I was rather taken with Noodlers Black Swan in Australian Roses and I bought a sample bottle. His sample bottles are pretty large! His normal bottles must be enormous. I tried it in a throwaway Chinese pen and it seemed very pleasant and quite innocuous but I needed to try it with flex to give the shading an opportunity to show. I put it in my Swan 1060. The ink was beautiful with flex. Then catastrophe struck! I set down the pen and noticed that my hand was covered in red ink. That ink is described as 16% bullet-proof which basically means that it was very hard to wash off! I examined the pen and it was leaking at the turn button. When I pulled the section off the ink poured out. The sac had parted company with the nipple.

I restored that pen perhaps six or seven years ago and on previous experience I wouldn’t have expected it to fail. A re-sacing usually lasts 10 years or more. Does Noodlers Black Swans in Australian Roses eat shellac? I think it’s worth saying, though, that flushing Leverless pens thoroughly requires working the turn button pretty hard for a large number of times. I’d never really flushed that pen before because I always filled it with blue-black. There is always a temptation to blame Tardiff’s ink because of its reputation and, in all fairness, because he is an obnoxious critter. The No 22 sac fits the nipple quite snugly but when I re-sac it I think I shall wrap it with thread, just to be sure.