I knew him, fly
Category Archives: Typewriters
Olympian Steroids
Olympian on Steroids
The Olympics are on again, and everyone knows that those some cheaters (uno who) won’t be there because they were caught using banned performance enhancing drugs. Steroids, mostly, which make muscles bigger and stronger. I get my muscles however from lifting my Olympia SG1 typewriter. That machine has appropriately been described as a typewriter on steroids, for it is larger and stronger by far than most every other typewriter I’ve encountered. I recently brought it home from a thrift shop, where it sat on the floor because the staff found it too heavy to lift up onto a shelf, no doubt. Perhaps that is why it has a removable carriage. It does help to take the carriage off when carrying the thing, but even so the base unit remains one heavy sucker. I only brought this home because it is something to be seen and admired. Under the bodywork, which is thick bulletproof steel, is a cast steel structure that more resembles part of a building or a bridge than any other typewriter. The only real problem I encountered with it was the sliding metal block of the right margin control, a piece that incomprehensibly was made of cheap pot metal. That stuff is infamous for self destructing due to internal oxidation. Why Olympia made those parts from such bad material is puzzling, as everything else on the machine is made of extra large extra strong steel.
side view of the inner framework
I salvaged the part by gluing it back together with JB-Weld and little pieces of scrap steel cut from a tin of canned tuna, the sort that peels open with a ring pull. Lets hope that steel holds up. It works again, and the carriage stops at the set point. However, the space bar releases the margin stop, unlike any other typewriter I’ve known. Inspection of the mechanics indicates to me that this is normal, but it does seem odd. Once I got it all back together I gave the ribbon a rubdown with WD40, which revived the ink very well, and then I wrote the following piece. Forgive the typos, I just dashed this off as a test. The SG1 certainly works well enough, but I see no reason for having such a monstrous typewriter around here, so I will sell it. Whatever I get will not cover the many hours of disassembly, repairs and cleaning, but that was part of the fun of having it here for a while and admiring the engineering that went into it. Among other things I did was to disassemble the tabulator brake to get that working, another marvel to behold as the carriage glides slowly along and gently comes to rest when the tab bar is tapped.
the escapement gears
rear view of guts
half naked SG1
Filed under Thrift shop finds, Typewriters, Wildlife, Writing
A Good Companion
We recently saw the movie The Darkest Hour in which Churchill dictates letters to his lovely young secretary, who types on an Imperial typewriter. Seeing this I knew I had to get an Imperial, but I had no idea it would happen so fast.
It was a week that will live in the history of my typewriter collecting. I sold all 3 of my Olympia Traveller/SFs with script face, and purchased 4 other typewriters. It was all quite by chance. I listed a Traveller script and had multiple inquiries. With all the interest I decided to sell while the market was hot so I could get some cash and also make room in the shop. Little did I suspect what was going to happen next.
Last Monday I put a Traveller in the mail to a fellow in Washington, then on my way to town I put in a bid for a 1954 Imperial Good Companion 3 being auctioned at the Sally Ann. I carried on to hit 2 more thrifts and picked up 3 typewriters: an Olympia SG1, Olympia SF, and a 1949 Remington Noiseless 7. The SG1 was filthy and the typebars stuck with tarry goo. The SF had been dropped and the carriage was detached, the back panel smashed. The Remington was perfect however, and even had the key to the case.
Today I am featuring the Good Companion, which I won, to my surprise, for $22! What an interesting find. It came with the original warranty sheet, instruction manual, brush, wiping cloth, oiler, a few sheets of carbon paper, and typing instruction sheet with finger positions! It has a lovely typeface, similar to the Oliver Courier, and more stylish than most.
The machine was sold in Fiji, in January 1955. The list of dealers in the manual has them all over the globe, but none in the USA.
The case is very fancy, and looks like real leather.
There was one minor issue, the platen clutch was seized. I was able to fix it with a squirt of super lube, but I had to remove the platen to do this. It took about five attempts to reassemble, but at last it went back together and now the clutch works. While it was apart I discovered that the inside of the platen was made of wood.
I wonder what sort of oil that was?
There was no oil in the tube, but the brush works.
The cloth is a bit oily, so I won’t be using it for wiping the typewriter.
I’ll stick to hunting and pecking. Should have learned in high school!
the Guarantee
Thank you, C.L. Sohn, for keeping all the paperwork and the accessories.
Filed under Thrift shop finds, Typewriters
Django, a Guitar & a Typewriter
Django Reinhardt, b. Jan 23 1910 sketch by djn
Last night we watched CALIFORNIA TYPEWRITER on DVD which we found at our library. Needless to say it was riveting. Even my wife thought it was outstanding! Imagine a documentary starring Tom Hanks – what’s not to love? I really dig Tom, too, just as a regular guy. I was thrilled when he talked about his favorite Smith Corona Silent, knowing that I have the same model. It was like we were brothers, briefly. This is not to ignore all the other wonderful characters in the movie. I loved them all! Dr. Polt was magnificent! So ad lib, so cool, so hip, and how he typed the manifesto flawlessly (right Richard?). I could hardly sleep afterwards and even woke up in the middle of the night thinking about Smith Coronas. I have to point out another crazy coincidence, the opening scene in which a Royal 10 gets tossed from a car. My last novel is all about a Royal 10 with magic powers! Here am I looking to find one for myself and there they were casually throwing one out the window to it’s destruction. Ouch!!
