The Arduino Kid and the Ivrea Connection

Long story short: Roia works at Moe’s antique shop where I find a lot of typewriterly inspiration. Roia is a super nice person and she’s got a couple kids. I recently fixed her daughter’s Royal Quiet De Luxe.

Anyhoo, Roia’s 17 year-old son is into Arduino electronics and 3D printing. He has a blog called Progress by Chance where he documents his projects.

photo courtesy of Progress by Chance

Roia mentioned that her son had happened upon my typewriter blog and fell in love with my Olivetti Praxis 48 (and really, who wouldn’t?). I told Roia that in the interests of encouraging the next generation of typospherians, I would happily give the Praxis 48 to her son.

Giving Roia’s Arduino-loving kid an Olivetti seemed like karmic destiny. Per the Wikipedia entry on Arduino electronics:

Arduino started in 2005 as a project for students at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea in Ivrea, Italy… The name “Arduino” comes from a bar in Ivrea, where some of the founders of the project used to meet. The bar, in turn, has been named after Arduin of Ivrea, who was the margrave of Ivrea and king of Italy from 1002 to 1014.

Yes, that Ivrea, Italy.

The Praxis has a couple issues that might be fun for Roia’s son to tackle. One is that the plastic on/off switch is broken in two. Perhaps he could 3D print a new one?

In addition, the Olivetti’s carriage return clutch still needs work – I have to degrease it each time I use the typewriter or line spacing doesn’t work. I had ordered a thin sheet of cork and was planning to resurface the clutch, but I may end up passing that project along to Roia’s son.

Hail and Farewell, Praxis

I feel that I just got to know this Olivetti, and now it leaves me. This is good though. I know that the Praxis will go to a home when it will be loved and appreciated and perhaps inspire the next generation’s Christopher Sholes.

I sent the Praxis off to the Arduino Kid with care and feeding instructions and a can of denatured alcohol for the clutch.

Roia had another typewriter she was wondering if I could look at. It belonged to her friend Geoff and wasn’t working too well.

Oh. My.

Another native of Ivrea.

Been There, Done That: Oliver No. 9

My plan last week was to clean Moe’s Oliver No. 9 typewriter on Monday and Tuesday and get it back to Moe’s shop when she re-opened on Wednesday. I hated to keep the Oliver off her shelves longer than necessary, especially since it was getting so much interest even in its nonfunctional state.

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A Herd of Wild Typewriters

I really love Moe’s shop. She has such a superb eye for great junk.

Real name: Mozo’s Antique Search and Rescue

I haven’t been in a couple weeks and Whoa, Nellie! Moe has a new bevy of beauties to check out. Many have small fixable problems. I’ll take at least a couple home to work on and then bring them back to Moe’s.

1949 Smith-Corona Silent

S/N: 5S101645
Works great. Comes with a case. A little stinky, but what a sweetie.

1920 Oliver No. 9

$150.00
S/N: 852922
This Oliver has obviously lived a hard life. Dirty, rusty and corroded. Drawband broken. Worst of all, it has been dropped on its head so it’s very squashed and typebars won’t move. Of course I want to take it home and clean it. Moe really liked the suggestion. I think Moe is more likely to sell it if it looked better and actually typed. However, people stopping in at the shop have been going nuts over this Oliver. We don’t see Olivers often here in California – people are quite struck by its strangeness.

L.C. Smith No. 8

Very rusty, corroded, very dirty. Drawband broken. Pieces in a bag are never a good sign. It should be fine though. Bonus: insane horse decal.

Underwood Noiseless

$150
Love this thing. I want to take it home and play with it and look at its insides.

196x SCM Galaxie

$60.00
S/N: 6T 540518
The typebars are glued to the segment as if someone poured cement or super glue all over the segment. Perhaps WD-40? Otherwise fine. Looks like a fun clean-up. UPDATE: I took it home for a couple hours yesterday and worked on the Galaxie’s frozen segment with denatured alcohol, gently loosening the keys. One of the key lever linkages had popped off when its typebar was in a frozen state. Semi-pro tip: move the slug all the way to the platen, grab the linkage with a dental tool and re-attach in this position. Don’t try to re-attach from below; it will only end in tears. Anyhow, the Galaxie is typing great now. So fun. Sorry, TWDB, no SCM datecode to be found.

1956 Royal Quiet De Luxe

S/N: B317581
Carriage not moving- ooops carriage lock on! OK – all fine, just a little dirty. Attractive color. This one will move fast. Has a cute tweedy case.

1940 Royal KMM

S/N: KMM-2590373
Dusty but functional. Love the greenish-blue keys. Must take home and clean. I want to compare it to my Remington KMC and see who comes out on top.

Home Dreyfuss Repair

Roia works at Mozo’s, and she is a super nice person. She caught me on my way in and asked me if I could look at her daughter’s typewriter. It’s a beautiful Dreyfuss Quiet De Luxe that had been working and then suddenly wasn’t. I examined the machine. The keys weren’t making it to the platen and the space bar was nonfunctional. It was almost as if I were hitting up against a line lock or a mechanical obstruction. There was an earring caught under the keys – perhaps something had fallen into the guts?

I told Roia that I wasn’t sure I could fix it, but I would look at it at home.

I brought it home, but I was a little nervous. I like tinkering with my old junkers, but I have never worked on anyone else’s typewriter.

Amazingly, the internal mechanics of the 1948 QDL are virtually identical to my 1939 Royal Aristocrat with the exception of the margin release mechanism. Time for some comparisons.

click image to view larger

After giving the QDL a quick blow-out to remove animal hair and dust bunnies, I set up the two machines on the dining room table and watched the escapement on key strike side-by-side.

What I noticed was that in the QDL, a pawl (?) or dog(?) in the escapement’s workings wasn’t darting in and out to engage the escapement wheel like it did on the Aristocrat.

I spent the evening pondering this and leafing through the D.E. Fox manual’s repair section on Royal portables.

I have a set of dental-like tools that I picked up at the hardware store for about $5. They are great for spring re-attachment and typewriter investigation.

I very carefully but very unscientifically probed with one of my dental tools around the escapement wheel and dog and then *BOING* the little pawl bounced into sight. Suddenly the escapement was tripping and the wheel was turning and the typewriter was typing. Dumb luck. I threw a new ribbon in her and went to town:

I want to thank my 1939 Royal Aristocrat for helping me get the QDL running again:

This Dreyfuss QDL is quite a looker in her gray flannel suitiness. I took some pictures before I returned the QDL to Roia.

