Category Archives: Thrift shop finds

September 29, 2015 · 10:03 am

New Olympic Event – Speed Touring

from the sketchbook

Before the Olympic Games came the Olympic Mountains. The latter occupy a large peninsula up in the top northwest corner of the USA, aka the bottom southwest corner of Canada. A simple twist of history and the Canada US border might now be the Columbia River, and the State of Washington – the Province of Olympia, or something. But nevertheless, we love the place, even though it costs $81 just to get there. Lat weekend, plus a few vacation days, we did a quick circle tour of the Salish Sea. That name has been given to the great inland waters that divide and unite us up here/down here as the case may be. On and surrounding that sea can be found the great cities of Vancouver and Seattle, as well as many smaller ones, and innumerable towns and villages.

Victoria to Langley, Washington – the long way

We began our tour by being refused room on the ferry from Victoria to Port Angeles, this on a Thursday. Where did all those tourists come from? So we toured clockwise, leaving via the BC Ferries route over to the US Border crossing on the mainland. When we arrived we saw that all Canada bound traffic was being turned back. Had the refugee/illegal immigrant/future brother-in-law crisis reached the great north/south west? No, it seems there was a gas leak.

Langley – county fairgrounds

First stop in the US was Langley, Whidbey Island – where the annual Djangofest was getting underway. We love this town, it is hip but unpretentious, has cheap and pleasant camping available, a lively arts scene, great food, numerous coffee shops (and no *bucks), and world class pizza, not mention world class NW microbrew. We are in the golden age of beer, thank Dog I lived to drink it.

We had breakfast here:

cafe in Langley

One night there, complete with concert and fifteen minutes of jamming, then across Puget Sound by ferry (love these boats) to Port Townsend – yet another great little town full of history. They were having film festival – outdoors! A giant inflatable screen and hay bales occupied one block of the downtown core.

outdoor cinema

Washington State ferry boat – Salish

Whidbey-Pt Townsend ferry

On the street, Port Townsend:

a pay phone – how civilized

How can I resist this one?

Corona folding typewriter in stationary shop – Pt Townsend

Not for sale..but I did buy an old Eversharp fountain pen, with 14k gold nib, at a consignment/antique/art/clothing/furniture/jewelry/carpet shop.

old Eversharp pen – filled with ‘Herbin Larmes de Cassis’ ink it writes like a hot damn

Next stop Port Angeles, where they were having a beer festival. I know this just sounds too fantastic to be true, but it is true. However, we had our own mini beer festival courtesy of Safeway, and retired to the National Park to camp. With only five days we had to keep moving.

Langley to Kalaloch Campground on the coast

doggy in shop window – Pt Angeles

Next scheduled stop was to be the Olympic Hot Springs, up the Elwha River valley, but alas the road was closed for repairs. So we went to the Sol Duc Hot Springs instead. These are your tourist type hot baths, basically concrete tubs full of bored looking folks and always some Russians. (Russians – what’s the story?) Not that we mind them, we just prefer to hike two miles and bath privately naked in the wilderness (or at Harbin – see previous post). Warmed and relaxed to the point of narcolepsy, we had to return to the highway (US101) to camp, since the campground at Sol Duc was full – of course! But in this way we turned adversity to opportunity and discovered yet another gem in the way of Fairholme Campground on Lake Crescent.

dock – Lake Crescent

There we watched the super moon rise over Lake Crescent, an awesome site indeed.

super moon over Lake Crescent

Next day we went west and south out to the big wet called the Pacific Ocean, where we camped on the shore and listened to the lullaby of thundering surf. All this time we were enjoying blue skies and sunshine, incredibly.

fellow VW bus on the road: Hwy 101. Honest pollution!

Then the sea, the endless sea.

Pacific beach logs

cliffs at Kalaloch

The trip ended the next day but not before we had a great breakfast in Forks (Vampireville, USA) at one of those perfect little restaurants which we pray for constantly when hungry. Why is it so difficult to cook one egg perfectly? Who knows, but one cook in Forks sure can do. Then we were back in Port Angeles and on the Coho ferry home to Victoria.

crazy tree on ocean cliff

Stellar’s Jay – camp robber

POSTSCRIPT

for typerati only..seen on safari:

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Filed under Photography, Sketching, Thrift shop finds, Travel, Typewriters, VW Vans

Tagged as beer, camping, djangofest, doggy in window, ferries, hot springs, hwy 101, kalaloch, lake crescent, langley, olympic national park, olympic peninsula, pizza, port angeles, port townsend, steller's jay, washington

September 16, 2015 · 7:52 pm

A Lesson in Penmanship

3 for $9, plus ink

pen testing department

P.S. the third pen, the red one, was a Waterman, also $3. Only problem is my cartridges don’t fit inside. I’ve heard that Cross cartridges might fit however.

A Crackpot Idea

one yummy loaf

Last week I spied a very interesting enameled cast iron pot in the thrift shop. It was the perfect size for a small chicken. On the bottom it had the familiar stamp of Le Creuset, the famous French pot makers. I brought it home and prepared to drop a chicken in it when I noticed to my dismay that there was a crack, which rendered the pot useless for holding liquids, thus ruling out chicken. Then it occurred to me that the pot was the right shape for bread.

if not chicken, then bread

An internet search revealed a recipe for making a very different sort of bread in just such a pot – from the NY Times. It’s no-knead bread, and so far we’re very impressed with the results. I’ve also make a loaf of regular rye bread in this pot, and it rose much better than any rye I’ve ever baked in the oven.This has to do with two main factors: putting the dough into a hot pot, and baking with a lid on. The lid traps the moisture that ordinarily escapes from the bread in a normal oven, and this contributes to the initial rising and superior results in texture and taste.

In 1972 Le Creuset hired Enzo Mari to design this particular line of pots. I love finding beautiful things like this, and who was responsible for their design. Mari is one of a long line of Italian modernists, responsible for countless beautiful objects of which I am surprised and happy to have discovered one more.

Enzo Mari

One thing I realized after all this – if the pot had not been cracked we might not have discovered this wonderful way to make bread. Ergo: crackpots have their uses! No offense, Enzo, I’m referring to the pot.

the pot

sign of an Italian designer

lid detail

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Filed under Cooking, Thrift shop finds

Tagged as Enzo Mari, Le Creuset, no-knead bread

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.