Came across a good quote that I want­ed to dis­play at my desk at work. Thought about hand­writ­ing it, or find­ing a good type face for it and print­ing it out, but then remem­bered that we’ve inher­it­ed Mike’s grand­moth­er’s Under­wood 315.

 

It took us a while to get the imprints look­ing right. At first we thought the rib­bon was out of ink. After all, Mike remem­bered that the last time he saw it used was in the 80s. But then we tried to adjust a num­ber of things, and even­tu­al­ly we were actu­al­ly able to get a dark enough imprint.

I typed the quote 3 times over to end up with one that does­n’t have typos — proof that I’m far too used to typ­ing on the com­put­er and being able to eas­i­ly erase mis­takes. The first time I ever typed was on a com­put­er key­board; this is actu­al­ly the first time I’ve used the type­writer. And how did peo­ple use their pinkies on the type­writer? The keys require quite a force to make an imprint on the paper. I imag­ine get­ting cal­lous­es on the fin­ger­tips, much like play­ing the gui­tar. But I find it to be quite a reward­ing expe­ri­ence! To prac­tice and prac­tice and final­ly get it right :)

And it reminds me so much of print­mak­ing. Espe­cial­ly with the two-colour rib­bon. One just would­n’t know exact­ly how the words will appear, there are always slight vari­a­tions even if the let­ters are the same. Maybe I will try to make more things with it :D

Have a won­der­ful start to the week, everyone!