Brick House

I have been on the road a lot this winter and when I got back in town, I trekked over to Mozo’s. Moe had a typewriter with problems that needed attention.

This one had been sitting in Moe’s shop since the summer. A lady had bought it recently and she wondered if I could get it to work. The big piece of tape over the “erwoo” of the decal really bothered me. The decal was in terrible shape, but the tape made it worse.

I never get tired of these old Underwoods – built like a brick house. They’re heavy-duty beauties. This typewriter was an Underwood 6, very similar to the Underwood 5s that I have worked on.

The problem with this Underwood was that the carriage tipped from side to side and would get stuck in strange and screechy positions. Perhaps a loose or missing screw or two?

I brought the Underwood home and introduced it to Blender on my kitchen counter work bench.

I played around with it and discovered what was stopping the carriage.

That little arm with a hole in it was hitting the frame.

Thank heavens for Typewriter Database and the detail photography that members submit. John M.’s Underwood 6 had a closeup of the area where the little arm hung and I was able to figure out the little arm fit into a screw pin on the side.

The carriage was very loose and appeared not to be seated properly. I wiggled it bit from side to side and the whole darn thing popped up and out. Well, hell. I didn’t mean to do that, but there you are.

Note Blender’s barely concealed schadenfreude.

The upside was that with the carriage removed, I could clean the internal mechanics carefully and examine the pin area.

There are two springy arms on either side of the carriage that I was having problems understanding.

Fortunately, I remembered a YouTube video of a guy tearing apart an old Underwood, so I got a bowl of cereal and sat down to watch.

Some members of our community may be horrified by the joyful abandon with which Dusty Guy dismantles this typewriter. However, his video series on the Underwood is full of useful details. After watching this video, I understood the springy arms and how the carriage sits on them.

Once everything was cleaned up inside, I attempted to get the carriage back on. I had to temporarily take out the motion blocks on both sides so that I could get the carriage back in and seated properly.

I had to dismantle the right carriage release to get the little arm back in the pin screw.

After the little arm was re-secured with the pin screw, the carriage did not wobble like it had.

I threw in a test ribbon and took a deep breath.

Yes, it was typing. But weirdly. Looks like bichrome mixing colors and…all caps.

I haven’t had personal experience with one of these telegraph typewriters. Here is an interesting article on the Cambridge Typewriters blog about an Underwood #3 telegraph typewriter. I read ETCetera magazine’s June 2013 article by Peter Weil, “Ephemera” about typewriters and telegraphs. He writes:

The term “mill’ is used to describe a typewriter that is used to create typed messages for the purpose of entering the message into a telegraph system or to convert a message received telegraphically into a typed hard copy message.

The typewriter has a degree character as well as a “Do” character. A commenter on my blog said:

‘Do’ is short for ditto, now most often represented by a double-quote. Used most often in columns of dates that repeat.

Also of note, Mark. P’s Western Union Underwood has this date, “Aug 18, 1903”, stamped into the typebar rest – and so does mine:

And there is a Reddit poster who noted the same thing on his Underwood 5 Mill.

Do all old Underwoods have “Aug 18 1903” stamped at the end of the typebar rest – or just these telegraph typewriters?

Well, what a neat surprise.

I took the Underwood 6 back to Moe’s shop with care and feeding directions attached.

Moe asked me to work on an Underwood 5 she just got, but I told her that there was another typewriter I needed to work on before I could start the Underwood 5.

You see, I did a service check at The Shop at Flywheel Press last week. They were having their annual Valentine’s Day Love on the Run community event the next day where they bring out typewriters for people to write love letters on. All the typewriters needed to be in tip-top shape for the event. I went through each, re-threading ribbons, unlatching carriage locks and disabling stencil settings. They were all in very good shape despite constant use at kid camps.

Jenn at the shop showed me a new acquisition that she had found in a garage. Oh my goodness.

It powers on but doesn’t type. I wonder if everything is there.

I have always wanted to try my hand at a Selectric, and now this has fallen out of the sky. Charmed life. Now that I am finished with the Underwood 6 mill typewriter, I am going to play with this Selectric a little. I hope I can get it to run a bit.

Valentine’s Day was yesterday, so I leave you with a tender love song from the Underwood 6:

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The Really Big Typewriter and a Send Off

My blog has been on hiatus for the last few months while my family makes a slow-motion cross-country move to Northern Virginia. I am focused like a laser beam on tasks related to the move and new house and have been trying to avoid distractions and temptations (typewriters).

The Virginia house is a lot like a really big typewriter. It has lots of moving parts and I am learning something new each and every day.

I have been shuttling back and forth between California and Virginia for the past three months, working on the Virginia house. I really don’t want to be That Lady, but there are some updates and modifications we’d like to make before we bring in our familiar junk and make ourselves at home. I am home-making.

The Virginia house is full of period details from the 1990s that I am trying to tone down: acres of high-gloss honey oak and brass accents. This enormous ceiling fan that came with the house is mesmerizing. It’s like a rare plant of the Amazon that blooms once every hundred years and emits a corpse-like scent. It’s so weird, it may need to stay.

So I am out here in Virginia, trying make this house home-ly for our family – a comfortable setting for all our weird junk. My skills are limited to demolition, insulation hanging and painting. I like to paint and my favorite medium is rattle-can Rust-Oleum:

I am trying to make two rooms out of one. Sometimes I feel like Gob Bluth: “I’ve made a huge mistake.”

