Inky fingers

Bev's lovely A3 printer, which is about 5 years old, has suddenly died a death and will not talk to the computer. After discussions with a very helpful printer repair man, she discovered that there is a pad inside the printer that collects all the dribbles of ink when you clean the heads - this pad has now become saturated and has to be fixed by a technician. The man on the phone gave Bev a quote for the repair, which came to slightly less than the cost of a new A3 printer - yikes, no Christmas presents for us! But Practical Paul decided he could do it himself (and therefore get a Christmas present), so pulled the printer apart, dabbed out the excess ink (getting very black hands in the process) and put the printer back together again, but all to no avail - the printer is still not working. However, Bev found a web page with instructions for fixing this problem - apparently you need to wash and dry the pads, not just dab off the excess ink. Oh no, Mr Practical needs to take the printer apart again! So, how dirty will he get this time? Does he need a protective suit and gloves? Should he just tell Bev to do it herself and then laugh at her inky fingers? And will Paul's customers let him into their nice clean houses with those black hands?