So of course the challenge of the day is to try to combine all the things I love into a blog post. One must of course acknowledge this day as the birthday of the incomparable Django Reinhardt, first and foremost. Good thing tomorrow is nothing special, because Thursday is Robbie Burns’ Day, another incomparable character. I can hardly stand the excitement! I have come up with this – an excerpt from the first draft of my novel – An Engineer’s Guide to Paris, (available above from Createspace and Amazon) that was, of course, drafted on a typewriter. It features a scene whereby I imagined my protagonist discovering a letter inside the lining of an old guitar case…
Filed under Books, Typewriters, Writing
Olympia Regina
For my whole life I have used coins that said Elizabeth Regina on one side. Rarely I had some that said George, but if I ever did save any they have all vanished. For those who do not live in the Commonwealth, I will explain – Elizabeth is our Queen, Head of State of Canada and the Commonwealth, and Regina is a city in Saskatchewan, where she visited. Olympia, however, is the name of one of the twins in my latest book, THE MAGIC TYPER. The story takes place in some smallish Canadian city, which is like the place I live, Victoria (also named for a Queen) and possibly Regina, too.
However, the Olympia Regina under discussion here is none of the about, it is an electric typewriter sold by a German company but made in Japan. It just seems so Canadian however, which may explain why I recently bought one. Since we never really understand our motives, that is entirely possible. Modern research avows that we make decisions before we are aware of deciding, and furthermore, that we rationalize most of our decisions as a way of making sense of this irrationality. So I’m trying to come up with some more plausible reasons why I now own this new old typewriter, which I most definitely don’t need. I probably need a team of psychologists to help me figure that out and to explain how it is that Star Wars movies invariably use the same recycled plots and subplots, and yet attract millions of viewers! And why does the Supreme Leader look like a creature made from a large over-baked potato? Because his designer once had a favourite toy – Mr. Potato Head! See the connection?
POSTSCRIPT
Some of my recent sales: a retired gentleman for his grandson of 7; a young lady who likes to write stories; a lady for her 17 year old daughter who likes to write stories; a collector in his early 20’s; a new father who wants to type his daily journal; a man who is collecting Olympias only; a retired gentleman who wants to write memoirs and who once owned an Olympia SM3 (he bought my SM3); a middle aged man who likes writing stories; a man for his 93 year old father. I conclude from this brief survey that typewriters continue to have an appeal that transcends any particular age group.
Filed under Philosophy, Typewriters
Sideways Typing
Having recently acquired a wide carriage Brother Accord 12 with elite type, I wondered what uses there might still be for wide carriage typewriters:
Orienting the paper sideways I typed a page just to see how I liked it. I noticed right away that each line was longer, with fewer interruptions for carriage returns. This may help with keeping the flow of words going, if you type fast enough.
Another possibility is using 11 x 17 paper, but for that you’d need a larger scanner if you planned to scan and edit. Imagine typing 1800 words per page! You could do Nanowrimo on one page per day.
Lastly, 11 x 17 paper would be useful for doing larger typewriter art.
Any other ideas out there?
Filed under Typewriters, Writing
Are We There Yet?
How many words should there be in a children’s novel? A scientific survey of one novel gave me the answer – 35,000. That was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, by Roald Dahl. If that is a good number of words for Mr. Dahl then it works for me. I confirmed this number twice by different methods. Being an estimator for 10 years, I have a pretty good idea how to count, so the first test was this: I counted how many lines it took to get to 100 words on a typical page. I extrapolated the count for the whole page, and then went to the last page and subtracted that number from the number of the first page to get the number of pages from the beginning to the end. Then I multiplied that by the number of words on my sample page. From this I subtracted the pages with illustrations and blank areas by quickly flipping through the book. I arrived at 35,000 words. To check this, I scanned another random but typical looking page and sent it to OCR. I exported that to my word processor and got the word count. I then counted every page with text, leaving out illustrations and blanks, to arrive at a net total of pages with text. Not surprisingly that gave me 35,000 words. Enough already!
My novel-in-progress stands at 25,000 words, plus the 1000 or so I just finished typing this morning. I have been reducing the gross word count by judicious editing, if not ruthless, so the 25,000 words are all keepers. The question now is, how to wrap up the story in 9000 words? Easier said than done. The writing continues apace, but it is clear that I will not hit 50,000, so there will be no “winning” Nanowrimo. Shouldn’t there be a category for children’s books? Oh well, you can’t win them all.