Roia was really happy that the QDL made a comeback. I sent the QDL home to Roia’s with instructions for proper care and feeding à la Type the Clouds.

I then spent a couple hours cleaning the Galaxie and when I dropped off the clean Galaxie at Moe’s, I brought the Oliver home with me for cleaning and repair. Moe’s shop is closed on Monday and Tuesday so I have a couple days to get this thing sort of clean and mostly running.

I do have my work cut out for me. Look at how rusty and mashed this poor thing is:

Follow the Stars, Venus and Mars

It was time to put the Olivetti Praxis 48 back together, so I returned the carriage to its shell, inserted the platen and did some testing. Everything seemed functional except that the platen did not move to the next line on carriage return. Hmmm.

Houston, We Have a Problem

Perhaps the carriage return cord needed more tension? I shortened the carriage return cord to produce a bit more *zing*. That didn’t work. In a fit of pique, I ended up dousing everything in PB B’laster.

Doing things in a fit of pique is never a good idea. My carriage stopped returning.

The cork clutch mechanism for carriage return was so slippery from excess PB B’laster that it wasn’t gripping and the carriage was not returning. The carriage return clutch is a cork-faced disk that comes in contact with a spinning metal plate. It was so oily, it couldn’t grab and my carriage couldn’t return. I could see the oil glistening, mocking me from the cork clutch.

I peeled off the carriage shell and was back at Square -1. Look at that greasy cork disc. I decided to take the return wheel off and clean the cork clutch.

The Reverend Mother always says, “When the Lord closes a door, somewhere he opens a window.” Yeah, and then the spring flies out.

The spring inside the carriage return wheel popped out as I was removing the wheel from the typewriter. It scared the heck out of me. I have had experience with Slinky Monsters before, but gosh, darn it.

After some careful swearing, I cleaned the metal carriage return plate and cork clutch with denatured alcohol and scrubbed it dry. It was squeaky clean.

I wound up the spring and secured it in its little case and reattached it to the machine.

Relief: the carriage was once again returning after the cleaning. However, the platen still didn’t space to the next line on return.

I flushed all the greasy metal parts of the return wheel mechanism and clutch with denatured alcohol, and suddenly – it was spacing properly on return. Or pretty much. I have some more degreasing to do, but it’s finally line spacing. I put the shell back on and did some typing for funzies:

Surprise, surprise: the ¼ and ½ key did not have ¼ and ½ slugs. Instead, hitting the ½ key and shift ¼ key gave me this:

Oh, funny! Oh, you Space Age Olivetti and your sex symbols. You are a delight!

I feel some heavy Space Age nostalgia when I look at my Olivetti Praxis 48. I was a little kid at the time of the the first moon landing, and I remember a retro future that still hums to me with wondrous possibility. The Praxis 48 hums: I am the future.

The Praxis 48 is the sort of typewriter you’d want to typecast from when you retire to your living module on a long-haul nuclear-powered interplanetary spaceship during the 36 lonely months en route to Saturn.

While I am ruminating on the future that is and was and ever shall be, my practical Praxis types out her thoughts on her future:

Many Happy Returns: Olivetti Praxis 48

Last weekend I brought home a nonfunctional Olivetti Praxis 48. I was able to make some progress on the machine, but I needed to get the carriage shell off to find out more about this mysterious piece of cord that was bunched up under the carriage:

This was the point where I had left off with the carriage housing still attached:

Removing the Carriage Housing from My Olivetti Praxis 48

This past week, I worked on getting the shell off the Praxis carriage. To get the housing off, I first popped the small covers on each side of the platen off with the aid of a large screwdriver as lever.

First the right side…

…then the left side.

I popped out the platen by raising the retaining bars on each side.

I lifted out the metal paper pan. The blender watches with interest from the sidelines:

I removed a underside screw on either end of the carriage housing:

and popped the main housing off:

Ah-ha. The housing finally off, I saw what my problem was. The Praxis has two cords: a draw string attached to a mainspring and a carriage return string attached to a return wheel apparatus. The carriage return cord was bunching up and not winding onto its wheel because the carriage return wheel was stiff with gunk.

Return wheel on right side of machine

Once I saw what was happening under the carriage housing, I was able to straighten things out. I applied degreaser to the carriage return wheel and gently moved it with my hands until it felt looser. I depressed the carriage release button and moved the carriage back and forth until the carriage return cord began to wind smoothly onto the wheel.

I used Lectra-Motive to loosen things up. I read (after the fact) that while Lectra-Motive is a wonderful electric parts cleaner, it will eat plastic. I ran out to the garage in a panic and wiped all the internal plastic pieces down carefully. There is a surprising amount of plastic inside the machine guts of the Praxis. No harm done, but I will be more careful next time.

I was struck by how similar the electric 196X Olivetti’s problems were to the problems faced by my Foster Typewriter, the 1938 Royal KHM. Disuse and congealed gunk are the bane of typewriters no matter the vintage. The KHM came to me with a stuck carriage. Its draw string was tangled up under the carriage, and the mainspring was frozen with congealed grease. Once the draw cord was straightened out and the mainspring coaxed back into springy life with PB B’laster, the KHM’s problems receded.

The Praxis had a very similar story: a tangled cord and a stuck carriage. Once the carriage return was loosened and winding properly, the return cord behaved itself. I plugged in the machine and tested it. Wonderful. All the keys were responsive, the carriage was advancing, and the carriage returned beautifully.

Malfunctioning Tabulator Brake on My Olivetti Praxis 48

The major remaining problem was tab operation. When I hit the tab bar, the machine locked up and the carriage froze.

To release the carriage, I wiggled the plastic piece in the back and the machine resumed happy function.

wiggling this platic part frees the carriage

Wiggling the plastic tab brake drum freed the carriage.

I identified the round plastic piece as the tabulator brake drum. Inside the drum is a set of plastic gears.

The tab brake slows the carriage down during tabbing so that the machine doesn’t slam into tab stops.

When the tab bar on the keyboard is depressed, the top pinion gear engages with the rack:

Once the tab stop is reached, the pinion should pop up free of the rack.

