Noodler's Bulletproof Blue Inks Behavior In Stub Nibs

[arcfide]

[Reposting here by request from another thread.]

 

The following test arose to answer the question of whether there were any Bulletproof Blue inks from Noodler's that would exhibit sufficiently precise line quality to enable its effective use in a Platinum #3776 Music nib and the flow associated with that feed system, targeting 6.5mm line widths and Apica papers (both premium and not) as well as other papers as incidental. The small line height combined with a fat nib requires that the ink/pen combination delivers a very precise and controllable line, or else the handwriting will not be great.

 

I tested two different stub nibs: Platinum #3776 Century Music Nib and a Sailor Compass 1.0mm Stub ground much sharper than the Platinum Music Nib and with a clear intention for more calligraphic forms. The Sailor is drier, a little more narrow, and sharper in the grind, though the corners of the nib are still ground down quite round. I already know that the Music nib is capable of good line variation with a relatively sharp thin stroke from having lots of experience with it using Platinum Blue Black ink, so I used that ink as a reference ink.

 

I took the following set of blue inks and did a "dip the feed" writing sample, meaning that I just dipped the nib and wrote, rather than filling up normally. This means that the feed was fully saturated, but not fully regulated, so this represents the "wettest" that these pens were likely to write. In practice both are likely to write a little drier than this normally. I cleaned each pen in water relatively thoroughly before each ink. To test, I wrote each ink name first, followed by a set of thin strokes, thick strokes, and 45 degree downstrokes, followed by the word "momentarily".

 

The ink predominantly came from Goulet Pen Company sourced ink samplers with the exception of the Platinum Blue Black, Legal Blue, and 54th Massachusetts. The lines were written on an Apica CD-15 B5 notebook with 6.5mm rulings on the front of the page.

 

Inks tested were:

 

1. Legal Blue

2. Upper Ganges Blue

3. Liberty's Elysium

4. Bad Belted Kingfisher

5. 54th Massachusetts

6. Baystate Blue

7. Platinum Blue Black

 

I had no intention of doing the tests with both pens across all inks, so I did the test with the sharper Sailor nib first, to determine the minimum levels of spread and penetration. Then I did the same test with the Music nib using a selection of three of the Noodler's inks and the Blue Black reference ink.

 

Here are the pages:

 

 

Thoughts:

 

Baystate Blue is exactly what everyone says it is. Man, it's bright. It also instantly "stained" the Sailor clear bodied pen, converter, and feed. I have the utmost confidence in being able to clean it, but I haven't done that yet.

 

In terms of spread, Platinum Blue Black was a clear outperformer compared to the others, with Liberty's Elysium, Baystate Blue, and Kung Te-Cheng being the next best behavers. Legal Blue, Upper Ganges Blue, and Bad Belted Kingfisher were in the middle, and 54th Mass. was the clear, uncontested loser in terms of ink spread (where more is worse). If we were to only pay attention to the Sailor nib's sharp profile, we might be inclined to deem Noodler's inks A-OK for stubs. However, that doesn't tell the whole story. Switching to the Music nib, it's clear that even the better behaved Noodler's inks significantly alters in performance the moment the ink flow goes up by a little bit. There's a non-linear relationship here, as can be seen from the change in the Blue Black's behavior exhibiting a more faithful line, whereas even the best Liberty's Elysium spreads like mad, despite having a line that would seem to be closer to the Blue Black in the Sailor nib.

 

I think in the Music nib the Liberty's Elysium is just on the edge of being usable. I'd still say it's too wide in its extreme (such as when the nib is most saturated with ink) to make it truly usable, but I suspect under normal conditions, the nib would be close to something that might be considered just a seriously rounded stub. Baystate Blue might behave a little better than that, but it's lack of Bulletproof qualities and archival qualities fundamentally disqualifies it. I just wanted to include it here for the sake of comparison, but I don't really have any intention of committing my #3776 to using the ink.

 

However, in comparison, things like Legal Blue and Bad Belted Kingfisher, both inks that would work okay as daily writing inks in a sharp stub like the Sailor nib, are basically useless in the Music nib, with very, very little line variation and no ability to gain a definitive line orientation. With the Elysium, at least in the 45 degree strokes you are able to detect a little bit of the nib angle, whereas with either of the others, the ink rounds off the ends of the stroke far too much to make it an usable combination. Notice that the Blue Black clearly indicates nib orientation even in the thicker Music nib.

 

In terms of penetration of the paper, none of the Noodler's is great, but Kung Te-Cheng and Liberty's Elysium I think get the nod for the least penetrating, whereas 54th again loses the most by a wide margin, very clearly trying to penetrate even the highly penetration resistant Apica paper. This high penetration quality also means that they show significantly more ghosting compared to the Blue Black reference for the equivalent nib.

