INK REVIEW: Noodler's Blue Eel

Turns out that some of my extra-big-huge-ginormous images have been crashing some mobile device readers. Oops, sorry about that. Going forward, I'll use smaller images here and link to the bigger image if there's something worth seeing in detail.  Like this....

Click to See Extra-Large Hugnormous Gigantic Image

It also turns out that I'm not loving my new review form as much as I enjoyed Noodler's Blue Eel ink. Here's the thing - I sincerely like this ink - and yet it ranks only a 63 on my scale. In school - that would be a scary grade - but here, it means that it's better than average.

So. I need to make some tweaks to my ranking system. Of course, I have four or five other reviews lined up so we'll need to somehow make it through those before moving on to another form. It's a good thing only Mr. Pentulant reads this blog - otherwise, I could be causing mass confusion with my fickle-pickle switcharoo.

Anyway! Stay tuned, but for now...the review!

Adore the color and saturation. It's perfect for a girl like me. Nice and bright. Would write all day with this one (if I could ever settle on just one color, that is).

Feathering? Not sure why the heck I gave it a 7 on my scale.  Look at this and help me decide what I was thinking . . .

. . . yeah, I don't know either. It's a feathery mess of a an ink.

But at least it doesn't smear . . .

OK, yeah. It smears, too. This was after writing normally and then waiting (at least) ten seconds to test. Some of you might be thinking it's my paper choice, but this is the paper I've used for all of my other current ink reviews. Noodler's Blue Eel is a slippery wet son-of-a-gun.

And . . .

And . . .

So. Is the fact that it's a slippery wet son-of-a-gun a bad thing? Well, like so many other things in life, it depends.  On this paper, with this pen - it was not horrible, but I am definitely not rushing out to buy the full-size bottle of this ink.  But...this ink was made to be a slippery wet son-of-a-gun. In fact, all of the Eel series of inks from Noodler's are. 

The Eel series was apparently formulated with piston-fill pens in mind. The idea is that the pistons like a little bit of lubrication to keep things moving. If left unlubed (it's a word, trust me), the movement will not be as smooth over time.  I don't know anything about this. I read it here. What I do know is that it's unlikely that any of the piston-fill pens I have were ever filled with a lubricating ink and they are (or at least seem to be) just fine. In fact, Richard Binder has this to say:

Lubrication, as used here, does not refer to the addition of special substances for the ostensible purpose of lubricating the pen's piston or other filler parts.

He's not talking specifically about Noodler's (or at least he doesn't say that outright).

So. Bottom line:  This is one of those ymmv things. If you like a wet son-of-a-gun ink and believe that your piston-fill pens need lubrication - this is totally the ink for you.

It's not the ink for me, however, because I need other things more than I need lube.

Now..it's see what kind of spam comments I get as a result of using the word "lubrication" in my posts. Fun times ahead!