My tab brake was engaging but the gears inside the drum were not turning and the top pinion wasn’t popping up once it hit the stop.

My feeling was that I had a dirt and gunk problem in the tab mechanism. I carefully applied PB B’laster to the metal tab brake parts and worked them with my hands. The gears were initially stiff, but loosened enough so the the brake gears turned and the tab mechanism moved freely. The tab mechanism finally worked as it should, braking gently with tabbing but not locking up.

I made good progress on the Praxis this past weekend. Now it is time to put the shell back on the machine. But first, lunch.

It was a pleasant afternoon so the Praxis had lunch outside with friends:

Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe AKA Neked Lunch after Manet. You’re welcome, Art History Majors.

Stay tuned for the electrifying conclusion of the Olivetti Praxis 48 story.

Electric Ladyland: The Olivetti Praxis Experience

I got it into my head that I really should bring home an electric or electronic typewriter. I suppose the hysteria of Baby Wedge Week got to me, but what really tipped me over the edge was the family blender repair.

Our Osterizer gave up the ghost a couple weeks ago after 20+ years of hard service and instead of chucking it and picking up a new blender, my husband and I decided to repair it. A coupling attached to the motor had broken in two, so we ordered a new one and installed it.

Watch your fingers.

All fixed and cleaner than it has been in years :

This past week I spotted a broken Olivetti Praxis 48 electric typewriter on Craig’s List for $10. I thought, “This will be sort of like the blender, right?”

I just love the look of the Olivetti Praxis 48 – the touchable fungal key tops, the mod cantilevered keyboard, bright green accents, and the corrugated side panels – it’s all good. The only problem / great thing is that this Praxis 48 doesn’t work.

I picked up the Praxis in San Francisco. The seller was a super nice guy. He’d had it for a while, but he never was able to get the machine to turn on. He thought perhaps it had a motor problem.

I brought the machine home and took a good look at it. The serial number is located underneath the machine by the left front foot: #5060685. It appears to be a 196X Olivetti Praxis 48.

The machine was made by Olivetti Underwood Limited at Don Mills in Canada:

It’s a very cool looking 60s time machine. It takes me to days of future passed.

Oh, those wonderful, weird, squishy keys:

The Fallingwater of typewriters

The guy I bought it from said that it just wouldn’t turn on. The motor switch felt strangely loose. I popped the hood and saw a broken piece of plastic:

I manually flipped the switch inside the machine and plugged her in. Hallelujah! The motor started. I will repair the plastic switch with a patch of JB-Weld epoxy. At least the motor works.

Unfortunately, the carriage wouldn’t move. It was stuck in the dead center of the machine. It moved a single space backward or forward, but that was all. The carriage release buttons wouldn’t free it.

All the keys worked and the platen rotated when I hit the carriage return button.

I removed the shell from the machine so I could clean and get a better look. I removed four screws from the bottom:

I then tried to lift off the shell. No good. I then removed a couple screws from the sliding ribbon cover that seemed to be holding the shell on:

There are hex-headed screws that hold the ribbon cover on each side. I used a small wrench.

Not yet. I loosened a couple screws under the keyboard and and slid the keyboard cover off.

It had foam padding that disintegrated into a fine dust when touched lightly:

I removed two screws in front that held the ribbon cover on and took off the ribbon cover:

I was then able to lift the machine guts out of the shell.

I plugged it in to make sure everything still worked. Even in this basic nonfunctional state, I sort of love this thing already. The motor is very quiet and the keys are so sweetly responsive. I love the *splack* *splack* *splack-splack-splack* electric typing sound.

The carriage was stuck in dead center and the carriage release buttons were not freeing it. I carefully blew out the insides of the machine. There was plenty of disintegrated foam padding debris and dust inside, but it cleaned up nicely.

Around back, I poked and prodded as I depressed the carriage release button. I jiggled the plastic piece noted below and suddenly the carriage was free:

I do not know the name of this piece, but jiggling it freed the carriage. Lucky.

I had a new problem, though, once the carriage was able to move:

This piece of cord attached to a spring seems to be part of a very elaborate draw string set up – it’s probably all tangled up under the carriage. I need to figure out how to get the carriage housing off so I can get a better look.

I feel like I made good progress today. If I can straighten out the spring + cord situation, I think I might have a completely functional Praxis 48.

The Shapes of Stories, or Why I Love Junker Typewriters

I tend to drag home some really sorry-looking typewriters, so people ask me, “Why do you love junker typewriters so much?” And I tell them, “Because a junker typewriter is usually the beginning of a great story.”

I love junkers*. When I am out hunting, I will always prefer a dirty or broken typewriter to a clean and functional one. I will pay what I need to for a nonfunctional typewriter because a junker will always give me more than my money’s worth in entertainment. And they’re generally a whole lot cheaper. Sure, there are set-backs and frustrations and sometimes tears and curse-words, but at the end of the day, there’s a good story in that. And I always learn something new.

I find typewriter clean-up and repair stories endlessly fascinating. I know that they are not everyone’s cup of tea, but for a person interested in small machines, they provide wholesome entertainment and useful knowledge in large doses.

In fact, I love any type of machine clean-up / repair story. My husband and I are replacing a broken motor coupling on our 20+ year old Oster blender, and that story is GREAT. However, I will save it for a more appropriate forum like my blender blog, My Old Blender. 🙂

I love cleaning stories too. I find this video about cleaning a guitar with naphtha so compelling:

I could listen to that gentleman’s soft and pleasant voice ALL DAY.

Back to typewriters: sometimes typewriter repair is like a good detective story: you do your research, follow the clues and fix the typewriter (or catch the murderer). Typewriter repair stories have lots of twists and turns that keep me on the edge of my seat.

I love me some Vonnegut. Some people find his quirky rambles fatiguing, but he reminds me of some of my quirky, rambling family members, so I think of Vonnegut in an affectionately familial way. Anyhoo: Kurt Vonnegut was very interested in stories and the different forms that they take. In the 1940s, he tried to get his masters degree in anthropology from the University of Chicago. Unfortunately, they rejected his thesis. He described it as follows:

“The fundamental idea is that stories have shapes which can be drawn on graph paper, and that the shape of a given society’s stories is at least as interesting as the shape of its pots or spearheads.”

