School duplicating machines...

[Yog Sothoth]

I'm trying to get hold of one of those old hand-cranked duplicators (bander machines?) we used at school in the 70s and 80s, before photocopiers. You put ink in (usually purple) and hand-cranked it, and could make copies of documents.

 

Anyone remember what they were called and whether you can still get them?

[Womerry2]

Mimeograph, Gestetner or this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_duplicator ?

[liznospam]

I remember them being called cyclostyle machines but I think that is just a generic term for the kind of copying. I have no idea what brand they were.

[Obelix]

The generic term was also a Ditto machine. I think you will have issues now as they used to use alcohol for dye transfer which wasn't very nice and people have phased out suppliers for them as a consequence.

[Yog Sothoth]

Mimeograph, Gestetner or this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_duplicator ?

 

That's the one! Sounds like I might have trouble getting hold of one now, and the spirit for it.

[Berberis]

I thought they used nasty chemicals that have since been banned.

[medusa]

My mum's voluntary help centre used a Gestetner machine for all sorts of stuff to avoid photocopying costs and before they could afford a computer right up until about 8 years ago. Making the master copy needs a manual typewriter and someone who is confident enough not to make typing errors, which is pretty rare these days in the world of the backspace key.

[Yog Sothoth]

I thought they used nasty chemicals that have since been banned.

 

No chemicals are "banned" but some may be hard to get hold of. If I remember rightly the 'spirit' was mostly methanol, so methylated spirits would probably do the job OK.

[Ousetunes]

Used to love the smell of the print especially when 'hot off the press'.

 

Purple was the usual colour and wrong were my answers to the questions on the sheet, usually!!!

[Alien52]

When I was teaching in the 1970's the Gestetner machine stood in the corner of the staff room. It was filled with what I believe was methanol and surrounded by smokers!