X feather blue is beautiful. I love a purple blue. Nathan knows his stuff. The artwork gets his point across well also. It’s an impressive ink. Cool vid. Thank you.
Awwww man... I just made an order and didn't see this coming. I would have added a bottle to the shipment. I'm an amateur radio operator (a ham) and carry a Moleskine Cahier to the field in a Rustico cover as my field log. I had been using a Zebra gel pen to keep my log but figured I'd try X-Feather. It works fine on the Moleskine paper and either a TWSBI 580 or Vanishing Point pen makes field logging a lot more fun. I alway prefer writing with a fountain pen. Now it looks like I'll need to put together another order. :)
@@TheresaRobertsonLROL I know, right!?! So, being the impatient fool that I am, I decided to upgrade the nib in one of my Lamy Studio pens and buy a bottle of the new X-Feather Blue ink. I am really fond of the Lamy Studio design and my favorite is the stainless steel with the rubber grip section. The stainless nibs are OK, but their gold nibs are a lot better. Eventually I expect my stainless Studio will get a nib upgrade. It's definitely a keeper.
This is a GREAT ink!! I'm so glad it has made it from the Boston Pen show to general distribution. It has excellent flow. A true blue. This is a blue ink. Very permanent. The paper will start to separate before the ink lifts off. Perfect for writing checks. I just bought a defective used Montblanc Toscanini for a ridiculously low price. It had solid ink crud in the piston revivor. The piston wouldn't move. After a trip in the ultrasound cleaning tank, I filled it with this ink and it is a great writer. I had to tweak the nib a bit because I'm never satisfied. I normally use Legal Lapis as my standard ink but I have switched to this ink. I love the label. I've bought a lifetime supply.
Hmm... I was literally just now sitting down to load my Triple Tail pen with Antifa Blue (I got a bottle as soon as it came out). I decided to open RU-vid and find a video to put on in the background while filling the pen, and THIS video was at the very top of my home screen suggestions... (!!!) What the heck!?! Is the Almighty Algorithm _reading minds_ now, too?!?
Wow. I've done some of my own tests (water, bleach, detergent, acetone, alcohol) on X-Feather Black vs other fountain pen inks, rollerballs, and fraud resistant ballpoints and it blows all of them away. So watching this with that expectation in mind I was shocked to see X-Feather Blue perform that much better. Of course, this video is a few years old so they may've tweaked the recipe of black since then, but now I'm wanting to check out blue.
Drew, Drew, Drew.... again... most informative, very entertaining, and worth the anticipation for this, your next vid. Love your content. Look forward to the next. Please, stay safe.
Thanks Drew !!! Great video. I just ordered a sample of this ..... before seeing this video..... and now I am glad that I did order it !! Should get it in the mail in a few days.....
X-Feather is my school ink. I love it. I'm glad that Noodlers came out with another colour in the formula. I have a dedicated pen for it, because X-Feather is stubborn to clean out of a pen. Doable, by effert is required
That is a pretty ink. Blue is one of my favorite colors. While it is not easy to tell exactly, the color does remind me of PB 15:6 Pthalo Blue (RS) or PB28 Cobalt Blue. I just ordered some things yesterday; so, will need to wait to order this ink another time.
Is X-Feather Blue UV fade resistant? I've found diluting Baystate Blue with 20% water makes it feather much less, clog much less, and feel smoother. It is still fully saturated blue.
I have an ink story. Un related to the video but we are all friends here. I was working in a motorcycle shop. One day another employee was flipping out about something. I tried to ignore it all while eves dropping on his ranting and raving. Mostly for entertainment purposes. He gets the boss on the phone and is yelling about a list the boss made for him to follow. Most of which he already had done. Anyhow at the end he screams “ and you used BLUE INK!!!!” You know what that does to me. So ever since then I have had a fascination with blue ink. What does it do??.
Not sure in this case but black ink has alway been known to have a higher contrast and also thought to resist fading, all of this comes from working in offices especially dealing with publications where you are making tons of copies. It just copies better in all areas its also a consistency thing and brings a level of professionalism with one ink color. Again this is just my experience.
@@GeorgieGirl1012 the point of it is to prevent forgery. If you use black ink it is easily photocopied. what the boss wrote was a note that didn’t need to be copied.
