Tag Archives: #noodlersink

Examining Noodler’s Ink Part 1

The one ink brand everyone is always talking about is Noodler’s Inks. People either love it or hate it. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of middle ground. As such, we want to add our two cents to this conversation, and we surprised ourselves with our tests and findings.

Controversy seems to follow in Noodler’s wake, and, yet, it doesn’t seem to disrupt people’s passion for the ink. From the stains-everything-it-comes-into-contact-with Baystate Blue to clever (and occasionally offensive to some) ink names and label designs, Noodler’s is always a top-selling ink.

I first got hooked on their ink with “Antietam” ink. As an armchair Civil War historian, I knew Antietam was this single bloodiest day of fighting in all of America’s wars. There were nearly 23,000 casualties at that battle. I got a macabre kick out of the Antietam ink looking like fresh blood when wet and dried blood when dry. It remains my red ink of choice. The ink has never clogged my pens or created any problems.

However, my favorite of their ink names is “54th Massachusetts.” As a regiment, it is the most famous African-American regiment of the Civil War. If you’ve seen the movie “Glory,” with Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington and Matthew Broderick, it is that regiment. The American uniforms in the Civil War were blue. The men of this regiment were black. The ink color is blue-black. A clever ink pun. Unfortunately, as beautiful as the ink is, it clogs the hell out of my pens.

As a matter of fact, virtually every other Noodler’s Ink I have ever written with clogs my pens. As such, the only ink I use is Antietam, and I don’t recommend any other Noodler’s to anyone, unless they are only writing or drawing with dip pens.

Here are 11 swatches of Noodler’s Ink. The samples on the left were the control samples. The inks on the right were in the sun for 9 months.

Nevertheless, when I bought a large collection of ink several years ago, it came with a large selection of Noodler’s. As such, Dawn and I thought we’d put it to the test. Today’s selection remained in my sunniest window for 9 months. We also pH tested the ink to see how potentially corrosive it might be. As a quick refresher the scale between acid and base runs from 0 through 14, with 7 being neutral, such as pure distilled water. As always, we calibrated our testing equipment before testing the inks.

We were absolutely stunned by how light-fast these colors were. At worst, they lost a little of their luster and vibrancy after 9 months of sunlight. Most didn’t lose anything! Very impressive.

Noodler’s Ink also claims its is pH Neutral. We did not find that to be the case in these 11 inks sampled. However, they were much better regarding pH neutrality than many other brands. The important thing to keep in mind is that just because an ink is pH neutral doesn’t mean it doesn’t have ingredients that will still corrode your rubber ink sacs, diaphragms and seals. We did not test these inks in rubber ink sacs. The pH results below are simply raw data points.

Noodler’s Ink Name     pH

41 Brown                     8.4
Kiowa Brown              8.5
Golden Brown            8.1
Cayenne                      7.8
Apache Sunset           7.5
Polar Green ’09          8.7
Dark Matter                8.6
Nightshade                 8.4
Purple Heart               8.5
Gruene Cactus           8.3
Zhivago                        8.7

In conclusion, these 11 Noodler’s Ink were amazing for their color-fast testing. The pH is a little on the base or alkali side but no where near as far off the mark as many other ink brands.

Meet the Ink Test Guru

Several years ago I met Donn D. at the Chicago Pen Show. We got to talking outside of the main room afterhours, and he was the one who introduced me to Ink-Fast Tests. He had a binder of very organized ink swatches that showed what an ink looked like when protected from the light, what it looked like after it had been left in the sun for 3 months and after it had been left in the sun for 6 months.

As I was on a quest for the perfect replacement blue for my beloved Waterman Florida Blue, I began making ink tests for this site. I figured you would be as curious as I am about how ink holds up to UV light.

Donn and I got together at this year’s Washington DC Pen Show and resumed our inky discussions. I asked if he would be so kind as to share some of his tests on the blog, and he said, “Yes.”

Included in this post are 4 pages of his tests of Pilot ink, Diamine ink, Noodler’s ink, Waterman ink, Parker ink and Pelikan ink…among others.

Donn described his methodology as such: “I exposed fountain pen ink samples to ultraviolet light from the sun for 3 months and 6 months.  The exposure method involved simply taping them to the inside of a patio door, which does not block UV very well.  I exposed all samples in the same manner, but not at the same time, and have no record of the number of cloudy vs. sunny days for each test.  The paper was standard office copy bond.

The inks in this test happen to be colors I like, rather than a general test of a manufacturer’s entire product line.

What surprised me most was how well green inks held up, and a chemist friend speculates a copper compound may be involved.

Note: Test sheet #1 shows 6-month results only.”

Thank you, Donn, for sharing so many of these ink tests. Everybody else, I hope these help you in your quest for the perfect inks.

Click on any of the images to see a larger, clearer representation of the inks tested. Please also note that these are not performance tests of the ink inside a fountain pen. Some of these inks are not as well suited to vintage pens as others. This is strictly to showcase how an ink will hold up to time and light. (For example, Noodler’s Ink often clogs the hell out of vintage pens. Beautiful inks but a pain to deal with unless you love spending hours cleaning pens.)