The Olympia Robust joined me on this trip as a carry-on and kept me company in the garage while the floors were being refinished.

Fire extinguisher at the ready in case the Robust overheats

The Robust appears to have spent some time rethinking the past. It seems to have experienced some sort of spiritual conversion:

We are all on a journey, and our paths often lead to unplanned destinations. Yesterday the Robust journeyed to Richmond, VA where it will be rotated into exhibits at the Virginia Holocaust Museum.

I drove down to Richmond, VA with the Olympia Robust as co-pilot. I have not been there in 30 years and was amazed at the city’s funky transformation.

This is a window box at the Poe Museum featuring my favorite type of bird, a corvid:

The Virginia Holocaust Museum is located near the waterfront in an old part of town:

Weirdly (and I didn’t plan this) I dropped off the Robust at the museum on International Holocaust Remembrance Day which takes place on January 27—the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

I met with the museum’s Assistant Curator, Angela, and we brought the Robust to the museum’s collections workspace where it will be processed. I filled out the paperwork and kissed the Robust fondly goodbye.

After the drop-off, I met my son and his girlfriend for lunch and reminisced about the good times with the Robust and celebrated the fact that the typewriter was now in a good place.

I drove back to Northern Virginia and sang loudly to the radio.

Farewell, re-born Robust! Before we parted and the Robust embarked on its new life, it typed out this:

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The Royal Happy Halloween (HH)

It’s October and here in the US that means Halloween. I’m not much for the scary, gory stuff, but I do like a cheerful jack-o-lantern or two. And I like all the candy that I steal from my daughter’s trick-or-treat bag.

My neighbor’s Pac-Man ghosts are pretty swell.

And now as the leaves have started to fall, Moe from Mozo’s gave me a call. A friend of Moe’s had a Royal HH that needed a look-see. I brought the HH home and took it out to the back patio to investigate.

1952 Royal HH
HHE-4815786

By serial number this typewriter is from 1952 – the first year the Royal HH was manufactured. The serial number is under the carriage on the right side. You can see it if you pull the carriage way, way over to the left:

It wasn’t too bad: a little gummy, a little dirty on the inside. Its worst problem was that it was cursed with one of those awful black and white correctable ribbons. The horror!

The first thing I did was cut that thing out. So much better:

I blew the inside out carefully with my Datavac Duster:

Despite being a nondescript muddy gray, this HH has wonderful style – the lines are very appealing.

I assembled my supplies for cleaning:

Old rags
Mineral spirits in a jar for scrubbing the slugs and segment
Soft Scrub for cleaning the platen
Goo Gone for cleaning the key tops
a stiff tooth brush for slug scrubbing
a paint brush for applying mineral spirits
Q-tips to cleaning sticky eraser crumbs and gunk
a bamboo skewer for getting into tight spots
a fresh ribbon to rewind onto the old spools

After draping the shell carefully with rags, I scrubbed the type slugs and segment with mineral spirits. After a first cleaning pass, the typebars were all swinging easily.

I then wiped out the eraser crumbs, gunky fluff, and correcting tape dandruff with a lightly damp rag and Q-tips. I vigorously scrubbed the platen with Soft Scrub to remove embedded white of the correcting tape.

The keytops had the frost often seen on Royals of this vintage. A lot of people call it mold or fungus, but I think it’s a chemical precipitate that affects plastics of the era. That sounds xtra-science-y.

I wiped the key tops down with Goo Gone and the white coating came off.

The old metal spools are the distinctive Royal style. I wound new red and black ribbon onto the old spools and tested.

Lovely! When I first started typing, the left margin was a little “soft”, returning irregularly to the left. I find that Royals often exhibit this behavior. Fortunately, the erratic left margin seemed to work itself out with exercise.

The Royal HH has a “carriage control” knob. Here is the description of carriage control from the Royal HH manual:

I played with it, turning it up and down and felt no difference. Perhaps the machine needed more cleaning to appreciate the subtleties of the control.

T. Munk posted recently about a similar feature on Royal portables of the early 50s.

Moving on, here’s a picture of Herb Caen, a well-known San Francisco columnist who swore by his “Loyal Royal”.

San Francisco Chronicle newspaper columnist Herb Caen in his office at 901 Mission Street in San Francisco May 1994. Photograph by Nancy Wong (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons

It’s hard to say whether the HH pictured above was his favorite – apparently he had four “Loyal Royals” including the Royal FP below. Really, Herb, what a player!

“Loyal Royal,” typewriter of Herb Caen, longstanding columnist of the San Francisco Chronicle, on display in the lobby of the Chronicle Building on 5th Street in San Francisco, CA. By Uyvsdi (Own work) [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

This HH is a serious typist’s typewriter. It’s got a palm tabulator:

If this HH had had a dirtier shell, I would have pulled out the Scrubbing Bubbles and a tooth brush and cleaned the crinkle paint exterior. However, the HH was pretty clean to start with. I only needed to wipe down the outside with a damp cloth. Here she is, sitting pretty on my front bench.

I am going to call this model a Royal Happy Halloween from now on. I have heard tell that the Royal HH was named for Henry Hart who patented the Magic Margin for Royal in 1938. HH could also stand for Hello Handsome, Head Honcho, Heigh Ho, Hip Hop, Holy Hell, Happy Hunting and more. Happy Halloween seems appropriate for this time of year.

