Typewriter Ribbons?

[DaMadFiddler]

Occasionally, I have to use a typewriter at work. A few times a year, we get documents from the California Department of Education that have to be filled out by hand--they only give us hard copies, and my boss wants them done on a typewriter rather than hand-written so they look "more professional." Up until now, that has meant tracking down one of the two people in my entire office who still have a typewriter, and rather awkwardly "borrowing" their workspace for a bit to fill out the CDE documents.

However, I recently came across a beautiful old Royal No. 10 typewriter for a very low price, and plan to take it in with me when I go back to work after the holidays. To be honest, I got it as much for the aesthetics as I did for practical purposes (really, I only need a typewriter about 3-4 times a year), but it is in great condition... except that it needs a new ink ribbon.

I've poked around online a little bit, and I'm having trouble determining what kind of ribbon would work with my typewriter and where I might be able to buy one. The Royal No. 10 was a fairly common typewriter, and was pretty much *the* go-to model for about 20 years... but that said, it's still an 80-year-old piece of equipment. Anyone happen to know where I can get supplies for this thing?

[Guaripolo]

yes, here in Argentina typewriters still being used. Here you can buy in any paper/office suppliers store.

here some links:
http://articulo.mercadolibre.com.ar/MLA ... marcas-_JM

http://www.officenet.com.ar/product.asp ... CIIPKNYOLN&

http://www.pelikan-hardcopy.com/spain/p ... -escribir/

I also had an old Remington and a Electric Portable Brother that my father used until 4-5 years ago, he always refill the ribbons with some ink and it worked fine about 2 or 3 times more than usual.

[Lartrak]

Let me know if you get it working OK. I've bought two typewriters in the past few years. One works VERY POORLY, and the other one broke. And I had to jury rig and modify a ribbon, as they didn't make ones for the particular models I found. Very frustrating.

I enjoy typing on typewriters for certain things (occasionally when writing brief essays or short fiction), as the feel actually is conducive to creativity to me - not to mention the habits it enforces.

[DaMadFiddler]

The typewriter itself seems to work fine; it just needed some cleaning and a little WD40. The problem is that the ribbon is nearly worn through, and so is not even worth re-inking.

I know you can buy standard 1/2" ribbon at lots of office supply stores, but the real problem is that the spools--while functional--are corroded and rather ugly. I'd prefer to get entirely new spools, but I haven't been able to find a place that sells them. And I'm not sure how to clean the oxidation off the existing spools, because I'm not sure what type of metal they're made of.

[DaMadFiddler]

...Well, I take that back. I found a place that sells ribbons pre-threaded onto spools, but it's kind of expensive. I think I may just be better off cleaning up my existing spools and putting a new ribbon on them for cheap.

http://mytypewriter.com/standardmachines-4.aspx

[|darc|]

Why not use a scanner?

[DaMadFiddler]

Why not use a scanner?

1. Scanners are actually more scarce than typewriters at the office, but more importantly...

2. Typically, they ("they" being the entity to which we're sending the document) require everything to be on the original form. That's why they only send it hard copy in the first place.

[DaMadFiddler]

All right... after a little research, I've found that there is a standard-type ribbon spool that will work just fine for my model. It's available with a solid black, black/red, or black/correctional tape ribbon. The solid black or black/red ribbons are about $5 each, and the black/correctional ribbons are $7ish. They're available at most office supply stores, and on Royal's (now a subsidiary of Olivetti) website.

Since I am using this primarily for work, I can probably requisition one from a local office supply store using our supplies budget. However, the place we're contracted with only has the solid black ribbon, so in order to get one of the other varieties (black/correctional is what I had in mind), I'd have to pay for it myself. (The typewriter itself I am writing off as a business expense, so I suppose I could do that with the ribbons, too... but the typewriter was bought in December, and the ribbons would be in January, so I wouldn't be able to claim them until next year).