Thanks Drew! I really enjoy your candid reviews; they’re really helpful in building my wish lists :-) FYI: There’s a wonderful app called Filmic Pro that you can get on your phone to help with some of the weird behaviors while shooting video. It lets you lock focus, white balance, and other more pro settings, so it doesn’t do funny things when the light changes or you move your phone while shooting :-)
Great video Drew! I use X-feather black collecting field data on questionable paper. This blue will be a great addition to my collection. No feathering and water resistant!! Awesome 👍
I would appreciate an inclusion of a highlighter in the water testing, as I do a decent bit of highlighting in my writing, and often find fountain pen inks smear with the presence of highlighter ink. I suspect it has something to do with the water in the ink combined with the foam tip causing friction, and thus would like to see that in the testing.
I think--but am not sure--that most highlighters don't use water as the base. Which, sadly, means that for most fountain pen inks, the highlighter WILL smear your FP ink. There was a thing called a "dry lighter" that was effectively a very soft crayon in highlighter type colors. No idea if those are still available or not, though.
I've been using this True Blue for about a month now, so I did a little testing for you. The ink dry time definitely depends on the paper. On some highly sized papers like Rhodia and Mnemosyne, I am finding long dry time and tendency to smudge. But on other papers, such as Muji and newsprint, it's drying nearly instantly. This affects highlighter performance. I used a Boss Stabilo yellow highlighter. On writing that has dried, the performance was superb: you can confidently swipe highlighter across without smearing. If the passage you wrote in True Blue hasn't dried, then there can be a little smearing.
On the box it's called "Anti-Feather Blue" - so I think that's the official name, though. X-Feather blue makes it easier to be recognized by anyone familiar with the original. - Drew
by it's nature it sits on top of the page, so anything not touching the paper isn't going to form a bond. anything that is touching it is going to be extremely resilient if it's like other Noodler's Bulletproof inks.
Fun fact, I used to have a game on my phone called RC Plane 2 and there was definitely a model plane that looked like the Star Wars x-wing but it was renamed the X-feather.
Hey Drew...Is it true that some fountain pens work better with some inks? Or, are they all compatible and work equally well? Example. I have Lamy 2000. Lamy inks should work best with it. But what about Pilot ink in a Lamy pen? Or, Noodler's ink in a Metropolitan. Get the idea? Are there combinations that work and some that just don't?
Great question! Yes, some pens definitely work better (or differently) with certain inks. Some pens have a more liberal flow in terms of the nib and feed (like the 2000) so inks that are more dry (LAMY) may give a more moderate flow than an ink that is very wet (Noodler's). That being said, a wet ink in a wet pen is perfectly ok! I personally love Noodler's ink in my 2000. :) - Drew
My grandma saw my fountain pen collection and it reignited her old passion for calligraphy. Now she wants to know all about fountain pens, but I was afraid they'd be impractical for her due to horrendous feathering on her favorite paper. So glad to see this ink exists, I'll definitely be buying her a bottle. Can anyone recommend a good italic/stub nib pen? My grandma has one really old Shaeffer she uses for everything, but I want to get her a nicer one. Preferably something around 1.5mm. Anyone have recommendations?
I don't know if Moleskine is fountain ink-unfriendly so much as certain inks don't work on it. The Diamine inks I've tried are more or less fine, but Noodlers inks I do have an issue with, as the ink just seems to...sit(?) on top of the paper in little beads at the termination of a penstroke, and the ink takes forever to dry; even half an hour of the notebook sitting open isn't enough to fully dry the ink, which has left a couple pages looking bloodstained (Antietam color). So I use a square of paper towel as a blotting cloth insert, which while not ideal, does solve the issue.
It's almost fraudulent to call this blue with how purple it is, but it's a great ink if you like the color. I wish Nathan would make an x-feather 54th Massachusetts - that would be to die for.
Loving what I'm seeing so far! Thanks for this! ... but being a Noodler's... how is it for dry time on less absorbent paper, drying out in the nib, staining of the pen, leaving black cloudy particles behind in the pen, leaving an oily residue on the page, does it have viscosity issues, is it wet/dry? :)
Hello, can you tell if the chemicals used on this ink are safe to be used in high-end pens as Visconti, pilot or montblanc? is there any difference if this ink is used on a steel or gold nib?
Superb review - Thanks. I use this ink and find the colour and shading very nice indeed. The one thing I have not been able to find out isd whether or not it is archival too. e.g. fade resistant in the longer term. Does anyone know please?
Would like to see it on Walmart Pen+Gear paper. Some of the worst paper I've ever used. Everything to dislike using a fountain pen on... Probably as bad as newsprint or even some toilet paper. Was very interested when I heard about this ink! Thanks for sharing this! Now I may have one to recommend to a certain family member that only uses cheaper quality paper. 😁