I took the Royal HH back to Moe’s with care and feeding instructions. I am sure that the lady who owns it will now be able to hammer out The Great American Novel. What a sweet machine.

Postscript

I got an email from Jenn at the Shop at Flywheel Press and she just got a new typewriter for the Shop. It had belonged to a friend who moved to Hawaii and couldn’t afford to bring the typewriter along, so she gave it to Jenn. It wasn’t typing and Jenn thought maybe it had a carriage lock engaged. I went over to scope out the situation.

When I arrived at the Shop, Jenn was conducting a kids camp. I could hear the happy tappity-tap of typewriters as I walked in. Heart-warming!

Here’s the new girl. Really, another HH! I call this one a Royal Hardly Hawaiian (since it didn’t make it off the mainland).

After poking at it a minute or two, I determined that the margins had been set close together so the carriage couldn’t move. Damn you and your mysterious hidden workings, Magic Margin!

I got the margins in order and strung a new ribbon on her, and soon she was typing away happily. I’ll be back to give her a good clean and enter her into TWDB.

I strolled around the Shop and checked the other typewriters. One or two had ribbon issues which were soon remedied, but all were typing. My cheesy fixes like the duct-tape clevis repair and the paperclip spool spindle ARE STILL FINE despite all the little kids hammering on these typewriters.

Looking good, ladies. Til next we meet.

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Pleasing Symmetry

The Olympia Robust had been on my mind ever since it first arrived at Moe’s shop. I took some photographs of it in situ for Typewriter Database:

Deer antler, tramp art, oil lamp, Jesus, stuffed pheasant…Olympia Robust.

It bothered me to leave the typewriter at Moe’s shop. Not only was it at risk of getting damaged, but I worried it may be collected for weird reasons. The more I ruminated on it, the more convinced I became that the typewriter should not go to a private collector.

So I took it into protective custody and brought it to my place for the time being. Moe was relieved about that. She was worried about it getting stepped on.

I am offering temporary shelter to the Olympia Robust – it can’t stay in my home too long. I’m concerned that it might catch what the Praxis has.

I went in search of a permanent home for the Robust. The internet did not disappoint. After a little digging, I found a Holocaust museum in Richmond, Virginia that was requesting donations of objects from the period.

What I liked about this museum:

extensive community education program
open 7 days a week
FREE admission
great Yelp reviews

I got in touch with Tim, the director of collections at the Virginia Holocaust Museum. He and the assistant curator agreed that the Olympia Robust would be a good addition to the collection for rotation into the exhibits.

As part of the museum’s collection, the Olympia Robust will be available to anyone who may want to examine it (typewriter types, history buffs, ordinary curious people). Tim says that the museum is developing a searchable online archive of objects in their collection that the Robust will become a part of.

I’m flying out to the DC area in December and will take the Robust as carry-on luggage. Once in DC, I plan to drive the typewriter down to Richmond for the hand-off.

This turned out really well. This particular typewriter’s story has a pleasing narrative symmetry – or at least a very satisfying balance in beginning and end. While I don’t think inanimate objects can experience karmic retribution, the sprinkling of poetic justice and side of situational irony gives me a chuckle. This typewriter, made in its past life for the SS, will now be used as a tool for education and as prevention against future atrocity. It really does make me laugh (righteously, of course).

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Difficult History: Olympia Robust

I have been wrassling this week with an Olivetti Praxis 48 that I have fixed once already. I bought it off of Craigslist last year, fixed it and gave it to the Arduino Kid (son of Roia who works at Mozo’s shop down the street)

Roia and Dog. This dog has one eye that pops like Marty Feldman’s.

I brought the Praxis home last week with its jammed carriage:

The Chewbacca mug mistook the Praxis for the Millennium Falcon and came over to see if he could recalibrate the hyperdrive motivator.

I removed some loose hinge pieces that were dangling inside, plugged it in and it worked. For a couple minutes. Then it was jammed again.

And that led to:

So I was sweating and swearing at this technological marvel when I got a phone call from Moe at Mozo’s. She got some new typewriters including a really cool Olympia that I just had to check out. So I walked over to the shop.

Lord.

In pride of place next to the Tonka Winnebago

On the floor, Moe? Really? With case open for stepping on?

And of course, it was One of Those.

Moe didn’t know. I pulled her over and showed her the SS key.

1943 Olympia Robust
serial number 470745

The typewriter is functional. The carriage feels a little loose and the typed imprint on the right side is a little light, but it’s typing.

The case is wooden, a faded blackish-green with a German instruction sheet pasted within it.

The typewriter has a QWERTY keyboard and German characters. My guess is that this was a US soldier’s war booty and that when he returned from overseas, he had the Y and Z placement switched.

The “front panel slide” (“schieber im Frontblech”) is mysterious. I can’t figure out what it’s supposed to do though it does obscure what has been typed. Would the slider have protected the delicate mechanics out in the field?

A lot of people have mixed feelings about these SS rune WWII typewriters. There have been lively discussions in typewriter forums about the ethics of owning an SS rune typewriter. I wish I could say something deep and meaningful about artifacts of difficult history, but I am coming up short.

