On Wed, 6 Feb 2008 18:19:33 -0800 (PST),
wrote:

On Feb 6, 7:58 pm, "William Sommerwerck"
wrote:
wrote in message

...

I'm pretty sure this Selectric has the cloth reusable ribbon.
What does it mean by "reusable" and is there any way
I can reuse it? It is printing fine now, only a tad faded.
But still perfectly readable.

There are two types of ribbons. The older type is cloth soaked with ink.
Cloth ribbons can be used over and over, until there isn't enough ink left
to give a good impression. The ribbon spools automatically reverse at the
end of the roll; there's no need to "rewind" them. Cloth ribbons can be
re-inked, but are usually thrown away. It isn't worth the trouble, and it's
hard to re-ink a red+black ribbon.

Where is the best place to buy replacement ribbons? The ribbon I have
currently is only black so I would assume that I can only use an all
black ribbon.

My own Correcting Selectric is only 4 feet away, but I'm too tired to
get up, take all the papers off, and look at it, unless you ask me to.

So I don't know about Selectrics, but many other typewriters could use
either all black or black and red. Black/red ribbons are used by
accountants or similar people who want to show losses and negative
numbers in red. (Hence the expression, "In the black", making a
profit)

Maybe a few people would by a combo ribbon just to use red for
emphasis.

But for most people and all black ribbon is more economical. It can
be used twice as long. Non-electric typewriters had a 2 position
lever, iirc, for track 1 of the ribbon (black), and track2 (red or
black depending on the ribbon). I think you had to change to red
manually whenever you needed it, but maybe there was a third position.

If you had an all black ribbon, you had to remember to change tracks
once in a while, so the tracks were used at least somewhat evenly. A
good time might have been when the ribbon reversed, but I often didn't
notice that.

OTOH, I had one or two typewriters where even though the ribbon was
supposed to reverse direction at the end, it didn't. Maybe I wound
the ribbon in the wrong direction, or allowed the rivet to be on the
wrong side of the lever, or maybe it broke. Nothing else ever broke,
but I did have many problems on more than one machine with the ribbon
not reversing automatically. There is a lever in there somewhere to
reverse it manually.


I found my Selectric on the sidewalk and it has some problem** that I
got rid of once but it came back, maybe because I almost never use the
thing. (Latt time was at least 7 years ago. But I wanted one and now
that I have one, I'm not getting rid of it. Good for filling out
forms. (or course so is a pen or pencil.)

**It might be similar to yours, in that some function doesn't happen
right away, maybe doesn't happen at all. Maybe the shift key, or the
space key.

I guess the general instruction is to use a very light oil, and oil
every pivot, perhaps trying the typewriter pretty frequently in
between so when you do oil the right thing, you'll know what thing
that was. OTOH, it might take a bit of time for the oil to sink in and
really work, so maybe you won't know what you oiled that helped it.
But you'll have some idea of what all you oiled.

If there is a big rubber drive wheel that runs from side to side,
don't gtt oil on that or none of the keys will work as well. But
since the Selectric uses a ball, there probably isn't any wide rubber
drive wheel.

The newer type is carbon film -- carbon pigment on a thin plastic base. When
the ribbon is struck, almost all the pigment is transferred to the paper, so
the ribbon can't be used again. These are designed to run in one direction,
and are discarded after a single use. They're used because the impression
simply looks better -- it's solid, without any cloth pattern.

Can I use a carbon film ribbon on this typewriter? I think heard
somewhere that they aren't interchangeable.

They aren't interchangeable, but some electric typewriters have two
sets of spindles and two sets of ribbon guides, ending at the same
place where the keys hit the paper.

Gosh I wish I had the energy to look at mine.

Thanks
Alex


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