September TW Society Meeting

Post-Script: Here are some close ups of the ephemera included with this machine - the owners manual, touch typing guide, Holiday Case key & tag and sales tag. There was also a 3M brand cleaning sheet included, in the original plastic bag.





There's still a bit more work to do on the machine. Several of the type bars hang up on the type guide (the "h" and "f"), and it needs more cleaning. But the card guide fingers are formed so that you can actually thread a sheet into the machine and it'll roll right under the paper bail rollers, which is neat. I'll have to see about adjusting my older elite machine the same way.

I was initially thinking I'd sell this to a local member, but now I'm having second thoughts; I really like the type face. But I do have a potential buyer for another machine in my collection, so perhaps I can make room for this one instead.

I'll post a video about the meeting tomorrow, and will include the link below when I do. We had fun tinkering with a Roxy Rooy escapement issue, so stay tuned.

Tuesday at the Press Club

Post-Script: I've spent most of the last few days working on the Underwood. It's working pretty good now. I ended up threading the ribbon directly onto the machine's spool hubs, instead of using a ribbon wound onto their own spools. This is the generation of Underwood that uses the Remington-style spools with the wide center hub and the auto-reverse lever that senses end of ribbon by ribbon slack and causes a little spring-loaded lever to rotate out a slot in the hub, dropping a linkage through the hollow ribbon spindle that engages the drive shaft to shift sideways to reverse the ribbon. It wouldn't work reliably with the ribbon spooled onto Remington-style spools, but works fine directly threaded onto the machine's hubs. But it does tend to wind the ribbon a bit wonky, causing the ribbon to creep up the pack as it's wound. Perhaps something to do with the angle of the ribbon drive shaft verses the vibrator's guides, but I haven't fully figured it out. But at least it works.

Now the final cleaning is in order. I'm using a spray degreaser and gentle application of a Scotch-brite pad on the textured paint, with care it seems to remove the years of nicotine stains pretty well without affecting the paint.

I still have to wind a bit more tension onto the spring motor, as the carriage gets a bit sluggish near the right margin.

I like the easy-to-remove platen feature, a bit easier than a Smith-Corona 5T series to operate.

A major issue will be cleaning and reattaching the ~3/8" thick sound proofing pads. Has anyone had luck washing these pads with water, or do they disintegrate when wetted? I'd like to remove as much grunge and mold as possible.

I think this is going to be a good typer for its owner.

Our ABQwerty Type Writer Society seems to be gaining traction, with several newcomers showing up on Sunday. It's going to be fun seeing where this goes.

Kevin and I had a deep discussion tonite about the future of the typewriter hobby. When we get old enough, I hope we find good homes for our collection. More importantly, I see the need to evangelize the younger folk into learning typewriter repair, to keep the torch burning. There are a finite number of machines out there, despite the fact that millions were manufactured over the years; million were also trashed after their useful life was over. And a number of machines end up getting ruined through improper packing and rough handling during shipping, so it seems that, ironically, our desire to collect and preserve these machines ends up ruining some. It's best to check out a machine in person and personally transport it ourselves; but that isn't always possible.

We've noted that us older guys end up doing most of the typewriter tinkering in our Society. It's important I feel that we get others involved in the hands-on repair and restoration work.

What do you think? How do you plan on passing the torch?

ABQ Press Club Skyriting

Post-Script: The Press Club is located at 201 Highland Park Circle, situated atop a hill that overlooks downtown ABQ. It was built in 1903 by the architect Charles F. Whittlesey as his personal residence, who in the early 1900s was the chief architect in charge of hotels and stations for the Santa Fe Railroad, and who designed most of the grand stations and hotels for the railroad, such as the Fred Harvey hotels. The house was designed and built while he was designing El Tovar at Grand Canyon, in the same Norwegian Villa style.



The Whittlesey residence changed hands over the years, but in the 1970s was purchased by the Press Club, in whose hands it remains today.

I still had thoughts on my mind from the day's previous video production, where I mused on the adequacy of manual versus electronic typewriters as writing tools. When Kevin had invited me to the Club, he mentioned bringing his Skyriter. I was planning on bringing the Remington Ten Forty that I've been servicing, but instead decided a pair of Skyriters would be appropriate. My Skyriter still intermittently skips, whereas Kevin's hasn't had that problem. His is a Spanish keyboard version, and he speculates that, even though his machine is a few years older, perhaps it didn't have the wear and tear that mine had. Since I've done about all the cleaning, degreasing and lubricating that I can do, and have also referenced the service manual procedure, I suspect the skipping may be due to worn parts in the escapement. The machine works fine when I type pedantically, two-fingered, at a slow, even pace. So, in keeping with the video I'd just made, I've decided to work within the limitations of the machine, accepting it as imperfect yet "good enough," using it for "slow typing," such as when composing one's thoughts onto paper, rather than transcribing previously written material at a faster pace. A cogitating typer. Other than the skipping, it's a nice machine, and sports the longer carriage return lever than Kevin's version.

The video I posted is also the first one using my new Go Pro Hero 7 Black. It has excellent image stabilization for handheld shooting, and has a linear mode that straightens out the extreme fisheye distortion of these wide angle lenses. I've had to attach some sticky wind muffs to the mic holes in its carrying case, to dampen the effects of wind noise, and will soon be acquiring an adapter dongle for using an external mic.

Scootering to Sweet Cup

Loft Typing at Sweet Cup with Brother EP43


The loft at Sweet Cup



This last Sunday our fledgling ABQwerty Type Writer Society met at the historic Albuquerque Press Club, invited by one of its members. We had a great time writing and socializing on the shaded porch, and hope to return in the future for more typing events. Here's my video of the event: