reply to u/letsjustwrite and u/CowCommercial1992 at https://reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/1iilo0f/re_inking_ribbons/

None of these are really prohibitively expensive, especially when purchased in bulk. Both Baco Ribbon and Fine Line offer black/red bichrome ribbon in most of these materials for a very reasonable price:

• nylon ribbon $0.10 - $0.15/yard
• silk ribobn $0.33 to $0.40/yard
• cotton ribbon $0.25/yard

If you're going to buy even 3-6 spools of ribbon at individual prices of $9-20 per spool, you may as well make the investment in a half or full reel of inked typewriter ribbon and save yourself a lot of hassle. My guess is that if you're buying your own ribbon in small quantities, you're going to pay even more than these prices to have uninked ribbon. Unless you have some serious equipment and technique, you're highly unlikely to be able to ink your own bichrome ribbon, so you're stuck with monochrome.

While using ink stamp pads is "doable", it's a lot of work for a very poor result.

I've yet to hear of more than a very tiny handful of people who are interested in the art or process of this to bother with attempting to re-ink typewriter ribbon, silk or otherwise. Generally, if they do it for any reason (other than the one time "fun of it"), it's for environmental reasons rather than pricing ones.

As an inveterate tinkerer, I've tried some of my own re-inking experiments to very mixed results. I've given up bespoke ribbon for bulk purchases.