One of my Christmas presents from my mom was a Noodler's Ahab in the Cardinal Darkness color. It's a really nice pen, and it's quickly become one of my favorites. They're inexpensive at $20, and I haven't seen a pen that beats it at that price point.
I ordered two Ahabs (one for me and one for Audrey) from Goulet Pens on Wednesday and I got them in the mail today (Friday). That's a really good turn-around, and the packaging was really awesome. The two pens and four ink samples that I ordered arrived in a bubble mailer, wrapped in bubble wrap, and then secured in blue plastic wrap. Really good work!
Audrey's new pen is a Pink Tiger and mine is the new Black version. The tiger is a really fun design that I think Audrey is going to love, and the black is probably one of my classiest looking fountains. Now I just have to decide on some ink colors for these. Maybe Audrey will get some Diamine "Hope Pink" in her's from the February Ink Drop.
I always take apart a pen when I first get it, just to make sure that everything looks good, and that there isn't any debris in the feed from the manufacturing process. These new Ahabs are better than the first one that I got. My Cardinal model has the old round o-ring in the ink tank's piston. These new ones have a double-wall o-ring that makes the piston move much more easily in the well. Another difference is that the feeds in the new pens are both very clean. As you can see in this picture, the feed on my original Ahab is pretty chewed up. I guarantee that it came that way, and it wasn't my hatchet job. It doesn't seem to have impacted the performance of my Cardinal, but it does look a bit messy when you take it apart.
UPDATE:
These are the pens that I can't recommend to anyone. They're pretty terrible over a little bit of time. They smell bad, they write poorly, and the section plastic is way too soft. It will eventually be impossible to screw the converter onto the section, and that's a huge mess waiting to happen. With so many other pens out there, avoid this one!
UPDATE:
These are the pens that I can't recommend to anyone. They're pretty terrible over a little bit of time. They smell bad, they write poorly, and the section plastic is way too soft. It will eventually be impossible to screw the converter onto the section, and that's a huge mess waiting to happen. With so many other pens out there, avoid this one!
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As a further note, I was having some massive trouble with my Ahab today. I was trying to take some notes in a class, and it was writing very inconsistently. It would be wet for a few letters and then just dry up completely and then get wet again inexplicably.
I was wondering what the heck was wrong with it. I had 10 fins showing on the feed (and that should be plenty) and I had inspected the nib and feed before I inked it up. Then I pressed the tip on my paper, and it popped back a little bit. I hadn't pushed the nib all the way back into the section. What a noob I am. Now it works just fine. Little things.
Nevermind. It's still not working. :-P
Annnnnd now I've fixed it. I just had to soak the nib and feed and section in a solution of water and dish soap and then give them a gentle scrubbing. Now it writes just fine.
It's about time.
The Ahab is a (potentially) finicky pen, but it's nice that you can take the whole thing apart and tinker with it.
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