I wish my father were still alive; I’d love to get his take on this typewriter. Born in 1918 at the end of the first world war, he was a US Army serviceman during the second world war. He was an expert typist and bookkeeper, skills that did not go unnoticed by his superiors, and he diligently typed and kept the books through the war. I imagine he would have studied this Olympia Robust with great interest. It is the machine of his German SS counterpart, possibly a wartime clerk like himself, who used it to type up requisition forms for canned peaches – or status reports from death camps. We don’t know.

My father had a taste for the absurd and he framed his WWII service portrait in a WWI German commemorative frame he somehow came across. It says around the frame: “Zur Erinnerung an die grosse Zeit – 1914-1915” (Memento of an Important Time, 1914-1915)

I feel my father would have regarded this typewriter as a reminder of how war is absurd and monstrous – and full of the workaday. It’s really hard to orchestrate organized, large-scale evil-doing without clerks and paper pushers. You need a good typewriter too.

We Americans like to think of ourselves as “the good guys” though we are not as morally superior as we’d like to think. US history has some very dark chapters, and that difficult history should make us a bit uncomfortable. That discomfort should prod us toward a better future.

This Olympia Robust typewriter is a piece of difficult history, an object from a dangerous time and place. I really wouldn’t want the Robust to go to someone who acquires it as a fetish – an object of dark magical power. I’m hoping that it will find a home with someone who appreciates the significance of its history in a matter-of-fact way and who will preserve it and share it as a reminder of a terrible time in the world. Cue Santayana: those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

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I’m with the Band: Confessions of a Procrastinator

It’s Labor Day holiday in the US, the day we celebrate the American worker and give Summer a long, wet, beery goodbye kiss and think back over all the fun we’ve had during the past three months. Tomorrow we’ll put away the white slacks and flip flops and get back to school and business.

It was in a nostalgic end-of-the-summer mood that I re-read some of my past typewriter blog posts, and I had to laugh at the tone. My typewriter repair posts can seem like self-congratulatory, unstoppable marches to victory. It’s never that way.

It is time to spread out the dirty laundry of my to-do list. Now that summer is over, I need to get serious. I really don’t know how this happened. I have somehow accumulated a collection of partially dismantled typewriters that desperately need help. Here they are, begging for my attention.

Neglected while I was off gallivanting with the Boys of Summer

Paul the 1959 Royal FP

The good-natured, hard-working 1959 Royal FP is in terrific typing condition – it may skip for some people, but that’s their problem. I have removed some of the panels for sandblasting and powder coating. I ordered pink powder coat paint for the top cover, paper table and front panel – and then I lost my nerve. Did I truly want to pinkify a dignified old FP?

Ringo the 1913 Oliver 5

Everyone’s favorite – the sweet and unassuming 1913 Oliver 5 came as a matched set. Good Neighbor Brian has Ringo’s twin, but I kept Ringo because he’s in pretty bad condition with lots of rust. I took off his carriage and haven’t gone any further.

John the 1970 Hermes 3000

A complex bundle of ego with smartypants tendencies, the 1970 cursive Hermes 3000 suffered a catastrophic fall at Moe’s shop. The carriage was mashed into the body and now won’t move.

George the 1922 L. C. Smith & Bros. No. 8

The 1922 LC Smith & Bros 8 has been living in my garage for the past eight months. He seeks to rise above and to achieve a higher level of rust-free consciousness.

The Fifth Beatle: Underwood Portable

There’s also Pete from Idaho, a three-bank Underwood portable with a few pieces that need to find their proper place.

And then there’s the typewriters that need minor fixes:

You may ask why is there a Rheinmetall KsT in my fridge with a blob of Silly Putty on the shift lock key (this sentence sounds like typewriter-related Mad Libs). It’s a long story, but it doesn’t have a happy ending yet.

I think that I’ll start with the Hermes 3000. Come here, Sweetie:

Blender impassively watches the countertop dissection of the Hermes 3000.

Farewell, Summer!

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The Underwood Five

Sonny Boy was home briefly from college.

Continue reading →

Weird Stuff

“There is no exquisite beauty… without some strangeness in the proportion.”

― Edgar Allan Poe

I have been on the road a lot this summer due to family obligations. Last week, I was up and down the length of New Mexico visiting elderly relatives and taking in the strange and beautiful sights of the Land of Enchantment. I gave Joe VC a silent salute as I passed through Albuquerque.

White Sands, NM is a pretty weird place:

You may be on the moon or in the middle of Antarctica. It was 106°. It was beautiful.

I spotted one typewriter in the wilds of New Mexico. It was crouched in the corner of my cousin’s guestroom north of Santa Fe, ready to spring. Like photos of Bigfoot, this one is a little blurry:

In this photo, you can make out the markings: “Sears – The Electric 2”:

Moe at Mozo’s asked me to drop in after I returned from New Mexico. She had a beautiful little Royal P that she wanted me to admire. It’s a beauty from 1927 with serial number P37918. It types like a son of a gun.

I took a moment to also admire a Barcelona-made Underwood-Olivetti Studio 44 that came in while I was gone. I think it’s from 1961 with serial number 332001. The Studio 44s at Typewriter Database with lower serial numbers seem to be labeled “Underwood-Olivetti” rather than “Olivetti-Underwood”. Funny, that.

