- skywatcher
- Moderator
Offline - From: The Prairies of Alberta
- Registered: 14-3-2013
- Posts: 712
Re: Purpose of a Typewriter Pad?
For a quick and easy typewriter pad for portable typewriters, go down to your nearest Wal-Mart and pick up a low cost yoga mat (3mm works but 5mm is better). As Uwe says, this material is non slip and absorbs some of the sound due to the closed cell foam rubber. Cut it in half length wise, this will give you two 12" wide strips. Cut these strips into 13" or 14" lengths, round the corners off if you like and you have a stack of pads for portables. These are the pads I supply with the typewriters I sell on Etsy. All the best,
Sky
We humans go through many computers in our lives, but in their lives, typewriters go through many of us.
In that way, they’re like violins, like ancestral swords. So I use mine with honor and treat them with respect.
I try to leave them in better condition than I met them. I am not their first user, nor will I be their last.
Frederic S. Durbin. (Typewriter mania and the modern writer)
- Guth
- Platen Punisher
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- From: Oregon
- Registered: 20-12-2020
- Posts: 59
Re: Purpose of a Typewriter Pad?
Hi Sky, from a practical perspective I like the solution that you've presented. However, I do prefer the aesthetics of the thicker wool felt that Phil mentioned. Therefore I felt (no pun intended) that if one were able to easily apply the spray-on Plasti-Dip product to this sort of thicker wool felt, it would result in a typewriter pad that would hold greater appeal to me personally. Ultimately I would likely want to create some sort of a stencil so that I might decorate mine in a fashion similar to the old "Felt-Tite" typewriter pads.
Find me at typewritemosphere.com
- Gabby Johnson
- Platen Punisher
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- Registered: 21-2-2015
- Posts: 77
Re: Purpose of a Typewriter Pad?
Alas, Rubbermaid no longer makes them.
- Uwe
- Moderator
Offline
- From: Toronto, Canada
- Registered: 12-3-2013
- Posts: 4,408
Re: Purpose of a Typewriter Pad?
You would think that "not for use on finished wooden desks..." would have squashed a number of prospective sales. I assume the 99¢ price tag was a thrift store or flea market addition and not the original selling price. I like that it looks similar to a cutting board with a well for trapping run-off WD-40 on newly restored typewriters. 
The pronoun I has always been capitalized in the English language for more than 700 years.
- Guth
- Platen Punisher
Offline
- From: Oregon
- Registered: 20-12-2020
- Posts: 59
Re: Purpose of a Typewriter Pad?
Uwe wrote:
You would think that "not for use on finished wooden desks..." would have squashed a number of prospective sales.
I haven't seen it but I believe that there was a movie featuring Dudley Moore where he played an advertising executive that was honest to a fault, the crazier the better. Perhaps Rubbermaid were influenced by this approach?
Find me at typewritemosphere.com