 

So, this leads me to conclude that, in a normal stub or Music nib with a wetter ink flow or more rounded edges, I don't think there is a good Noodler's Blue that's likely to work out of the bottle without significant alterations to its chemistry, for which I do not have the patience to test at the moment, nor the competency to pursue. In such cases, a well-behaved Iron Gall ink is miles ahead of the cellulose reactive or pigmented inks in terms of getting the most out of such nibs and resisting both spread and penetration, both of which are likely to hurt such wet stubs more than other nib types.

 

On the other hand, this also shows that if you can find a reasonably dry and sharp stub, such as the nib on my Sailor Compass, then I would actually classify all of the Noodler's blues that I tested as highly usable, though you would obviously want to tune your choice to both color and sharpness of the line. In terms of line quality and definition, I'd say that Liberty's Elysium, Bad Belted Kingfish, Kung Te-Cheng, and Baystate Blue are all significantly better than 54th, Legal Blue, and Upper Ganges Blue.

 

Of course, if you really want the maximum out of your stub, you'll still probably have better results from the Iron Gall inks if you're aiming for permanence and line quality/fidelity/behavior.

Edited September 7, 2020 by arcfide

[txomsy]

Great post. Thank you so very much.

[yazeh]

I love your handwriting, elegant...

However, as you mentioned yourself, dipping the nib in ink over gorges the feed and one cannot truly have a feel for the ink.

 

At first, like you, I was more often than not dismayed by feathering/ gushing or dryness when I inked a pen.

However, after forgetting the pen for a couple of days, I was surprised by how the ink truly behaved....really well....

 

I. realized that in my impatience to try an ink right away, I based myself on first impressions.

And first impressions don't abide well with many inks......

 

You might be surprised if you take the time and use each ink separately....

[eclectic2316]

[Reposting here by request from another thread.]

 

The following test arose to answer the question of whether there were any Bulletproof Blue inks from Noodler's that would exhibit sufficiently precise line quality to enable its effective use in a Platinum #3776 Music nib and the flow associated with that feed system, targeting 6.5mm line widths and Apica papers (both premium and not) as well as other papers as incidental. The small line height combined with a fat nib requires that the ink/pen combination delivers a very precise and controllable line, or else the handwriting will not be great.

 

I tested two different stub nibs: Platinum #3776 Century Music Nib and a Sailor Compass 1.0mm Stub ground much sharper than the Platinum Music Nib and with a clear intention for more calligraphic forms. The Sailor is drier, a little more narrow, and sharper in the grind, though the corners of the nib are still ground down quite round. I already know that the Music nib is capable of good line variation with a relatively sharp thin stroke from having lots of experience with it using Platinum Blue Black ink, so I used that ink as a reference ink.

 

I took the following set of blue inks and did a "dip the feed" writing sample, meaning that I just dipped the nib and wrote, rather than filling up normally. This means that the feed was fully saturated, but not fully regulated, so this represents the "wettest" that these pens were likely to write. In practice both are likely to write a little drier than this normally. I cleaned each pen in water relatively thoroughly before each ink. To test, I wrote each ink name first, followed by a set of thin strokes, thick strokes, and 45 degree downstrokes, followed by the word "momentarily".

 

The ink predominantly came from Goulet Pen Company sourced ink samplers with the exception of the Platinum Blue Black, Legal Blue, and 54th Massachusetts. The lines were written on an Apica CD-15 B5 notebook with 6.5mm rulings on the front of the page.

 

Inks tested were:

 

1. Legal Blue

2. Upper Ganges Blue

3. Liberty's Elysium

4. Bad Belted Kingfisher

5. 54th Massachusetts

6. Baystate Blue

7. Platinum Blue Black

 

I had no intention of doing the tests with both pens across all inks, so I did the test with the sharper Sailor nib first, to determine the minimum levels of spread and penetration. Then I did the same test with the Music nib using a selection of three of the Noodler's inks and the Blue Black reference ink.

 

Here are the pages:

 

20200906_193253.jpg 20200906_193334.jpg

 

Thoughts:

 

Baystate Blue is exactly what everyone says it is. Man, it's bright. It also instantly "stained" the Sailor clear bodied pen, converter, and feed. I have the utmost confidence in being able to clean it, but I haven't done that yet.

 

In terms of spread, Platinum Blue Black was a clear outperformer compared to the others, with Liberty's Elysium, Baystate Blue, and Kung Te-Cheng being the next best behavers. Legal Blue, Upper Ganges Blue, and Bad Belted Kingfisher were in the middle, and 54th Mass. was the clear, uncontested loser in terms of ink spread (where more is worse). If we were to only pay attention to the Sailor nib's sharp profile, we might be inclined to deem Noodler's inks A-OK for stubs. However, that doesn't tell the whole story. Switching to the Music nib, it's clear that even the better behaved Noodler's inks significantly alters in performance the moment the ink flow goes up by a little bit. There's a non-linear relationship here, as can be seen from the change in the Blue Black's behavior exhibiting a more faithful line, whereas even the best Liberty's Elysium spreads like mad, despite having a line that would seem to be closer to the Blue Black in the Sailor nib.