Next to the Studio 44 was a 1966 Fortune magazine with a little kid on the cover diligently hacking the mainframe:

Moe also has a new Underwood 6 that is a bit messed up. The carriage gets stuck in strange ways. It may be just dirty – maybe some tab interference too. I will bring this one home in a couple weeks after I finish my travels for the summer.

This Underwood 6 has a strange key:

Does anyone know what “DO” stands for? The typewriter also has a degree symbol.

Roia from Mozo’s created an eerie tableau from a doll head while I was gone:

Moe also proudly showed me some strange bird-headed acquisitions:

Moe says that she can’t look at them too long because her heart fills to overflowing with their strangeness. She sneaks peeks at them now and then. Apparently they are Jenny Lind figurines from the 1850s. Jenny Lind was a famous opera singer known as the “Swedish Nightingale”. Still weird.

And here’s another weird thing Moe showed off:

We did not leave Mozo’s empty-handed. My daughter brought home an Anglo concertina from Moe’s and has been making lots of noise with it:

I can’t look at that concertina without thinking of Joan playing the accordion for her husband’s colleagues.

Lastly, I leave you with a random weird typewriter thing for the day. I saw this on Instagram while I was procrastinating and not doing work like I was supposed to.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BFGTFllw_ga/

I wouldn’t stand under that art installation. I did some quick Googling. This is called “Chor der Heuschrecken” (Chorus of the Locusts) by Rebecca Horn, 1991. I wonder if it is still on view in Hamburg.

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Oly Oly O!

The Shop at Flywheel Press has a beautiful wide carriage 1955 Olympia SM3 that has always fascinated me. A wonderful typewriter, it had extremely bad alignment issues, and I wondered: could I fix it? I had cleaned it previously but shied away from trying to adjust the alignment. On my last trip to The Shop, I noticed that its spacebar was intermittently unresponsive. I decided to bring the Olympia home and see if I could fix the alignment and the space bar.

Fortunately I had recently found Richard Polt’s “Tweaking Your Olympia SM” from the September 2011 issue of ETCetera, so I knew what to do about the space bar.

I flipped the machine on its back and using two pairs of needlenose pliers, “formed” the little “L” shaped piece, squeezing it to make a tighter angle. I tested. The spacebar was much more responsive.

So the next problem was the terrible alignment – as you can see, the upper and lowercase letters were misaligned and the lowercase descenders were faint:

I did some research first, and fortunately alignment fixes are well documented:

I saw the four adjustments screws (two on either side) that Ted Munk mentioned, but the lowercase adjustment screws were buried deep within the machine. I would definitely need to remove the cover plates to get at the lowercase adjustment screws.

I read through Tony Mindling’s fix and Rob Bowker’s post, and thought that maybe I didn’t need to remove the typewriter from its shell. Adjustment screws under the carriage at either end were easily accessible:

I took off the end plates on my wide carriage Olympia so that I could nudge the rails further apart after loosening the “Rob Bowker screw”. In theory, increasing the distance between the rails will cause the carriage to sit lower – and that will allow the slugs to hit the platen at the correct angle and that will result in better printed text. Right?

This is where is all gets a little foggy for me. I can’t remember exactly what I did and didn’t do. I kept getting interrupted in the middle of this project and lost track of my changes. I know I loosened the “Rob Bowker screw” and nudged the carriage rails further apart. I *think* I loosened the lowercase adjustment plate and slid it backwards and forwards and tested various positions.

In any case, the upper/lowercase alignment was still way out of kilter and the descenders were still very faded.

I decided to peel off the cover plates to see if I could access the lowercase adjustment screws.

It wasn’t bad – the ribbon cover pops right off and after removing the front and back plates, the typewriter lifted out of the main shell.

I found the lowercase adjustment screws directly under the ribbon spools. Fortunately I was able to get a ¼” wrench in the side to loosened the lock nuts on either side.

And then I experimented with tightening and loosening the adjustment screws. I wasn’t getting anywhere. Printed text was still misaligned and had faded descenders.

I went back to the carriage rails. Hmm. I loosened the lowercase(?) slide plate screws on each side and moved the plates forward so that they looked like Tony Mindling’s pictures.

They started like this:

And they ended up like this:

I tested. Finally.

The descenders were finally nice and dark. Alignment of upper and lowercase letters was still screwy, but this time the lowercase letters were too high.

I went back to the lowercase adjustment screws under the ribbon spools on both sides and gradually brought the lowercase letters into alignment.

It was time to put the Olympia back in its shell. I don’t like to leave typewriters dismantled, as I worry that I may forget how to put things back together. I take detailed photos in the dismantling process, but still, I like to move quickly while it’s all fresh.

The rubber bushing between the typewriter and the shell were disintegrating. It was a matter of time before they went completely and caused problems. Here’s a detailed post on bushing replacement from Clickthing.

When I returned the Olympia to its shell, I peeled out the gooey remnants and slipped in new rubber washers.

All the plates back on, I did a little test typing.

What the #$@&%*! ??? What happened to my uppercase alignment???

I put the typewriter in shift-lock and tested typing – and it got stuck in shifted position. I couldn’t unlock shifting. I flipped the machine over and found the culprit. My brand new bushing on the front left was blocking the shift and shift lock levers:

I carefully sawed off the interfering rubber edge – the shift levers were free. I did some testing:

Not perfectly perfect, but so much better than it was before.

