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Noodler’s Bad Blue Heron

 

 

Fighting Forgery has never looked so good!


IMG_0452Finally getting around to reviewing one of the 9 inks that came in this week from Goulet Pen Company – Bad Blue Heron by Noodler’s. Bad Blue Heron is one of the more unique inks in the Noodler’s lineup – it’s Bulletproof (UV and Bleach resistant), Eternal (Archival/Fade resistant), Forgery resistant and Waterproof. You can tell while working with it that something is different – there is a slight odor due to the surfactant in the ink and it tends to leave a light blue sheen on the surface of my calligraphy nibs while flow seems more controlled and the color even when writing broad letters.

image5From a color perspective this is a solid but not overly saturated dark blue. It leans very slightly in the green direction but only slightly, and the darker it gets the less apparent the green is. I love shading inks and this one provides an excellent variation in shading when working with a broad nib. The picture to the right shows BBH (2nd from left) with other blues in my collection for comparison (Diamine Twilight, Noodler’s Bad Blue Heron, Noodler’s Eel Blue, De Atramentis Hyacinth, and Sheaffer Scrip Blue-Black). As you can see it does not have the saturation of the Eel blue but it does offer a great shading as the ink pools.

image6While I do like this ink for doing calligraphy work I have only put it in heavily used pens in my collection because it tends to dry quickly uncapped and can be tough to clean out due to the properties mentioned above. If you do find it hard to remove try using some ammonia to help the cleaning process. Dry time on regular Mixed media papers is about 15 seconds and after about 25 seconds the waterproof nature sets in and it is on for good.

So in my case this will get a lot of use in my dip pens for calligraphy but I will probably go with an easier to clean ink in my fountain pens to save myself the headache of excessive cleaning.

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2 thoughts to “Noodler’s Bad Blue Heron”

  1. Just bopping through your site and saw this. Bad Blue Heron is still one of my favorite inks… even after years & years of playing with my ink addiction. Just something about that deep dusty quality gets me.

    Anyway, thought I’d drop a note!

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