Luxury Brands Noodlers Ahab Fountain Pen Lapis Inferno (15020)

First off, I have to say I love the celluloid material. Yes, it has a bit of a strange smell out of the box. No, that didn't bother me. Especially since this pen, for my taste, feels so great in my hand. I've had no problems with the feed. If I let it sit for a few days unused, it may need to be primed. But at this price point that doesn't bother me. No skips or hard starts once it has been primed, and it has laid down a nice consistent line for me. The piston holds a large amount of ink. Will the nib flex like a vintage gold wet noodle? No, it won't (at least without modification). You do have to apply good pressure to get flex. But for $20 this is a fun pen, and I have absolutely no regrets!

I currently own three Noodler's Ahab Flex pens and am about to order a 4th as a gift for a friend.Of the three that I own, one has some flow issues and will dry up if I don't use it every single day; even when I do, it railroads and skips frequently. This pen has been retired to the "Junk Pen Drawer". The other two have excellent flow (a bit on the wet side) and write quite smoothly. One of these two had a slightly misaligned feed when I first received it, so I had to pull the feed and nib, realign and re-install them (a 30 second operation).The Ahab is a pretty beefy pen (by my standards, at least) but it tapers down a bit at the grip and is comfortable to write with. It posts well and the cap has a metal band on the end which should prevent splitting and adds a bit of style. The plastic used for the body is clearly not anything high-end but it's durable and held up well to my "fumble the pen in the air spastically, then let it drop down onto the parking lot asphalt and awkwardly step on it for good measure while screaming obscenities" test. The clip is big and kinda goofy looking, but functional. The thing holds a LOT of ink; more than any other pen that I own.The Ahab Flex nib is really more of a semi-flex than what most people would consider to be a true "flex" nib. It will give you a bit of line variation with normal handwriting/printing and a bit more variation if you actively work at it. On average, it falls into the medium range for line width. If you want to do calligraphy or fancy script, this is not the nib for you.Overall, for what it is (see the title of this review), I think the Ahab Flex is a nice pen. I would personally consider the target customer for these pens to be someone who wants a bit more expression in his/her writing but doesn't want to spend a lot of cash to get it. Considering the problems that I had with one of them, I'd say that there's a bit of a quality control issue, but that's not really unexpected in this price range, is it?I've uploaded a quick sample of my writing with the Ahab Flex. The first line was done with what I would consider to be normal writing pressure and a normal writing speed; as you can see, the line variation is pretty subtle. Yes, my writing is sloppy... you shush! The second and third lines were done with varied pressure. For the third line, I used quite a bit of pressure on the pen; the results are not bad but my hand would get sore pretty quickly if I wrote more than a few lines of text that way.

I purchased this flex pen after seeing YouTube reviews. After just a few hours I flung the pen to the other side of the room out of frustration.I have seen the Goulet video on adjusting the nib. I did this a few times but always ended up with no ink flow despite periods of writing ok. Tis was using the Noodlers recommended ink, and flushing as per the Instructions several times.The last time the pen had flow problems I tapped it too hard and bent the nib. The funny thing was though after this the pen flowed much better but was unusable due to the extremely scratchy nib. The is when I disposed of the pen just days after purchase.I own quite a few pens and this was similar to the worst disposable fountain pens I have used. Save your money and buy a quality pen.

noodlers hit a home run with this flex nib pen for 23$!!!, i read a ton of reviews saying that it leaked or dripped, mine did none of that. it did run dry on me several times. i simply ran a razor down the ink channel and it flows perfect. i did not have to heat set my feed(for leaking issues). it came out of the box as a beautiful writer, it doesnt smell pleasant, almost like rubber worms, but it writes super well. i love my ahab!

I was hopeful that people were just critical but it was a regular pen with a slight bit of flex if you press really hard and then it was minimal line differential...see photo for details. Bummed that I had to send it back. And, the smell was awful! Given the price point, it's definitely not living up to expectations.

What a deal. This is a great pen for the price. It holds a ton of ink, writes very wet, and is adjustable. It feels great in the hand and i like the smell of it as it smells like mothers california gold car wax to me.