I bought some stamp-pad ink to try this out, but have not got round to it yet. How long does it take for the ink to soak through all the layers? Is it enough to leave it overnight?

I tried the WB40 method once, and it did breath a little life into the ribbon, but it was hardly worth the effort. I guess it depends on how depleted the ribbon was in the first place.

Dragging my old portable out of the junk room recently, because computer was on the blink, found ribbon dry.  Thought of using ink stamp pad to revive, but I did it a different way.  Persuaded friend to pull the end of the ribbon as I held it firmly down onto the pad with a rounded wooden stick, thus dragging the whole thing across the pad slowly, inch by inch, from end to end.  It worked, and has lasted quite a while - three rewinds so far and still going strong.

Your method sounds much easier!

Last edited by beak (24-3-2013 00:48:17)

Sorry for delayed reply - still finding my way round.

It's a Remmington Travel-Riter Deluxe; looks 70s to me, but I've really no idea of the date.  Nothing special, I should think, but serviceable.  Should like to get another with a slighlty better consistency of letter alignment and more features (multi-spacing bar and so on) but shall look around here for a good target model - there's no rush.

Do you think this is interesting enough to other members for me to do a little review, or is it such a common item that everyone would know all about it?

All the best
b

All I know is that Remington had a number of these "-Riter" models during the 50s and 60s. Letter-Riter, Office-Riter...I'm fairly sure there were a couple of other models. 

In fact, I saw a Remington Letter-Riter at the flea-market last week. Someone had done SOMETHING to it, though. The carriage-return lever was all wonky and wiggly and it didn't work very well. 

I recently re-inked one of my ribbons. 

I would like to just add a little more to my original post through this one, and that is the following: 

Before re-inking the ribbon, make sure that the ribbon is wound as TIGHTLY AS POSSIBLE onto the spool. Wind the ribbon up, then, grasping the spool firmly, pull on the ribbon as hard as you can without breaking it and observe how much slack the ribbon has. Wind up the slack, and repeat this process until there's no more slack in the ribbon. 

NOW you may apply the stamping-ink evenly to the outermost layer of ribbon, and leave it to settle. 

Ensuring that the ribbon is wound on as tightly as possible is essential - If it's not tight enough, then the ink will simply just sit there - it won't soak through to the rest of the ribbon, because the different layers of ribbon won't be touching close enough together for the capillary action and absorbency to work properly. This will lead to improper re-inking, oversaturation and a huge bloody mess.