Category Archives: Thrift shop finds

July 15, 2015 · 9:55 am

The Brother That Wasn’t

All typewriter hunters well recognize it; the little brown plastic case with a plastic handle. Inside is a JP-1 Brother, with or without some features like a tab key or a paper rest. This one was sitting on the floor in the back corner of the Salarmi. The cover even had the familiar Brother logo. I lifted the cover. Webster XL-200. OK, that was a Brother brand, but wait a second – it has tilt-shift! Never saw a Brother with that feature. I bought it and took it home to have a better look.

Clearly it was not a JP-1, or a JP anything. For one thing it wasn’t even Japanese. It was made in Portugal. That gave the game away of course, since I have a very similar machine already, a Sears Chevron. Sharing the same mechanics this one has a different casing and cover, however.

WEBSTER XL-200

It needed a lot of cleaning up and minor adjustments, so I removed the bottom cover. As much as I removed piles of dust and rubber shavings the escapement still hung up around the centre position. To access the escapement the platen had to be removed. Thus I discovered how well made this machine is, from the point of view of servicing. I removed the platen wheels with two set screws, then a third screw on a collar on the right side, pulled out the axle and simply lifted the platen out. Removing the pinch rollers and tray I could see one problem right away, more crud on the pair of dual tooth dogs that engage the linear gear bar. This pair has an adjustment screw, and there was the main problem – the lower dog was hanging up on the linear gear train. A simple twist of the adjusting screw and all was well again. The tab key train also needed a slight tweaking by way of bending the end that pushes the carriage release mechanism. The rear panel of the case has a neat feature – the centre section snaps on and off providing access to some inner parts for quick adjustments.

rear access panel snaps on and off

After working on this I have to admire it’s construction. The frame is a very solid and light aluminum casting. It has tilt shifting – far easier than carriage shifting. Access to mechanism is excellent, and all parts are solidly made and fitted. Even the rubber feet are soft and pliable like new. The platen is not as soft as a typical Japanese made Brother however, although by no means rock hard. Nevertheless I applied several coatings of silicone lube to it, which rapidly disappeared – I assume it was absorbed into the rubber.

a look at the segment and key levers

Although this was made in Portugal I noted some plastic parts with German labellings. Other information about this model deems it a Messa, which I understand had some connection to Germany. Was this a German design? It is puzzling that Brother, a tremendously successful manufacturer of ultra portables, would put their brand on a foreign product, and one they didn’t even design! Topsy turvy.

rechts side dummy!

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Filed under Thrift shop finds, Typewriters

Tagged as Brother typewriters, japan, portugal, tilt shift, webster typewriter, xl-200

July 14, 2015 · 1:06 pm

Mystery Guitar

Last weekend I found this old Japanese electric guitar in the back corner of a thrift shop. It had no strings, one tuner gear and post was missing, and it looked rough – but I took a chance and bought it. I figured the cost would provide me the enjoyment/education of either fixing it or discovering it was irreparable. At the worst it was worth it just for the possibility of the spare parts!

mystery guitar

When I got it home I plugged it in. Static. I proceeded to disassemble it. The entire face plate comes off with all the electrics mounted to it. The jack was loose and the cable flopped around in the throat, causing intermittent signal. After replacing the cable plug with a new one, and cleaning up the switches it responded with a signal. All three pickups tested for continuity, so that seemed in order. Down to the guitar shop for strings next. With strings on the action was way too high, even with the bridge bottomed out. Neck off, the retaining screws had lost their bite in the wood. Holes filled and re-drilled, a 0.76mm plastic shim was inserted to tilt the neck just slightly backwards, dropping the string height. Action OK, next I discovered the nut was all wrong, with string spacing uneven and again too high. Fortunately the nut had so much extra meat on it I was able to file the grooves out and re-cut it.

