Re ink Old Printer Ribbon

I was going through some of my old computer stuff and came across my old Teletype Model 43 printer. It still works, but the ribbons is dry. I have two cartridges, but both are in the same shape. I read other threads in this forum and decided to try and re ink one of them. So far I have been making good progress. I soaked the ribbon in alcohol over night a couple of times and this cleaned it out nicely. I then use an iron on low heat to smooth it out. The ribbon is in good shape, no tears or fraying. The cartridge has a round sponge in it. Mine was as hard as a rock. I've been soaking it in alcohol for a couple days and I'm getting a boat load of ink out of it, it's softening up and not falling apart. So, I'm hopeful that I can reuse it. I cleaned up the cartridge and will have to repair the tension spring in that one of the end hooks is broken off. My question is once I have all the stuff cleaned up, what kind of ink should I use. The forum and reading on the internet suggests that stamp pad ink would work and there are two different types, dye and pigment. I read that the pigment ink is what should be used because it drys slower. But when looking around I can find LOTS of stamp pad ink, but none of them mentions what kind it is. And if you ask a clerk, they only know how much it costs. Any suggestions. I'm getting close to getting my hands really dirty. Thanks, Mike

Well.... after soaking the ribbon and sponge of the cartridge in alcohol and getting a boat load of old ink out, I washed both in soapy water and let them dry for a week. I again used an iron set on warm to iron the ribbon flat. There is a spring in the cartridge that puts tension on the sponge which was broken. I picked up a spring at the hardware store for $1.20.
The barrel of this new spring is a little bigger than the old one, but it doesn't seem to make any difference.
After getting the cartridge assembled and the ribbon in place, I soaked the sponge with ink that I purchased on eBay,

This ink came with a small syringe and I used a little more than 6 ml of ink on the sponge. I then ran the ribbon around so that it would get it's share of ink. I think this will take a little time to get the ribbon to have the same amount of ink on it in all places. But you can see that this worked pretty good.

Next I have to figure out how this old printer will connect up to my 8080 computer. Although, I spent a lot of time on this, the ink was less than $10 and the print is readable, I'm pretty happy with how this came out. Mike

I really appreciate this thread. I'm going to be refurbishing a few printers.. hopefully by summer.