– Kurt Vonnegut, Palm Sunday

Here is Kurt Vonnegut describing some of those shapes:

I am a sucker for a good Cinderella story or Man in Hole story or Boy Meets Girl story. Who doesn’t love that uncomplicated rush of happy sentiment when the setbacks are overcome and the main character emerges victorious? Many typewriter repair and cleaning stories have happy endings though some do end ambiguously. Corona Four McDraggle: I am looking at you and your horrible, unresolved ribbon feed problem.

OK. So here’s the shape of my Fox No. 24’s story. The Y axis is typewriter condition (ranging from scrap metal up to pristine condition) and the X axis is progression through the story, the passage of time.

Here’s the story of the Fox No. 24:

A. I spot the Fox No. 24 on eBay. It looks bad, a bit of a rust-bucket, but most of the pieces seem to be there, so I buy it. I nervously await its arrival.

B. The Fox arrives, and I am over the moon. It’s in a rough, nonfunctional condition, but it’s more beautiful and strange in person than in pictures.

C. I notice that the back corner is broken off the machine.

D. The drawband snaps as I remove the carriage from the machine.

E. Inside the machine, I see two broken shifting arms. The broken front frame bar falls off. This is rock bottom. I cry a little (a rasping Snoopy cry).

F. After cleaning and lubrication, the carriage, typebars, ribbon vibrator, escapement begin to move.

G. The drawband re-attached, the machine begins to type.

H. Further cleaning and light repairs yield a beautiful, functional machine.

Compare that to the story of Posh Spice, the 1938 Corona Sterling:

A. I spot the Corona Sterling at a junk store. She’s absolutely beautiful and in perfect working order.

B. I bring her home, dust her off and she is absolutely beautiful and in perfect working order.

See? Not much of a story there.

The Corona Sterling has never really fit into my rough crowd of merry junkers. She lays about the house, bored, flipping through Vogue magazine, acting like she’s above it all. She has the aura of a sulky teenager (and she’s no teenager, that’s for sure). I will probably trade her for a special broken typewriter – to a person who can appreciate her.

I will continue to hunt and acquire junkers. They provide me with solid entertainment for the money and grist for the story mill.

*I use the word “junker” in a nicest way possible to mean any typewriter that is dirty, beaten-up and/or in less-than-functional condition. This is usually the result of being over-loved, under-loved, or both.

20th Century Fox: Fox No. 24 Typewriter Reassembled

I have been cleaning and tinkering with my Fox No. 24 typewriter for the past few weeks.

Sugru for Key Letters

It look like someone – in a fit of boredom – took a ballpoint and scratched out a couple of the letters on the Fox’s keys. I got some white Sugru at Target for the key tops where the lettering has worn off. Sugru is a self-setting rubber product that is removable. I pressed it into the key letter depressions and scrapped away the excess. It sets in about 24 hours. If I change my mind about the letters later on down the road, I can peel it off.

Not too shabby; now the letters are readable. The letters are a bit white; I may tone them down a bit with a yellowish glaze.

Gluing

A testament to her true grit, the Fox was able to type with two broken shifting arms. The broken arms were causing typebar alignment problems though, so they needed to be re-secured. I initially tried to re-attach the broken back corner, front frame section and broken shifting arms with J-B Weld SteelStik. Unfortunately the SteelStik was not “tacky” enough and wasn’t adhering to the pieces of broken cast iron (despite sanding and cleaning), so I used J-B KwikWeld metal epoxy adhesive which is a bit stickier.

Foxini supervises the work

I had to remove the shifting arms to glue them because there was considerable sag in the adhesive – the pieces needed support while the adhesive dried.

Done broke

Broken ends sanded with rough sand paper and cleaned with denatured alcohol before the epoxy applied – it’s a little gloppy.

The rear left corner was a crumbled mess – it’s a bit better now after some J-B Weld, but it could use a good sanding to smooth out irregularities.

The Rust Blackened

There are many areas of bare metal on the painted surfaces. I was torn. Should I use Testor’s model paint which is a great match and very permanent, or should I go with India ink (encre de Chine) which is a great match and less permanent? I went with the India ink and a light coat of Renaissance Wax. Some future owner may want to undo what I have done. I want to be sensitive to the history of the machine and preserve as much vintage authenticity as possible.

Finally, I flushed out the metal internal guts with mineral spirits and compressed air. I was worried about excess PB B’laster attracting dirt and gumming up things down the line.

I mixed myself a stiff drink, fired up a cigar, leaned back, and drank in the physical beauty of this 100-year-old vixen. Make no mistake: this is a 100-year-old typewriter that has suffered catastrophic neglect and damage. However. She is still very fine indeed.

American Fox-es! (spoken with Festrunk brothers’ emphasis)

Model number 24 – somewhat hidden behind the keyboard:

I wish I had better luck removing the cracking layer of yellow varnish/lacquer/shellac around the decals. I tried to Soft Scrub it off, but I wasn’t successful. I will leave it to some future restorer with better products and methods.

The back decal (“The Fox”) has worn off or been painted over:

Lots of luscious curves in back though:

Baby got back

The decal on the left side of the machine is in good condition:

What Does the Fox Say?

The darn thing types like the proverbial champ:

It’s got fun special characters: manicules, pilcrow, section sign and degree characters.

It has a double row of staggered type bars. These are called pin-mounted slugs, right?

The carriage comes off with four loosened screws. You loosen the carriage scale pointer screws, slide the carriage scale pointer over and off; loosen the carriage screws, secure the draw string to the hitching post, and the carriage lifts off.

dismantled prior to de-rusting

What a wonderful machine. After spending some time in genuine appreciation, I got down to typing.

Fox on the Run

Here’s a looping six second video of me typing away happily on my quick black Fox.

How about another six second loop?

To Do List

Continue polishing rusted and corroded parts – there is still so much to clean up. I hope I get that high-capacity ultrasonic tank full of solvent for Christmas 🙂
Try heat shrink tubing for a couple of the feed rollers which are a bit brittle and disintegrating.
I need to figure out the line lock set up. My Fox keeps typing at the end of the line, and I think there may be a rust problem that prevents the line lock from engaging. I am looking at the patent documents for clues.

