Donlt know if this is possible in this case, but when I was teaching typing man years ago and the school got electronic typewriters, the cost of the ribbon cartridges became more than the budget allowed for them. So I pushed a pencil with flat sides (hexagonal or octaconal proably) into the hole with "spikes" on the underside of the ribbon cartridge that wound the ribbon on when in the machine. There was a small catch which stopped the ribbon rewinding, and by pushing this so that it released the ribbon I was able to rotate the pencil and rewind the ribbon. Admittedly they were carbon ribbons and not thermal, but as there were what I considered to be large gaps between the letters on the ribbon, I rewound then at least twice for students to use in normal classes - they got a new one for exams.
I then found a source of bulk ribbon of the correct width, and found a way of removing the cover from the cartridge - wasted a couple in finding out how to do it without breaking anything, and replaced the three-times used ribbons by refilling the empty cartridge with a new length of ribbon from the bulk reel. Jean in Poole, Dorset, UK - To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [email protected]. For help, write to [email protected]
