in contact with the grease which starts a chain polymerization within the ink especially if the pen has been sitting around.

 

One experiment you could try would be to find a non bullet-proof ink that you like, decant a few mL and then add a few drops of Blue Ghost which is a bullet proof ink. The "Cool Part" is even if the ink washes away, if you expose the paper to Black Light you will still see what what was written. If you get gelling with the ink with Blue Ghost, but not the ink without the B.G. you can assume there is something going on with whatever Noodlers is using to make their inks bullet proof that is reacting with some part of the pen -- the two most likely suspects would be plastic or the silica grease that is used to seal the pen from leaking.

[inkstainedruth]

I haven't had that issue with 54th Massachusetts. But Noodler's is known for slight variations between batches to start with (my sample of 54th MA was a very dark teal blue/black; the formulation in the bottle was lighter and bluer).

If I were you, I'd contact Noodler's and see what they say; photos of the phenomenon would probably help.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[amberleadavis]

When we were doing the ink mixing from powders, we found that some inks gelled. Turned out that it was best if we shook the ink. (Who would have thought). The ink went back into solution and worked beautifully.

[sharktm]

Without doing proper tests if the Twisbi mini has a lot of exposed PLASTIC it could be a reaction with the PLASTIC or some component in the ink -- my guess is it is what ever makes it "bullet proof" -- and while I do not know if you can "eyedropper" the mini, if you can, then my *guess* might be that silicon grease in coming in contact with the grease which starts a chain polymerization within the ink especially if the pen has been sitting around.

 

One experiment you could try would be to find a non bullet-proof ink that you like, decant a few mL and then add a few drops of Blue Ghost which is a bullet proof ink. The "Cool Part" is even if the ink washes away, if you expose the paper to Black Light you will still see what what was written. If you get gelling with the ink with Blue Ghost, but not the ink without the B.G. you can assume there is something going on with whatever Noodlers is using to make their inks bullet proof that is reacting with some part of the pen -- the two most likely suspects would be plastic or the silica grease that is used to seal the pen from leaking.

I do like to keep my pens well greased, I’ll have to see if that has something to do with it.