coil spring whammy

The tremolo needed work, of course. Under the plate is a coil spring, like a car suspension. Things were bent and rubbing but with a bit of filing and bending it too came together. The wheels to adjust the bridge height were gone, but I salvaged a pair from my parts box. Luckily they had the same thread. The bridge had no compensating angle however, but the face plate holes were oblong, which allowed me to move the treble end a bit closer to shorten the high strings.

individual rocker switches for each pickup

More work included scraping crud from the fingerboard with a razor blade, gluing various loose plastic neck trim bits, and scrubbing up the aluminum face plate. I fixed the missing tuner post with a salvaged post and gear, which was not perfect but seemed to work well enough.

rosewood bound fingerboard, with tiny narrow frets

After one more check-over all was ready for the big test. Amplified it sounds surprisingly good! Despite the fact that the pickups are single coils they are very quiet. With three pickups and one master tone control the sound possibilities have a great deal of range, from high and clear to deep and crunchy. The scale length is 680mm (26.77″), which means the neck is very long indeed and while it’s not hard to play chords, it is quite a stretch out to first position! The neck is a honker however, almost like a bass. The whammy bar is effective – it gives just a little trem and returns back to tune.

For more on this, plus a cool video, check out the four pickup version here: Adventures in Baritone – 1965 Kingston FVN4 Japanese Electric Guitar | Drowning in Guitars!

Splendid Scraps

Recent treks to the thrift shop turned up a lovely Olympia Splendid 33. Aside from vacuuming out all the dust and bits of rubber erasings it required a minor repair: the carriage was off the lifting arms. This was easily fixed with the aid of a small wrench and a jeweller’s screwdriver. I also treated the platen with a very light coating of silicone lubricant, rubbed on with a rag. Silicone seems to do wonders for platens, but should be used sparingly. This platen now has a perfect grip. It took a few days for the treatment to dry properly however, as at first the rubber was a bit too soft and impressionable – like a lot of people..

olympia splendid 33

I’ve left this machine on my desktop, the real one that is, where from time to time I like to doodle away with random musings – here’s a couple.

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Filed under Photography, Poetry, Thrift shop finds, Typewriters

Tagged as olympia splendid 33, poetry, scraps, silicone platen treatment

March 22, 2015 · 12:03 pm

The Junior Naturalist

No. 1

We live beside a small pond called Swan Lake. We never see swans here, however. It’s a bird sanctuary, in a park that by some miracle was never destroyed by development. Thank you for that, whoever you were that was responsible. Daily, we walk around the lake, a distance of about a mile, which takes 45 minutes almost invariably. Sometimes I carry a camera, but we have a joke that whenever I do so, we see no wildlife worthy of a photo. Of course when I leave the camera home we run into owls and hawks face to face! But I still like to lug the camera sometimes. Yesterday I put on my 500mm mirror lens. It’s a Tamron, and in its day was very expensive. I got it at a thrift shop for $65, which is not much. I regularly see photographers on out walks, carrying gigantic telephoto lenses mounted on tripods worth more than my camera. All for taking pictures of ducks? I don’t know what they do in truth, but as amazing as those lenses must be, I will probably never buy one. I’m more of an opportunist – I hope for good shots to present themselves randomly. As long as I have the camera at hand, turned on, and set to the right settings of course, then sometimes I get a lucky shot. This long lens is hard to hold steady, however – it probably requires a tripod but I’m too lazy to bother. My Pentax K50 has built in shake reduction, and with my shutter set to 1/1000 I shoot and hope for the best. Of course I also have to focus manually, which is the trickiest part. But here are a few shots. I have numbered them. It’s a quiz! Guess what they are. My answers are below.

No. 2

Write down your answers – no cheating!

No. 3

Put down that book!

No. 4

One more to go, then all will be revealed…

No. 5

OK, here are the answers:

1. Fuzz on a stick

2. Donatello and Raphael

3. Black footed log roller

4. Orca-like duck

5. Giant hummingbird

OK, who guessed right?