Crumbly feed rollers and surprise! more rust

This is what I want for Christmas. Friends and family, please take note:

Typewriter Drawband Repair on a Shoestring

It is Labor Day holiday here in the US, and I labored happily over my typewriters. I tinkered with the Fox No. 24, got stuck and decided to wash my collection of typewriter rags while I thought through the problem.

Clean and ready for typewriter duty

I then read Richard Polt’s very interesting post on his Adler Universal that shows the ease with which the carriage is removed – and that jogged my memory. I needed to take my Lexikon 80 apart and fix the drawband.

The drawband on my Olivetti Lexikon 80 had slipped off recently while I was moving it. I had replaced the drawband with fishing line not too long ago after it broke, and I worried that the slippery fishing line might slide off the mainspring drum at some point since the drum had no lip to hold the draw string on. Well, it did just that when I was moving it inside after the block party.

Replacement fishing line draw string that slipped off

I decided to try my luck with shoelace since it would be a bit closer to the original draw strap material. I bought some flat black shoelaces at the grocery – $1.79.

I cut a piece of shoelace about 17 inches long – which is about the length of the original draw band:

I had held onto the Lexikon 80’s two original drawstrap hooks for sentimental reasons. I found them and pried their little jaws open – these secured the old drawstrap.

I made sure that the sharp triangular teeth were poking up – these grab the draw band. I inserted my shoelace and tapped the hooked retainer closed. I repeated this on the other end of my shoelace draw band.

I then removed the cover and carriage from the Lexikon 80 – see Rob Bowker’s great tutorial – and pulled off the old detached draw string. Using a bamboo skewer (I will always be indebted to Robert Messenger for his documentation and use of the bamboo skewer in drawband replacement) and fed the shoelace through to the mainspring.

Here is my shoelace hooked on the right side of the carriage:

And here is the shoelace hooked onto the mainspring drum (I wound the mainspring about 3.5 rotations before attaching the draw strap:

Super classy! We’ll see if it holds up and doesn’t slip off.

While I was replacing the drawband, I reflected on the typewriter drawbands that I have known:

: Remington Rand KMC

: Oliver No. 9

: Corona Four

: Royal KHM

: Royal Aristocrat

: Olivetti Lexikon 80

: Fox No. 24

: 80lb line – overkill

I like junkier typewriters, so many of my typewriters have had drawband problems.

The Lexikon 80 is happy to be functional again – the new shoelace drawband is very handsome. I had hoped to make more progress on my Fox 24, but overall it was a pleasant holiday spent tinkering with typewriters.

Total Fox: Fox No. 24 Typewriter

My new Fox No. 24 typewriter is a total fox – or a totaled fox. When I took it out of the shipping box from the eBay seller, I found the back left corner (cast iron) had broken off in shipment.

ACK!

It wasn’t typing, so what mysteries lay within? I felt that it could type since hitting the keys was causing a flicker of movement in the carriage as if it wanted to type. Time to take it apart.

Words Are Winged has a great photo spread on the dismantling of the Fox typewriter which was very helpful. Over at Google Books, The Expert Typist by Clarence Charles Smith (1922) is newly found resource for me. It has information on the general use and operation of Fox, Multiplex Hammond, Noiseless, LC Smith, Remington, Smith Premier, Royal and Underwood typewriters as well as more advanced typing such as stencils and mimeograph operation and the preparation of statistical reports. It’s a window into the world before word processors, spreadsheets, and printers.

The dedication of The Expert Typist is heartbreaking:

The Expert Typist has a section on how to remove the carriage from a Fox typewriter on page 12:

“Carriage. – Carriages of the Fox typewriter are interchangeable, and different lengths can be kept on hand and used as the work requires. To remove the carriage, first remove the carriage scale pointer (No. 2312), unfasten carriage drum strap (No. 189) and attach it to hook (drum strap post, No. 133), then take out, or nearly out, the two screws (No. 558) found near each end of the carriage.”

The Expert Typist
By Clarence Charles Smith
Google books

Following the carriage removal instructions, I took off the carriage scale pointer:

I removed the two rusty screws that hold the carriage scale pointer in place

I was unfastening the carriage strap and the draw strap done broke.

Oh. Heck. The ancient draw strap disintegrated when handled

Carry on. Backed out the two carriage screws on the back on the rear left and right:

Check out the green corrosion. There is a matching carriage screw on the left that I backed out enough to removed the carriage. This photo was taken just before I lifted the draw band (drum strap) from its anchor. As I moved it to the drum strap post, it fell apart in my hands.

I then lifted up the carriage to reveal large pieces of broken cast iron on both sides of typewriter. Good. Golly.

These two pieces should be one:

And the other side was broken too:

Well. Heck.

It appears that those two cast iron bars are part of the shift mechanism though I am not sure of their purpose. They seem to support the basket during shifts. If you know the name and purpose of these broken parts, let me know. I’ll be using JB Weld SteelStik or an epoxy adhesive to re-secure them.

Onward: the platen pops out after you loosen a screw on either side and move the platen slide back:

Here’s the machine dismantled (I re-attached the carriage scale pointer after I cleaned it because I was worried that I would lose it).

Fresh Hell: then the front bar fell off. I hadn’t noticed that it was cracked and broken as well:

First thing first: I blew out the inside of the machine with my small air compressor. It wasn’t terribly dirty – just very rusty and corroded.

The front carriage rail was rusted and the carriage moved with a painful screech. The escapement wheel and pinion wheel were moving but stiff with rust. Many of the typebars were paralyzed with rust. The ribbon vibrator was rusted into an “up” position. Everything that should move smoothly was crunchy.

I saturated everything with PB B’laster Penetrating Catalyst, let it sit for a few hours and then began to move the parts gently with my hands. They started to loosen up.

The detached carriage was stuck at certain points along the rail – a star shaped wheel on the rail was not moving smoothly along the rail so I doused everything in PB B’laster and moved the carriage back and forth manually until I felt something akin to a gliding sensation.

Carriage - upside down: star shaped wheel that moves along the carriage - there are small ball bearing in there too.

Carriage – upside down view: star-shaped wheel that moves along the rail was sticking.

I got the feeling that this thing might type since hitting the keys was moving the parts of the escapement assembly attached to the machine (the loose dog and rigid dog?). Cleaning and lubrication had freed those parts up nicely.

View with carriage removed: cleaned and lubricated loose dog (?) now moving and able to slip in and out of teeth in the escapement wheel during typing.