 

I think in the Music nib the Liberty's Elysium is just on the edge of being usable. I'd still say it's too wide in its extreme (such as when the nib is most saturated with ink) to make it truly usable, but I suspect under normal conditions, the nib would be close to something that might be considered just a seriously rounded stub. Baystate Blue might behave a little better than that, but it's lack of Bulletproof qualities and archival qualities fundamentally disqualifies it. I just wanted to include it here for the sake of comparison, but I don't really have any intention of committing my #3776 to using the ink.

 

However, in comparison, things like Legal Blue and Bad Belted Kingfisher, both inks that would work okay as daily writing inks in a sharp stub like the Sailor nib, are basically useless in the Music nib, with very, very little line variation and no ability to gain a definitive line orientation. With the Elysium, at least in the 45 degree strokes you are able to detect a little bit of the nib angle, whereas with either of the others, the ink rounds off the ends of the stroke far too much to make it an usable combination. Notice that the Blue Black clearly indicates nib orientation even in the thicker Music nib.

 

In terms of penetration of the paper, none of the Noodler's is great, but Kung Te-Cheng and Liberty's Elysium I think get the nod for the least penetrating, whereas 54th again loses the most by a wide margin, very clearly trying to penetrate even the highly penetration resistant Apica paper. This high penetration quality also means that they show significantly more ghosting compared to the Blue Black reference for the equivalent nib.

 

So, this leads me to conclude that, in a normal stub or Music nib with a wetter ink flow or more rounded edges, I don't think there is a good Noodler's Blue that's likely to work out of the bottle without significant alterations to its chemistry, for which I do not have the patience to test at the moment, nor the competency to pursue. In such cases, a well-behaved Iron Gall ink is miles ahead of the cellulose reactive or pigmented inks in terms of getting the most out of such nibs and resisting both spread and penetration, both of which are likely to hurt such wet stubs more than other nib types.

 

On the other hand, this also shows that if you can find a reasonably dry and sharp stub, such as the nib on my Sailor Compass, then I would actually classify all of the Noodler's blues that I tested as highly usable, though you would obviously want to tune your choice to both color and sharpness of the line. In terms of line quality and definition, I'd say that Liberty's Elysium, Bad Belted Kingfish, Kung Te-Cheng, and Baystate Blue are all significantly better than 54th, Legal Blue, and Upper Ganges Blue.

 

Of course, if you really want the maximum out of your stub, you'll still probably have better results from the Iron Gall inks if you're aiming for permanence and line quality/fidelity/behavior.

Great Post.

I am wondering if you have ever compared Noodler's Legal Lapis (proprietary to Pendemonium) and Noodler's Legal Blue?

Thank you.

Kind regards,

Paul

[arcfide]

Great Post.

I am wondering if you have ever compared Noodler's Legal Lapis (proprietary to Pendemonium) and Noodler's Legal Blue?

Thank you.

Kind regards,

Paul

 

I have not. I picked up Legal Blue largely because I knew that I wanted to have at least one of the bulletproof lighter blues and this was the quintessential "basic blue". For that, it works wonders, but because of the general limitations with Bulletproof blues noted above, I haven't been strongly motivated to seek out a fine grained analysis of the best colors or the like, given the consistency of behavior on paper with stub nibs.

[arcfide]

I love your handwriting, elegant...

However, as you mentioned yourself, dipping the nib in ink over gorges the feed and one cannot truly have a feel for the ink.

 

At first, like you, I was more often than not dismayed by feathering/ gushing or dryness when I inked a pen.

However, after forgetting the pen for a couple of days, I was surprised by how the ink truly behaved....really well....

 

I. realized that in my impatience to try an ink right away, I based myself on first impressions.

And first impressions don't abide well with many inks......

 

You might be surprised if you take the time and use each ink separately....

 

That's definitely true enough. However, I'm doing a little extrapolating myself based on my previous experience with Noodler's. I think these sorts of experiments are still workable enough provided that one can extrapolate the data consistently and accurately.

 

In this case, seeing how the two nibs behaved with the ink, I might be willing to give Kung Te-Cheng an extended stay in my pen, but most of the others would be reserved for specialty applications, which I rarely have.

 

And even now, I really enjoy the iron gall inks, but Platinum Carbon Black is a consistently performing ink for me that I tend to return to over and over again.

[arcfide]

I finally tried Noodler's X-Feather Blue and it works well. I think I prefer it to most of the other Noodler's bulletproof blue inks in stub nibs. Much more favorable, but probably a little more red leaning than many would be comfortable with, much like KTC, but I think X-Feather may be a little more blue. 

[OCArt]

You should really try Noodler's Baltimore Canyon blue. Archival and a very brilliant color it has become my standard blue ink. I posted a review about six months ago.