Friday, September 24, 2010

Typecast: Carbon ribbon test

Or, the one in which I try and fail to emulate Richard. The thing about a carbon ribbon is that it is unforgiving, so it demands precision that I am still trying to master. It can only be used once, and the carbon flakes off if you punch the keys too hard, resulting in the half-formed letters you see on my test page. (On second thought, it might be that the letters are overlapping, which seems to be evident in the detail picture.) But, this is my first attempt and I'll see how it works on other machines besides the Hermes 3000. 

Respooling in progress:


The set-up:



(I believe the font on this Hermes 3000 might be director pica - letters are elite size or slightly larger, but have pica spacing, which explains why they seem to be so far apart.)

3 comments:

  1. That looks just like mine! the yellow setting will type in the center of the ribbon so the Hermes will get 3 passes. When you have a 2-color ribbon in there it's a cool two-tone effect with that setting.

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  2. I can see in the "set-up" picture that characters are overlapping, i.e. the ribbon is not advancing quickly enough. There may be nothing to do about that, or maybe the felt trick we discussed will work. Let us know!

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  3. Hi notagain - I think I would be lucky to get two passes of the ribbon! The carbon literally falls off the ribbon onto the page, so the third pass would be very spotty indeed.

    Richard - I just realized the Hermes 3000 doesn't have any ribbon arms at all! So I switched the ribbon to another machine and it seems to work better. Typecast up in a few minutes.

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