"This ink, though water-based, becomes waterproof when it chemically bonds to
the cellulose on paper. A variety of tests in the harshest of circumstances
shows that Noodler's fountain pen ink on paper can survive water soaking,
acetone, naphtha, bleach, ammonia, blue magic, industrial cleaners and chemical
lifters. A quick query out to Usenet gave me back the ink's pH acidity level of
7.1. pHs of 7 and above are considered acid free.
So I ordered up two bottles from Fountain Pen Hospital at $12 for a 3 ounce
bottle and last night it arrived. What did I find?
I loaded my three fountain pens full of the Noodler's ink including my
Waterman Phileas fine tip, my Waterman Expert 2 fine tip, and my Lamy Safari
medium tip. I wrote out a page of text using each of the three pens for one or
two paragraphs. I cut it up, took one of the paragraphs, and soaked it in water
for about 20 minutes. Its just fine. The ink is as strong as it was when I put
it in.
I found something else as well. My Expert 2 fountain pen, my personal
favorite pen, had a bit of a broad line when writing with Waterman ink. When I
switched to Noodler's I found that the line the pen wrote was much narrower yet
flowed as smooth as I could ask for. I wrote a couple pages of a story in my
favorite Moleskine pocket plain notebook without any bleed through and the tip
width is perfect. I couldn't ask for a better pen.
So I now have an ink both worthy of daily writing and traditional enough to
let me enjoy writing strange tales of the macabre in my new leather-bound
journal or my pocket Moleskines.
While the Pilot G2 is a fine pen for daily writing and especially air travel,
where fountain pens have a tendency of exploding with greatly humorous results,
I will write daily with my Waterman Expert 2 fountain pen with Noodler's ink. It
is traditional, fun, archival, and water resistant."
Mike Shea
Visit his site.