While setting out various events in the book I realized that my choice of a 1939 Royal KMM typewriter didn’t fit the timeline, so I have revised the machine to a 1914 Royal 10 instead. This has worked out better than expected for numerous reasons. I prefer the look of the older machine, which in my opinion would be more attractive to kids of all ages. Here is a picture I downloaded of a 1914 Royal 10 (thanks to sevenels). Now if I can be so lucky as to find one in a thrift shop for $25….
Royal 10 twin window
Here is the last page written to date:
Did I mention there is a pony in the story? It’s a kid’s book! There has to be a pony. Or magic, or both!
Filed under Books and Short Stories, NaNoWriMo, Typewriters, Writing
Typing Against Oblivion
Nanowrimo is here and as usual, I devised a cunning plan on November 1st. Of course we all know that the brain works in mysterious ways and so the whole thing was undoubtedly hatching in my subconscious before I knew what was going on. I had had several suggestions from my fans (all 2) that I undertake a children’s book for my next trick. Now that I am a grandpa I suppose the time has come. Regardless, the book is underway. It is being typed, as all great literature generally is, on a manual typewriter. It also features a manual typewriter, Royal KMM 1939, with magic powers. This is indubitably due to the fact that the word MAGIC appears on it. Also because my Mom used one when she was a typist at the CPR long time passed. I think it was a KMM, and in any case it had the same big Royal logo on the back of it, so I accept that as evidence enough for this jury of me.
Well, it’s going smoothly and I am enjoying the process. There really is no more gratifying experience than reading to a child, and this is kind of like doing that for a whole bunch of them. Hoping, naturally, that one day one child somewhere will actually read it! Maybe two or three… One minor glitch is that Nanowrimo has a 50,000 word target, and that is more words than most kid’s books. So I will try to write too much and edit it later. In actual fact – as if there are facts that aren’t (alternate facts aside) – I am using an entirely new method this time. I am editing as I go. This is often considered a no no, but I’m finding that it is improving my writing. I see so many things to rewrite that I’m avoiding repeating those sorts of errors whilst typing. Positive feedback loop through continuous iterative editing.
Lastly I wish to report that I am using one of my Olivetti Studio 44’s, mainly. I dug it out of the basement and have discovered to my delight that it is a pleasure to type on. It easily beats the vaunted SM9 or any other SM’s. I prefer the SF models anyways, and I have used mine a great deal. I now have at least 7 of these, from various eras. They’re all identical under the hood. But for now I am sticking with the 44. It has a soft touch and that makes quite a difference with muscle fatigue, believe it or not. There is very little recoil. Some folks don’t like the softness of Olivetti’s, especially the 22, but for me I appreciate that, for their gentleness on the fingers, hands and forearm muscles. Last year I got a terrible pain in my elbow after a month of typing madly, which may have been exacerbated by the snappy action of the typewriters I used. Some are worse than others, but the 44 and 22 are some of the softest machines you can find.
Olivetti – Underwood Studio 44 – made in Canada
EXCERPT:
Filed under NaNoWriMo, Typewriters, Writing
gOOdbye octo-ober
I just squeaked this in so I wouldn’t miss posting for an entire calendar month. I’m torn between writing a novel for Nanowrimo or doing some other creative endeavour, such as sketching. As of Hallowe’en night I have no plot ideas, nothing, so it may be sketches. You never know about this however, because all of a sudden – blam!!! an idea comes forth like a thunderbolt (lightning bolt that is – thunder has no bolt). I may secretly be hoping that the ___bolt doesn’t arrive, so I can avoid the whole thing of hours writing (typed double spaced) and then a year of editing. It’s the aftermath that ruins the fun. If I could be content with sloppy work that would be better. Some might say I am, and who knows but they may be right, and yet I like to think that my work is honed like a Gillette Blue Blade (not the rusty ones). Well here is my creative output for the day, in preparation for a burst of creativity in November… ahem!
jack O – 2017
sitting on the peter verin memorial bench, looking south east
peter verin memorial bench, looking north east
park bench, looking north eastish
Dorothy, my 1926 Remington Portable (German)
Filed under NaNoWriMo, Photography, Poetry, Sketching, Typewriters
Autumn, Day One
Birdhouse #1 – a sparrow roost
My birdhouses are empty now, so today I emptied their contents. We watched several sparrow families use the 1st house this summer, but we didn’t see any birds using the 2nd one. However, there were nests in both houses. House 1 has a 1-1/2″ diameter hole, while house 2 has a 1-1/8″ hole. The nests I removed were very different from each other, the first being very deep, from the bottom up to the hole, and rudely constructed of sticks and straws. The 2nd nest was entirely different, made of small soft threadlike bits and the top surface lined with fluff, that looked like fine cotton wool.
house 1
nest 1
house 2
nest 2
Filed under Animal psychology, Birds, Photography, Poetry, Typewriters, Wildlife, Writing
nathanguitars 