In conclusion: I have nicely aligned text that is uniformly dark. I am still not quite sure how I got to this point, but I never would have been able to do this without helpful typospherian blogs. If I have incorrectly identified adjustment areas, let me know.

As I am a child of the Pacific Northwest, Olympia typewriters always remind me of Olympia Beer, made with the naturally pure artesian brewing water of Tumwater, Washington.

Olympia Beer had a nice jingle back in the day that went something like this:

This is possibly one of the gentlest and sweetest beer commercials ever made. Why don’t they make beer commercials like this anymore? Bonus: it features Teri Garr:

I can’t resist sharing another beer commercial from my childhood – this one made by Olympia’s Northwest competitor, Rainier. It features the soundtrack of my soggy Oregonian upbringing: windshield wipers.

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Cleaning Becomes Electra

I was leaving on vacation a couple weeks ago, but I couldn’t resist the siren call of a broken electric typewriter at Moe’s shop. While I supposed to be packing, I was instead fooling around with this misbehaving Smith-Corona Electra 210:

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When the power was turned on, the typewriter mysteriously typed all by itself, hitting “5” repeatedly. “555” is not exactly the mark of the beast, but the typewriter was seemingly possessed:

I took off the bottom of the typewriter and blew out dust and etc from inside the machine:

You can see that the lever for “5” is partially engaged and I found the lever connections very gummy. I cleaned carefully with mineral spirits:

I flipped the machine over, plugged it back in, and turned the power on. No automatic “5” typing! I did some tentative pecking and all seemed well until I hit the “h” key and the typewriter went bananas with a repeating “h” key. I ended up turning it off, unplugging it, flipping it over, and cleaning it a few times as random keys would get stuck. Eventually everything was freed up and the typewriter was working like a charm.

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This is such a pleasant machine to use, fairly quiet for an electric.

Joe Van Cleave recently posted a really good video comparing a Smith-Corona Galaxy 12 with the electric Smith-Corona Coronet Automatic 12:

I have enjoyed Joe’s typewriter video series very much.

I may end up buying the Electra 210 from Moe and donating it to The Shop at Flywheel Press. It could replace a wonderful but rather delicate electric Penncrest. That poor dear has sprung clevises (AKA “link springs”) that have sprung so many times that they can’t withstand the onslaught of kid fingers after re-attachment. The little kids have a tendency to push several keys all at once and *POP* goes the clevises.

This Penncrest should probably be an adult-only typewriter.

After I returned from vacation last week, I swung by The Shop at Flywheel Press to do typewriter tune-up. The typewriters there had been through several summer kids camps and had a few events in front of them.

I brought my tub of cleaning and repair materials and got most of the typewriters back on their feet. Minor ribbon issues and engaged carriage locks seem to be the most common problems.

That wide carriage Olympia SM3 came home with me since the space bar was unresponsive and the vertical text alignment very off.

I am amazed that repairs such as this duct-tape clevis repair on a SCM Galaxie have withstood the slings and arrows of kid camps.

Yay, duct tape!

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Recalled to Life

As I prepared Quin’s Underwood 5 for its return to Modesto, I finished the last items on my to do list. I used a lot of penetrating oil on this typewriter, so I needed to flush out the sticky oil before it started attracting dirt. I flushed everything with liberal amounts of mineral spirits and then gave the typewriter a final blast of air to clear out the steel wool fragments and rusty grit.

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Underwood 5: Bit by Bit

I have been spending many happy days outside by the garage working on the Underwood 5 for the young writer, Quin. When I first got it, I had doused the machine in Liquid Wrench penetrating oil to loosen the rust. That horrible burning smell persisted for days and days – working in the fresh air was necessary. Fortunately the weather was warm and pleasant, and I cleaned and tinkered and listened to the neighborhood children play and the neighborhood dogs bark.

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Modesto

A couple weeks ago, I got an email out of the blue from a young writer named Quin from Modesto. Quin had recently attended a writers’ conference and had run into another writer, Kirsten, who owns an Underwood 5 I had cleaned up some time ago. Remember this lovely 1915 Underwood 5?

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Eine Kleine SurfMetall

A couple weeks ago I ventured into the mist-shrouded hills of San Francisco where I bought a 1961 East German Rheinmetall KsT from a pair of hill sprites (or Houses of the Holy photo shoot extras). I continue to clean and tinker with the KsT. I got spools that fit on its three-pronged spindle and went to town typing.

I sure love the way this Rheinmetall KsT types. Solid and classy with a nice snappy *snack* and a big, readable imprint. I am riding a wave of smooth class. I am very glad that it’s got a QWERTY keyboard.

I recently cleaned and re-ribboned a 1924 Corona 3, and I was not a fan of that particular machine. Beautiful and strange though it was, typing on the Corona 3 was an alarming experience. I felt as though I were in a Model T on a dirt road that might at any given moment break an axle and fly into a million pieces. And me with no seat belt. And the threat of a rigid steering column straight into the sternum. What a rattly old ride that Corona 3 was. It typed just fine in a wobbly sort of way once it was de-gummed, but I was relieved to return it to its owner. I can’t believe I said that about a typewriter.

On the other hand, the Rheinmetall KsT is a delight to use. It cleaned up so beautifully and types so competently. I am discovering that I really love the mid-sized portables of the 1950s and 1960s. I also really like big heavy standards, no matter the age.