The escapement wheel looks battered – the beveled teeth are a bit chipped and worn.

Chipped tooth

I made a new draw strap out of 80lb fishing line and set the carriage back on the body.

I need classier drawstring material. The fishing line works but it's a little hillbilly

I need classier drawstring material. The fishing line works but it’s a little down-market.

I tested typing. The carriage advanced one space for each key struck. I burst into song.

I spooled new red and black ribbon onto the old spools and tried her out.

Looks like my Star of David is indeed an asterisk. Sometimes an asterisk is just an asterisk.

The Fox has a beautifully simple ribbon color switcher: a red key for red typing and a black key for black typing. Even I can figure this one out.

Once I had the machine typing, I began cosmetic improvements. I took my bell and carriage return lever over to Good Neighbor Brian’s shop since he wanted to get in on the fun. He got to work right away.

Brian used a slow buffing wheel (about 1800 RPM) and pink buffing rouge to polish the bell. It cleaned up beautifully.

I was amazed at what he did with the carriage return lever. I had gotten most of the green corrosion off, but it was dull. He polished it to a mirror-like finish with a small 4″ diameter buffing wheel at 1800 RPM and pink buffing rouge:

Remember – it was really bad before:

This makes me want to get my own variable speed bench grinder and buffing wheel.

I had removed some of the old brass / nickel / chrome pieces that were easy to detach and soaked them first in Evapo-Rust and then in Lime-A-Way.

The Evapo-Rust took off surface rust but did nothing for the green corroded parts. I had tried chrome polish on the greenly corroded pieces, but it wasn’t doing anything. I dug around in the garage and found Lime-A-Way which has a list of powerful acids in it. It was the Lime-A-Way that removed the green corrosion. Unfortunately, it also turned some of the pieces slightly pink after a prolonged dunk. The acids in the Lime-A-Way are a bit much for the metal I am dealing with here and caused copper leaching/displacement that was then deposited on the surface of the metal (I am guessing here).

I found an interesting post on a home barista website that described the chemical reaction and fix, so I started polishing to remove the copper deposits with my Dremel and a polishing disc. There wasn’t much shiny chrome on the paper fingers to begin with and less after my polishing. I may walk it over to Brian’s and see if he can put a shine on the metal. I’m planning to wax all the parts to prevent future rust and corrosion

Onto the rusty typebars: they look bad but don’t really affect the functioning, but I wanted to clean them up anyway. I drenched the typebars and their joints with PB B’laster Penetrating Lubricant. While it doesn’t make rust disappear, it seemed to loosen up rust for removal. I scrubbed the sides of the rusty typebars with super fine Scotch-Brite and super fine sandpaper to get the worst of the rust off them. I followed up with my Dremel, polishing the sides with a 512E Finishing Abrasive Buffs 320 Grit and a 442 Carbon Steel Brush. I scrubbed the type itself with denatured alcohol and a toothbrush and got century-old ink out of the crevices. The typebars are still looking “vintage”, but a little less rusty.

I am still perfecting my methods – though trial and error is not the best way to go about dealing with a fine old machine. I’m a little worried that my very liberal use of PB B’laster will come back to haunt me in the form of solidified gunk and dirt attraction. I may follow up with a flush of mineral spirits, a blow-out with compressed air and then very targeted lubrication. I would love to dunk the metal machine guts into a high-capacity ultrasonic tank full of kerosene or solvent – though it sounds like the makings of my very own Superfund site.

Coming up next: gluing her back together and taking glamour shots of the foxy lady.

Type-in at the Block Party

I was out of town in July and missed the Berkeley type-in – I was so disappointed. I decided that I would have my own type-in of sorts at my neighborhood block party.

Every year my street has an end-of-summer party. Traditionally, we block off the ends of the street, and the neighbors come out with chairs and barbecues. Someone rents a jumpy house, and the kids ride their bikes and scooters up and down in the middle of the street. It’s a nice neighborly gathering. It’s sort of like our version of Burning Man but with less dust and less nudity.

I decided to pull out six of my most reliable typewriters and set them up for hands-on fun. Participating this year: 1965 Olympia SG3, 1948 Remington Rand KMC, 1952 SC Skyriter, 1952 Olivetti Lexikon 80, 1957 Torpedo 18a, and 1921 LC Smith No. 8.

Pictures from the Playa:

It starts: the SG3’s gravitational force pulled these two neighbors into orbit:

They are powerless to resist

The LC Smith No. 8 was a surprise hit. I brought it out half-dismantled to display the inner workings. People loved the feel of the machine’s ball bearings at all frictional points. It was a favorite of many of the the typists.

Looking under the hood:

A suitable pastime for young ladies of gentle breeding:

Typing through adversity – the broken arm is not slowing her down:

I believe the children are our future:

The kids gave all the typewriters a lot of love.

The Lexikon 80 never looked or felt better:

A neighbor showed me the image on her business card (she’s a Twitter / social media consultant)

She got her calling cards at Felix Doolittle – beautiful stationery there.

At the beginning of the block party, I set up the typewriters, retreated and observed. If I saw easy prey, I would go over and talk typewriters until my victims edged away nervously. Seriously though, people seemed to want to talk typewriters – typewriters from childhood, high school typing class, Wite-Out, Mom’s Selectric, desktop publishing with a typewriter and scissors – it all came out in a pent-up rush.

Typewriters are perfect for a community event like this: they’re fun to use, they’re interesting to look at and they tap deep wells of nostalgia and start conversations. I am glad that I brought them out and will do it again next year. Typewriters really do build community.

The Perils of Migration: Fox 24 Typewriter

This poor little forest creature had a run-in with the postal service. At some point in time, this Fox 24 had migrated far from its native habitat in Michigan. It was making its way up the Californian coast recently (tracked by scientists) when it met with misfortune. These little creatures are so vulnerable during migration.

I have admired the standard Foxes of others: Type Oh’s Fox 24, Words Are Winged’s Fox 25, Cambridge Typewriter’s Fox 24 and ozTypewriter’s Fox 24. Type-Writer.org’s Fox is a sad tale of the hazards that Foxes face journeying outside of their natural territory – though it’s still a beautiful machine. I would love to lure that Fox from its lovely forest glade and see if I could make it better.