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Filed under Animal psychology, Cameras, Photography, Thrift shop finds

Tagged as 500mm mirror lens, bird sanctuary, swan lake, wildlife photography

January 23, 2015 · 9:05 pm

Beltane in Djanuary

Django – born January 23 1910

Beltane -the watch for Wiccans

30 atm = 1000 metres! NOT

Victor – the stapler!

slam here to staple

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Filed under Photography, Thrift shop finds, Typewriters, Uncategorized, Watches

Tagged as Beltane, django reinhardt, Remington Deluxe Model 5, Royal 202 typewriter, Victor stapler, wristwatch

January 19, 2015 · 11:12 am

My Full Basement

the next BIG THING

the Apsco Beaver – how Canadian eh?

rear view

Note: this thing put a very fine point on a no. 2 pencil in short order. Price: 50 cents. Original price $13.50 ( sticker on bottom).

No pencil lover should be without this essential tool.

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Filed under Poetry, Thrift shop finds, Uncategorized

Tagged as pencil sharpener, typewriter philosophy

December 7, 2014 · 9:33 pm

Look Up, it’s Skywriter!

Sears Chieftain – Smith Corona Skywriter

Royal Futura with new paint job

Does Sears still fix 50 year old typewriters?

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Filed under NaNoWriMo, Thrift shop finds, Typewriters

Tagged as chieftain, sears, skywriter, Smith Corona, typewriter

October 23, 2014 · 11:48 am

On the Road

Harris Beach, Oregon coast

Summer behind us here, with two weeks vacation to spend we set off on Highway 101, down the Pacific Coast, bound for California. Like all trips, this one was a perfect opportunity to do some sketching and scour the thrift and antique shops for cool stuff (typewriters and old cameras). 101 is a marvelous road, full of stupefying vistas, interesting towns and endless campgrounds.

After 2 weeks of browsing, it was on the last day of the trip that I discovered two typewriters that I could afford. The poem was typed on the one in the picture. The typewriter came with the previous owner’s name on it. A Google search revealed that she died over 10 years ago, but her husband only died last year. So I surmise that the typewriter was disposed of by estate sale, hence ending up in an antique mall.

My first trip down 101 was about 25 years ago, and I thought it wasn’t very interesting. At the time I was fresh from the east coast and had been hoping to see a lot of quaint east coast villages. Now, many trips along the route behind me, I see it differently – an amazingly interesting and varied route. I can hardly imagine that there is another single highway of its length that offers so many beautiful landscapes and scenes as this one does. However, I have heard tell that US Highway 20, which happens to start at the intersection with 101 in Newport, Oregon, is a likely competitor. One day…

Manzanita trees, Napa

Skytram at Sterling Wines

Typewriter from Astoria, Oregon

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Filed under Painting, Poetry, Thrift shop finds, Travel, Typewriters, Uncategorized, VW Vans

Tagged as Bothe Napa Park, Harris Beach, Highway 101, Manzanita tree, Napa Valley, Sterling Winery

September 4, 2014 · 3:33 pm

The End of Summer

Things end, like summer, and jobs. Summer’s not quite over, but it soon will be. The job, it’s over, for now they say…

Soon ducks will be heading off, but not this duck: I found it today in a thrift shop for $2. It’s nothing special but I’m always looking for one, it’s an item I collect for some reason unknown. No typewriters of late – except common ones like Smith Corona Classic 12’s.

This summer saw us back in the Canadian Rockies, a place dear to my heart. Once again we went to look at Lake Louise. Of course it never changes, or rather it changes at a glacial pace. This time I took a picture, but also took the time to do a small watercolour sketch. Note how realistic it is! Quiz: which is the sketch, and which one is the photograph?

If you ever have a chance to see this place, be sure to go for tea at one of the two teahouses that can be reached by hiking for several hours. Tea never tasted better.

From Russia, With Luck

No kidding, this is a mint condition Olympia Progress, Russian. Unfortunately I don’t type Russian, nor do I speak it, or understand it. But I will sell it to the Russians for a tidy sum, since they are now wisely going back to typing classified documents. That is about the only good thing that can be said about Russia these days. Who would have thought that Russia is part of the typewriter insurgency!