I removed the foil dealer’s sticker that was plastered on the typewriter’s forehead. I know that this sticker is a part of the typewriter’s history, but I couldn’t get over how bad it looked. I also knew that it would compete with the cool Rheinmetall badge that would soon be re-attached to the ribbon cover.

I carefully pealed the foil dealer sticker from the side while I warmed the sticker’s adhesive underbelly with a hair dryer.

Fortunately, I did not damage either the paint on the ribbon cover or the foil sticker which I relocated to the the interior side of the ribbon cover:

Quality and Origin

I think that I have made some headway into the mystery of the “S” in the triangle on the back of the Rheinmetall. A commenter on the last post, mentioned that he had seen similar markings on East German weapons and that set me off on a chase.

The S in a triangle appears to be a quality mark used in the GDR and the numerical information below it refers to the origin of the product.

“S” = “Sonderklasse für sehr gute Qualität (Special class for very good quality)”

“09” = The first two digits indicate the territorial base key of the district. 09 is the district of Erfurt where the Sömmerda factory was located.

“2552” = operating point / production facility, perhaps the Sömmerda Rheinmetall factory itself.

Vertical Alignment

The KsT had a few little issues that bothered me. One was that the vertical alignment was a bit off:

Weirdly, I don’t think this lower case “h” has a serif at the top of its stem.

Ted Munk has a couple really good posts on adjusting vertical type alignment on both basket shift and carriage shift typewriters. Unfortunately, this carriage shift Rheinmetall doesn’t seem to have the adjustment points that his carriage shift machines have.

I had taken the platen knobs and side covers off for cleaning and de-gumming of the carriage release button. I noticed two interesting screws on either side of the platen that seem to limit shifting. I loosened the lock nuts and made small adjustments to see what would happen.

These lock nuts and adjustment screws are found on either side of the platen

Yeah, Baby!

After the fact, I found a West German Alpina service manual in the repair documents library at Typewriter Database. Funny how the schreibmaschine is typing “schreibmaschine”:

My Google Translate German is a little rusty, but I think it says: 01.0202 and 01.0209 of Fig. 1 are the adjustment points for upper and lower case letters. The West German Alpina appears to be very similar to my East German Rheinmetall – at least in terms of vertical text alignment.

Filling Key Depressions with Sugru

One thing that really bothered me was the empty “D” key. It looked like a missing tooth.

I pulled out the Sugru:

And fixed that thing:

Missing Handle

The carrying case is in rough shape and the handle is missing.

I found this site that sells luggage handles – hmmm – great selection of handles!

B-bird Is the Word

This Rheinmetall KsT has a variant logo badge made of thin metal which is very different from the typical Rheinmetall logo. The badge had fallen off some time ago and had gotten lodged inside the machine. I could see the ghostly outline of where the badge had been before it fell off.

I reapplied the Rheinmetall badge with its jaunty surfing font to the ribbon cover. I used Krazy Glue and that made me krazy nervous, but I think I positioned it in the right place.

Ah, SurfMetall – such laid-back swagger! I pay tribute to your überkoolness.

Let’s go surfin’ now…

Everybody’s learning how…

Come on and safari with me.

I leave you now with a little surfmetall:

The Mystery Machine

It was our anniversary, and my husband got me a funny card that pretty much sums it all up:

He was a dear and took the kids to Maker Faire for the afternoon and left me to my own devices. I lay around the house eating bon-bons and cruising Craigslist and came to a San Francisco listing for a strange-to-me typewriter. The seller wasn’t sure what kind of typewriter it was, and it had no indication of branding on it.

It was very mysterious: a portable with no badge, no decal, no logo. It looked German. I did an image search at Google for “german portable typewriter” and spotted similar machines. Ah ha. Rheinmetall KsT.

The typewriter looked kind of horrible in the dark Craigslist picture, and that perversely whetted my appetite. I snuck out of the house and headed for San Francisco. I ended up in the vertical hills of the Excelsior District where even automatic transmissions flinch and the streets are as wide as goat paths. I found the address of the seller, parked in the middle of the street and fretted. I worried that the seller might be a Craigslist killer who preyed on unsuspecting typewriter collectors. I guiltily regretted not mentioning to my family that I was out on a typewriter hunt.

As I approached it, the house was invisible among huge trees and bushes and a tall wooden fence. I apprehensively lifted the huge rusty knocker on the gate and immediately it was opened by a golden child, maybe around 10 years old. She had been waiting for me. As she opened the gate, I caught a glimpse of a magical vista that’s only seen in Northern California: a cottage shaded by an enormous cypress at the base of a hill, rocky steps, wind chimes, a mossy deck with an old couch where a second beautiful child slept, Tibetan flags, a laundry basket full of stones.

I told the child that I was there for the typewriter and without a word she turned and made her way down to the cottage. When she returned with the typewriter, she asked me if I wanted the case. Sure. Back down the steps and back with the case. I gave her the money which she took silently, and I thoughtfully loaded my car. I never saw an adult. Was the child human? Did I just buy a typewriter from a hill spirit? Mysteries like this are all part of life’s rich pageant.

When I got home, I looked over my purchase. It was so much better looking in person:

I hadn’t realized that the ribbon cover and paper table were blue – in the Craigslist picture it had looked gray. The typewriter was very dirty, but appealing in its compact curves.