When my package arrived, I sensed a disturbance in the Force:

The destruction of Alderaan:

I knew it was risky shipping hundred year-old cast iron long distances, but I had my reasons for luring the Little Fox north:

It’s got an interchangeable carriage – it comes apart easily
It’s shaped like Santa’s sleigh!
It’s got a weirdy staggered double row of typebars – like shark teeth.
It’s full of weird old-timey machine controls – many of which I haven’t figured out the function of yet
It’s a total fox – so good looking

These mysterious grimy pointing hands are surely worth the price of admission. They are on the typeslug. I believe the symbol is called an “index”, “manicule”, or “fist”. Also note the pilcrow (¶) and the section sign (§) key. Was this typewriter used for contracts or other legal documents?

The typewriter also has a Star of David symbol where an ampersand usually is:

It looks like Christmas came early – it’s Santa’s sleigh:

The typebars are staggered – a double row like rusty shark teeth:

Rusty Grist for the Mill

I feel vaguely uneasy when I look at the Fox. I like my typewriters in “rough” condition, but this is probably the worst I have had the pleasure to own. It’s not typing and it’s rusted and greenly corroded through and through. It will take some time and effort to get this beauty to type again. I am also not sure whether there is other internal damage the Fox may have sustained in shipment.

This is one of those projects I plan to approach philosophically. While I don’t know what the end result will be or whether I can get this thing to work, the journey will be interesting and (I hope) transformative. I seek personal growth through typewriter repair.

Rust, rust everywhere and not a gleam to see.

I’ll take off the easily removable parts and soak them in Evapo-Rust. I am still thinking about how to approach those rusty parts that I can’t easily remove.

I have a Dremel – described by my father as the most dangerous tool in the workshop because of its misleadingly benign appearance. That thing will blind you and maim you and pull your hair out by the roots before you can say “This is fun!” The Dremel requires proper eye and nose and mouth and hair protection. Also, you need a light and careful hand so that you don’t end up damaging what you’re polishing.

It was either Emily Dickinson or Uncle Jack from Breaking Bad who said, “The heart wants what it wants” (sorry, Woody and Selena, you can’t claim it). I am drawn to typewriters with “issues”, and this Fox is a beautiful but complicated creature. The Heart wants what it wants – or else it does not care.

The Girl from Dresden: Erika M

Foster Typewriter Update: Some weeks ago I swung by my favorite junk shop to check the status of my foster typewriter, the Royal KHM. Moe the store owner told me that the Royal KHM had sold almost immediately for $50 to a guy who was thrilled with it and was taking it with him to Thailand. I am pleased on many levels: it went fast; the guy who bought it loved it; and the Royal KHM would now be living abroad. There is at least another 75 years of typing in that Royal KHM and now she gets to see the world.

Another machine that arrived recently at Moe’s is a 1940 Erika M with serial number 867592/M. It’s a beautiful thing (despite a missing key top) and types beautifully. I didn’t bring it home as it is way too clean and functional for my tastes. 🙂

It has a QWERTY key board, but German characters and a £/$ key.

Serial number is located under the space bar: 867592/M which makes it a 1940 Erika M.

There’s a Heidelberg dealer’s label on the inside of the case:

And how did this German girl get here to Moe’s junk store in California? With a QWERTY keyboard. Perhaps this was “war booty” brought home from Germany. The key tops are different colors suggesting replacement at some point. However, the “Y” is the same color as the German characters. I examined the type slugs carefully and the slugs that may have been replaced seem identical to the other slugs. If re-soldered, whoever re-soldered them did an expert job.

The name Dresden fills me with some sadness, bringing to mind the bombing of the city in 1945. I recently re-read Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five – it’s really more absurd and disturbingly tragic the second time around. Vonnegut drew on his experiences as a POW in Germany and his unlikely survival of the firebombing of Dresden. The events of Dresden haunt both writer and his main character – how do you make sense of an experience like that? How does a city recover from devastation on that scale?

Like a Tralfamadorian, I will turn to happier moments in time: Moe at the junk shop had a 1920 Underwood Models 3,4,5 user manual for me. I don’t have an Underwood, but I would never turn down typewriter ephemera.

Unfortunately, it’s missing its front cover with its machine diagram, so it’s limited in its usefulness.

Happily, it does have the address of Underwood Typewriter Company printed inside (30 Vesey St., NYC) and a nice picture of the building inside the manual.

What does 30 Vesey St. look like today? I like to put that kind of thing into The Google.

It appears that the building still stands and there’s a deli next door. I would love to wander around 30 Vesey and see if there is a forgotten closet full of typewriter-related stuff. Maybe I would find the cover to my Underwood manual.

Also, in other happy news: the Royal Aristocrat is still holding up. Her JB Weld Steelstik attached key tops are hanging in there. I sent her across the street to the neighbor’s house where the resident 9 year-old and a bunch of friends did field testing of the machine. I am planning to bring the Aristocrat out for the street block party later in August. We have about twenty kids on the block between the ages of 2 and 12 who will be testing the keys’ structural integrity and typing up a report.

Grimy Whale: Olivetti Lexikon 80

The 1952 Olivetti Lexikon 80 that I brought home from Goodwill looked pretty bad on arrival. It was covered in grime and dings and scrapes and sticky tape residue. To me this is evidence of a very hard worker who really used his/her typewriter – and who took lunch breaks at the desk (bologna sandwich, a cup of black coffee, and a cigarette) .

Scaly grime

Fortunately I had come across Typewriter Heaven’s post on Lexikology which details how to remove the cover and carriage from the typewriter so that I could pursue a good cleaning.

I followed the steps and pretty soon I had a neked typewriter.

There was a lot of debris behind the segment – including a shard of white pottery.

The stripped-down machine innards are pleasantly alien. I have been submerged in pre-war cast iron for the past few weeks and the Lexikon 80 is a blast of fresh modern air. I would assume that for 1952, it was very cutting edge.

I scrubbed the type slugs and type bars with denatured alcohol and the grease dissolved beautifully. I was careful to drape plastic and painted areas.

I cleaned the segment with denatured alcohol first and because the keys still felt sticky, mineral spirits afterwards. The keys on the right were particularly sticky. Did someone spill a Slurpee® into the segment?

The margin release key was sunken – I followed the connector down and found that the lever had migrated out of its slot – popped it back in and all was well.

