A gray felted wool mat sits on a wooden table. In the background is a decorative table display of pumpkins as well as an antique library card catalog with a Black typewriter on it and a wooden bookshelf off to the right side.
Acquired 100% New Zealand Felted Wool Typewriter Mat by ZOMONETI (Amazon)
MOHOM 17" x 13.5" Wool Pressing Mat 100% New Zealand Felted Wool Ironing Mat Pad Blanket for Quilter, Sewing, Quilting Supplies and Notions
I’ve been looking for a reasonable and inexpensive typewriter mat for a while. There are lots of wool options out there and even some with thin rubber layers to prevent your typewriter from walking across your desk. 

I had appreciated the ones I’ve seen in Gerren Balch’s YouTube repair videos for The HotRod Typewriter Co. which he also uses on his workbench, so I asked him his preference. His reply was these 100% wool ironing pads in 17 x 13.5 x 1/2″ form factor for about $15 on Amazon. He said “it’s soaked up 5 years of everything I do and it still looks like the day I bought it.”

The company has some square 13.5 x 13.5 options, which might be better for smaller portables, but I figured that the slightly larger version for both my workbench as well as for my larger standards would be more flexible. Since the price was half of what I’d seen from other vendors, I jumped on it and bought two: one for my workbench and another for my typing desk.

They’re definitely thick and high-quality. On my noisiest table, they definitely make a difference. They prevent some of the typewriter walking my worst rubber-footed typewriters have, but I’ve also got thin sheets of rug pad gripper that I’ve used before if things get out of hand. 

Brown frieze Royal HH standard typewriter on a gray wool typewriter mat sitting on a wooden table.

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Chris Aldrich

I'm a biomedical and electrical engineer with interests in information theory, complexity, evolution, genetics, signal processing, IndieWeb, theoretical mathematics, and big history. I'm also a talent manager-producer-publisher in the entertainment industry with expertise in representation, distribution, finance, production, content delivery, and new media.

One thought on “”

  1. @chrisaldrich I’ve been considering getting one of these for my portables to try to muffle some of the noise and spare my family. I wonder if it makes sense to add something tacky, like a thin sheet of rubber to the back of the pad?

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