X Over It’s excellent post Post-war Rheinmetalls (1945-1962) is very informative. This Rheinmetall is missing the super-classy Rheinmetall 3D badge on the front. If you look closely at the ribbon cover, you can see a shadow of where a sticker had been. This is probably one of those KsT variants that had a Rheinmetall sticker rather than a 3D badge.

Per Robert Messenger, KsT stands for “Kleinschreibmaschine mit Tabulator” – or small typewriter with tabulator.

Serial number 564222 – stamped next to right ribbon spool.

I date it to about 1961 per the Typewriter Database

I found the carriage lock, released it, and tested the typewriter. The only thing wrong with it appeared to be a carriage release button that kept getting stuck – probably a gummy dirt problem.

Fur Ball

The typewriter appears to have been over-loved by a cat. I imagine that some happy feline spent many a pleasant afternoon curled up in the type basket.

The Rheinmetall KsT user manual is a delight – it assumes a very competent and somewhat fearless operator. Here are instructions for removing the carriage and type bars (!):

click to view larger – Rheinmetall KsT User Manual, The Classic Typewriter Page manuals archive

Well, what are you going to do? I can’t resist a carriage like this and this is a general user manual after all, not a service manual. Check out X Over It’s very entertaining KsT video.

Ghost in the Machine Episode II: The Phantom Name Badge

I released the carriage locks on either side and jiggled the carriage free from the machine. I used my air blower to clear out the layers of cat hair, dust and dander that coated the interior behind the segment.

The congealed grease had a thick layer of embedded eraser crumbs that I scrubbed out.

Hey what’s this? Oh!

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

I swear I am not planting these things for a good story!

It was jammed inside the guts in a way that it did not interfere with the mechanics at all. How many years had the name plate lain there, waiting for me? I would never have seen the hidden name badge without removing the carriage.

I carefully pulled it out – a little bent piece of thin metal (not foil or paper) with dried adhesive on the back but no generally no worse for wear.

What a jaunty, surfer-style font. A German surf-metal band inspired by the Beach Boys would have this logo.

From the Teachings of Blender:

If your typewriter is missing a part, check inside the machine first.

I’ll need to re-secure the Rheinmetall badge somehow – I am considering Super Glue for permanent adhesion.

This typewriter didn’t have any spools when I bought it. It needed three-hole spools, and all I had were four-hole ribbon spools.

I ordered some “Rheinmetall KsT” spools online. Unfortunately they didn’t fit. They were labeled Adler and the holes were too small for the spooling spindles. Drat! I really wanted to test the typing on this thing.

Then I remembered something. I had seen a stray couple of typewriter spools at Moe’s recently. They didn’t seem to belong to any typewriter and were just laying around near her typewriter collection. I was dropping off a newly-cleaned Corona 3 at Moe’s shop that belongs to her friend Alan, so I investigated the orphaned spools. Hurray! Three holes! Moe graciously gave them to me and they fit, they fit!

While I was at the shop, Moe told me that Mozo’s Antique Search and Rescue had been featured in the local paper last week. I am so fortunate to live near such a great place.

I am still cleaning the KsT, but it’s looking great after a preliminary wipe down. I am going to cautiously remove the foil dealer’s sticker from the front with a hair dryer to loosen the adhesive. I plan to re-locate it to inside the ribbon cover. I just hate seeing it on this poor typewriter’s forehead.

What “S 09/2552” mean? It’s on the back of the typewriter. Could it refer to Sömmerda where the Rheinmetall factory was?

I still need to re-attach the newly found Rheinmetall badge and figure out a solution to my missing shift lock key top. I might make a silicone mold and use a thermoplastic like InstaMorph to create a key top. Stay tuned.

myoldtypewriter

The pleasures of a bunch of old typewriters

Author: maryech

Brick House

The Really Big Typewriter and a Send Off

The Royal Happy Halloween (HH)

1952 Royal HH
HHE-4815786

Postscript

Pleasing Symmetry

Difficult History: Olympia Robust

1943 Olympia Robust
serial number 470745

I’m with the Band: Confessions of a Procrastinator

Paul the 1959 Royal FP

Ringo the 1913 Oliver 5

John the 1970 Hermes 3000

George the 1922 L. C. Smith & Bros. No. 8

The Fifth Beatle: Underwood Portable

The Underwood Five

Weird Stuff

Oly Oly O!

Cleaning Becomes Electra

Recalled to Life

Underwood 5: Bit by Bit

Modesto

Eine Kleine SurfMetall

Quality and Origin

Vertical Alignment

Filling Key Depressions with Sugru

Missing Handle

B-bird Is the Word

The Mystery Machine

Fur Ball

Ghost in the Machine Episode II: The Phantom Name Badge

1952 Royal HH HHE-4815786

Postscript

1943 Olympia Robust serial number 470745

Paul the 1959 Royal FP

Ringo the 1913 Oliver 5

John the 1970 Hermes 3000

George the 1922 L. C. Smith & Bros. No. 8

The Fifth Beatle: Underwood Portable

Quality and Origin

Vertical Alignment

Filling Key Depressions with Sugru

Missing Handle

B-bird Is the Word

Fur Ball

Ghost in the Machine Episode II: The Phantom Name Badge

1952 Royal HH
HHE-4815786

1943 Olympia Robust
serial number 470745