Noodler’s Konrad Rollerball — Rockin’ and rollin’ with bottled ink

Noodler’s fountain pens and inks seem to garner strong opinions. People either love ’em or hate ’em. Here’s my take on the Noodler’s Konrad Rollerball.

When I was just starting out, I found Noodler’s quirky, retro pen designs appealing. I wasn’t sold on the idea of needing to tinker with my pens at first, but I learned a lot watching videos and playing around. The Konrad Rollerball is doubly unique. It’s a retro design, made of unique materials, piston filled, and tipped with a rollerball. Let’s jump in and see how this not-quite-a-fountain-pen behaves.

The Good:

• Smooth, wet writer
• Comfortable size and shape
• Owner serviceable design
• Piston filler (bottled ink only)
• Made from tough material

The less good:

• Smells funny when new
• Prone to “burping” ink when filled full (notes on this below)
• Rollerball can squeak sometimes

Noodler’s Konrad Rollerball — In the hand

The Noodler’s Konrad Rollerball is a pretty standard shaped pen, if a bit modest in size. In my hand, it is a size that it is comfortable to write with whether the cap is posted or not. In terms of diameter, it’s also fairly standard. Not much larger than a gel pen with a rubber grip, if it’s larger at all. This makes it an easy pen for most people to just pick up and use.

The section on it is smooth, but offers fair grip in most situations. On occasions where the hand gets a bit sweaty it can be little slippery, though. The threads are unobtrusive and don’t cause any discomfort for me. Speaking of, the cap comes off in 1.5 turns. Not bad at all! The clip is nice and springy with the side benefit of being easy to adjust. You can just screw the finial off of the cap, bend the clip up or down a touch, and put it back on. Noodler’s pens tend to be quite serviceable.

Writing with the Noodler’s Konrad Rollerball

When pen meets paper, it’s mostly good news here. My Konrad Rollerball writes great. I’ve filled it with four or five different inks by now, and it seems perfectly happy with them all. It writes a bit on the wet side. However, it isn’t overly so. Just take note that when paired with a wet writing ink, it can get a bit juicy. The rollerball itself is generally a smooth experience. From time to time mine gives a little squeak and a tiny amount of feedback. Overall, I’d say it’s usually smoother than most plain gel pens I’ve tried.

A cool aspect of the Konrad using bottled ink, is that you get some fountain pen-like characteristics from it. Paired with a good shading ink, you get excellent shading from it! It’s like writing with a nib somewhere between a medium and broad. That’s also probably a good indicator of line width as well. It puts down a fairly fat line of ink.

Other notable characteristics

I mentioned that the Noodler’s Konrad Rollerball uses bottled ink. This pen is a piston filler, like many normal fountain pens. To fill it up, you remove the blind cap at the rear of the pen. Then, you submerge the tip in ink and rotate the piston knob to draw the piston and ink up into the pen body. Now you’ve got a pen with a ton of ink in it! Despite trying Noodler’s tip to periodically advance the piston as I used up ink (this minimizes the air bubble), I still occasionally have had issues with the pen “burping”. My solution lately has been to just fill it less full.

Another thing worth mentioning is the “new Noodler’s pen smell”. You can’t read about one of these pens without someone mentioning that. Yes, mine did smell pretty weird for a while after it was new. I didn’t find it to be super offensive, but some do. Your mileage may vary. However, it’s also worth noting that mine no longer has any scent at all. I couldn’t say for sure how long that took, but it’s fine. Outside of these two things, I’ve not really had any issues with mine.

Noodler’s Konrad Rollerball — A unique and fun pen

In the end, I don’t regret purchasing my Noodler’s Konrad Rollerball pen a bit. It works for those times I have to have a ball-type pen but lets me keep a little bit of my fountain pen flare. Not only that, but it’s a pretty fun pen to write with in its own right. Who doesn’t love watching their pretty ink slosh around in a big piston filled demonstrator pen, after all?

The Konrad does have its couple of quirks, but if you can deal with those, it’s worth recommending. There aren’t a ton of other rollerball pens out there that are also piston fillers, after all. There’s even fewer of them available at the same price you can get a Konrad at!

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Disclaimer: This pen was purchased with my own money. All opinions are my own and I have no relationships with any manufacturers at the time of this post being published. Some links may be affiliate links. If you use one of these to make a purchase, I may be paid a small commission.