I don’t understand the tab mechanism very well. While cleaning the keyboard, I pressed on the tab key and it got stuck in a depressed state. I found that a small metal piece attached to the tabbing mechanism in back was bent to the side. It didn’t look right, so I straightened it out and it seemed to be work better. However, the tab key still felt gummy and the tabs weren’t working reliably.

“Not working reliably” is an understatement. After I put the machine back together, I tested setting and using tabs. It seemed to be working gummily but OK. Then I made the mistake of clearing all the tabs and hitting the tab key. Bad idea. the carriage whirled to the end of the line and upon return, did it again and again. I ended up manually lifting up on the gummy tab key and that seemed to correct the problem. I immediately set a tab so it wouldn’t happen again.

After the fact, I stumbled across Rob Bowker’s post on Graphika and Lexikon tabulator eccentricities. Good to hear that I’m not the only person to experience the strange tab behavior. My tab key felt stiff and gummy, so maybe gunk was causing a problem.

So I took the cover and carriage off again and examined all the moving parts of the tab mechanism. I applied PB B’laster Penetrating Catalyst to all the areas below and worked the tab mechanism with my hands. The gumminess receded and the tab key began to move freely.

No set tabs – no problema! Works great now that it’s a bit cleaner and lubricated.

I applied PB Blaster to these area. I had to hold a flat plate down so that I could freely work the tab bar

I applied PB B’laster to these areas. I had to hold a flat plate down with my finger so that I could freely work the tab key.

And more cleaning: I cleaned the cover with a little Soft Scrub – it’s a mild abrasive. It did a great job on the scaly grime, but I found that it was the Scrubbing Bubbles that really tore through the discolored dinge-colored grime. The hard enameled paint withstood the Soft Scrub and Scrubbing Bubbles treatment. I was cautious because some typewriters have very delicate paint. I used Goo Gone for thick areas of rubber and tape residue. Areas of the cover that I thought were scraped and damaged were actually just scaly with grime. After cleaning, the Lexikon looked a little vulnerable and naked without her covering of scaly grunge, so I gave the cover a good protective coating with Renaissance Wax. I love the pretty greenish-taupe that was hiding under the dirt.

The originally washers were sticky globs of melted goo – a horrible mess. I scraped them off and cleaned the areas with Goo Gone and denatured alcohol.

I found replacement rubber washers at Home Depot that were sort of hard to the touch, but they did the job.

I was able to reattach the carriage without much drama. A good wiggle and it was back on. I inserted a new ribbon and fired up the machine.

Clean

I wanted to give the keys some exercise and began a letter to a fellow typospherian. I got halfway through the first page when I heard a snap and a zing and found the draw band snapped. Good Grief, Charlie Brown!

I sighed, pulled out my 80lb fishing line (suitable for deep sea ocean fishing and typewriter repair) and got to work. I decided to salvage the end hook that attaches to the carriage frame.

Salvaged hook

Bamboo skewer to feed the line through to the mainspring

I wound the mainspring 3.5 rotations and tied the fishing line to the mainspring. I did it by myself, but it would have been easier with a second pair of hands. The typewriter is happily typing again.

This Olivetti Lexikon 80 cleaned up so nicely. I swear I didn’t put Vaseline on the lens.

This typewriter has some special keys I haven’t had the pleasure to possess before: accents – acute and grave – umlaut, and circumflex.

Here are some things that I couldn’t type until now:

Addendum: a family member requested that I include this sample of the creative use of the umlaut:

One final note: be sure to check out Vintage Technology Obsessions’ post on Olivetti Lexikon 80 production lines. There are some fascinating images there – I love the Lexikon 80s rolling along on a conveyor belt. I went to the Italian site referenced in the post and found this great image of Enrico Fermi inspecting the innards of a Lexikon 80. I may hang it above my Lexikon 80.

Ivrea, Italy, 1949: Enrico Fermi’s Nobel-caliber mind is blown as he examines a Lexikon 80 carcass.

Moby-Dick; or, The Olivetti Lexikon 80

Totally Your Type had a recent post entitled “Be Patient. Look Everywhere” that offered words of encouragement to typewriter hunters. The gist: sometimes, when and where you least expect them, typewriters happen. You just need to be patient and persistent.

My Goodwill NEVER has typewriters. It has stereos, waffle irons, sad clown figurines, acid wash jeans, golf clubs but NEVER typewriters.

I was at the auto parts store nearby picking up some Liquid Wrench and open end wrenches for my LC Smith 8 vertical type adjustment project and decided to stop in at Goodwill just in case. I was under no illusions that I would find a single typewriter, but there amidst the toasters and Igloo coolers was an Olivetti Lexikon 80.

It was like I had seen the storied Great White Whale, Moby-Dick. A very grimy Moby-Dick. I have heard tell of great typewriters at Goodwill, but here was one in the flesh. I thought typewriters at Goodwill were a suburban legend, but lo! I quickly reached for my harpoon and brought the great beast in.

This Olivetti Lexikon 80 fits all my qualifications for a great typewriter:

Very dirty (I like to clean typewriters)
Not working too well (I like to tinker with typewriters)
Cheap (this one was $18.99)

Plus, it looks pretty easy to strip down to the machine guts. I got the Lexikon 80 home, researched it a bit and found Rob Bowker’s inspirational Lexikon 80 dismantling. Wowie. This typewriter will be an awful lot of fun to clean.

And: it’s got the beautiful sweeping lines of Moby-Dick. Thank you, Marcello Nizzoli. And like a sperm whale, the Lexikon 80 weighs somewhere between 40-50 tons.

1952 Olivetti Lexikon 80

The serial number is 2246770 – which makes it a 1952? Typosphere, correct me if I am wrong about the date.

: Grime

: Grime

: Grime and tape residue

: Grime

: Grime

: Grimy whale

This Olivetti has a thick layer of tobacco grime – residue from what could be a “hoagie + stogie” typing habit. But hey, no judgments here! Since I got my L.C. Smith No. 8, I now understand the importance of a good cigar while typing.

Here’s a short video with a very clean Lexikon 80 at the Indianapolis Museum of Art

Beautiful, beautiful Olivetti. Let’s see how the Grimy Whale cleans up.

myoldtypewriter

The pleasures of a bunch of old typewriters