member 12 as well as lapping over and onto small areas of these conductive members as shown in fig3 the resistive paste is a conventional rheology ruthenate thick film resistor paste firing fixes the resistive paste on the substrate so that it extends above the conductive members 12 and 16 in a ratio of about 2 1 the thickness of the conductive members 12 and 16 is about one half the thickness of conventional thick film conductive members so that the thickness of conductive members 12 and 16 and resistive members 14 is quite thin compared to corresponding conductive members and resistive members of existing thermal printing heads the conductive members can be thin because a glass free noble metal conductive ink capable of bonding directly to the substrate can be used after the resistive paste has been fixed a conventional yag laser trimmer is used to cut the resistive bar between the conductive members 16 as shown at 20 to separate the resistive bar into discrete resistive members 14 having a substantially rectangular configuration connected between common conductive member 12 and respective conductive members 16 so that when current is conducted along a selected conductive member 16 in accordance with well known circuit means which need not be disclosed for the understanding of the present invention the resistive member 14 connected thereto will be heated and the heat generated thereby will discolor thermally sensitive paper 22 as it is moved along the thermal printing head to mark indicia thereon use of the laser enables a controlled cut to be made such that the continuous resistive bar is cut into discrete resistive members the laser beam cuts slightly into the substrate to provide better thermal isolation between.