Thursday, November 17, 2011

Day Fourteen: Noodlers Pistonfiller with Noodlers Black

For day fourteen, I chose the inexpensive Noodlers piston filler and thought it would be appropriate to pair this with ordinary, "plain vanilla" Noodlers Black. The Noodlers piston filler resin pen is an effort by Nathan Tardiff of Noodlers Ink to provide a decent fountain pen at affordable prices.

Although they are not made with luxury materials, the original, basic Noodlers pen is very impressive in the way it succeeds in what it sets out to do. The piston filler works, simply and without any trouble, and pulled in enough ink to last for a day of writing. There is an ink window composed of thin, clear strips set in the barrel. Although this makes it slightly more difficult to view the ink level, it is still very convenient - and there is a clear version available.

The nib is smooth and writes well, and without trouble, right out of the box. Yes, it is a very ordinary nib, available in one size only, somewhere between fine and medium, but for the price, it is impressive to get such a functional writing implement. True, this pen wouldn't have stood out as much even a few decades ago, when at least a few decent, inexpensive pens were still made. But today? Noodlers shows just how it can still be done.

As you'd expect, these are made of lighter plastic than, say, the TWSBI which costs three times as much, but they are still sturdy enough for regular use. I don't expect too many of these to be around in fifty years, simply because it looks like an inexpensive pen and so they're more likely to get tossed out over time, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were examples still going strong even after that long.

At the price, every writer ought to have at least a handful of these around, to fill up and stick in your pocket or backpack or briefcase and use anywhere. I'd hate to lose any of my pens, but at least when you know you can replace it without spending too much, you don't have to worry overmuch about dropping or losing it. They're also good as "loaners"; if you absolutely can't get out of letting someone use one of your pens, at least if they walk off with - or manage to break - one of these, you've only lost a few dollars. And yet, they work well enough that I'd track one down if I could, because I'd hate to lose it.

Noodlers Black is a nice, basic black that you can use for just about anything. It won't feather on all but the cheapest pulpy papers, and even then it feathers less than many inks, and it works. It isn't an exciting ink - I prefer Heart of Darkness, which is even darker and has great lubrication - but it is a good useful one. And although it doesn't have quite the flow or lubrication of Heart of Darkness, you'd never guess that if you used most other inks. By ordinary standards, it has well above average flow and lubrication.

On day fourteen, I was able to write 1,507 words, for a total of 31,029 to date. This is slightly below my ideal target, and was due to the fact that the story had veered off course slightly (something that is normal in a first draft), and I had to struggle to try to correct it. I'll want to pick up speed again as soon as I can, but I'm still ahead of the curve, so it isn't a disaster.

1 comment:

  1. I must ask where learned your wonderful penmanship? I'd be very eager to learn a style like this.

    Thank's for the review, made it an easy choice.

    ReplyDelete