I replaced the old worn down hardened rubber feet with new soft rubber wine carboy bungs. I sawed them to the right depth and drilled out the centre holes to enlarge them for the holding screws. The bungs were the perfect diameter and the feet work very well now. All old typewriters should be so easy to fix this way!
Filed under History, Repairs, Typewriters, Uncategorized
My novel The Magic Typer is now available in print and e-book from Amazon. Click on the image to go to the webpage.
The book is illustrated with my own watercolour drawings, but not in colour, since that would make the price about $20. However, you can colour the illustrations yourself with crayons or coloured pencils!
I’ve been at work on this for years, but after too many reviews to count, I can’t find any typos, although it is certain there are some lurking where I least expected. All this editing makes me wonder if it isn’t best to simply write and publish raw text. How much can you improve an idea? These are philosophical questions that I am tired of debating! Here’s one analogy: raw text is like a live concert, and edited text is like a studio recording. Submit your essays by next Thursday!
(English professors would say I use too many !!! But I don’t give a damn!!!)
Filed under Books, Philosophy, Typewriters, Uncategorized, Writing
As I have repeated here, perhaps too frequently, due to my last novel I became enamoured of the Royal 10. I did get one after some hunting, but I thought that they were hard to find – until last week. We spent a week as we often do this time of year in Washington, camping and of course scouring the many antique shops. So what did I find? Yes – many Royal 10’s!
how about a sign saying”type please”
Sadly I couldn’t own them all; the one I have is perfect for me, but if I didn’t already own one… well that might be different. One in particular was in beautiful condition, and it was the least costly. Go figure. It was a rebuild, too, as noted on one shift key – by Regal, on Varick Street, NYC.
rebuilt model
80 bucks, and broken!
All were post 1923 with single glass sides, some with the gauge on the right side, which I don’t know the purpose of. I’m sure someone reading this will educate us on that! It was ironic that so many typewriters in the wild have little signs forbidding typing – I’d like to see signs that say “type away”. Do these sellers think that a Royal 10 that has lasted for 80 years can be broken? How absurd!
note the various decimal tabs
There were other interesting oldies too:
1928 Underwood Universal
expensive broken folding Corona
The Corona folder was exciting to see, but it was not in working order and well over $100! Had it been working… maybe. One other new to me phenomenon in these old junk stores is the proliferation of the Erie iron pans, Griswold being the next big thing. Some shops had huge collections of these, priced into the hundreds! Imagine paying $100 for a frying pan when you could buy a Royal 10 for less. More absurdity!
We got as far as Portland and just happened to park one block from Powell’s Books, the largest bookstore I’ve ever been in – it’s like a department store – think a Walmart dedicated solely to books. One thing struck us; the foul language we heard coming from the mouths of people just talking on the street. I suppose all the books with swear words are simply indicative of the general debasement of language skills these days. But what’s with all the f*cking asterisks? Just spell it if you plan to use it. Only one author among many seemed to feel thus, which is commendable, although not admirable.
Portland reminded me of Seattle, except it’s flat. Aside from the cool bookstore I can’t say it was impressive. Lots of canyon streets that feel oppressively dark, and of course the usual sad cases of homelessness. No one pays attention any more. Not that this is uncommon here either, just that it emphasizes how our society in general has failed so many people.
The thing is, when it comes to all the pseudo-wisdom spouted in the endless river of self-help books, there is no solution to the real problems. It’s all focused on the self. The age of ME. F*ck off, self help authors!
Filed under Books, Philosophy, Thrift shop finds, Travel, Typewriters, Uncategorized
Ah, how sweet to find what one has been seeking. I found a 1923 Royal 10 typewriter, which it must be said is genuine royalty. The saga began after I wrote a book last year, titled The Magic Typer. Along the way I chose a Royal 10 to be the magic machine, as it fit the plot well, and when writing fiction you can’t go wrong with royalty.
Once I finished the book, I had the notion that I must have a Royal 10 for myself, after all. So I began searching for one like in the story, with dual beveled glass side panels. I soon discovered what was available was too expensive and too far away. Then by a stroke of good luck around a month ago I noticed on Craigslist a collection of old typewriters that had come from a former office supply shop in Vancouver. One looked like a Royal 10 but there was no way to tell if it was the correct version.
An email to the seller confirmed it was indeed a Royal 10 with twin glass. We haggled and he said he had a very high offer for it. That was the end of that, until a month passed and he offered it to me for a reasonable price. The buyer didn’t want it after all.
A courier went to fetch it from Vancouver. All day I waited in eagerness, wondering if it would be what I hoped for, or just a ruined piece of junk, and not even the right typewriter. It arrived packed in a large cardboard orange crate with a piece of styrofoam over it. I paid the courier, carried it inside and removed the covering. 
There it was, old but intact, dusty but not filthy, tarnished yet not rusted. I lifted it out of the box and placed it on the bench. I pressed a key at random and it snapped right up and thwacked the platen. There was an old ribbon and the original spools, a necessary part of the mechanics, since they trip the ribbon reversing levers. I slipped a sheet of paper into the platen which was a bit lumpy but not rock hard. A few taps and there it was, actual type on the paper. Even the red ink worked! According to the seller it had not been used since the 1970’s, when he cleaned it up for his grandfather.
I wiped the ribbon with WD40 and the ink began to flow. I like the idea of having an old cotton bi-color ribbon, since that is what was on this machine from the first. The mechanics are nearly perfect. Everything works, and no solvents or lubrication were necessary. I sucked out a few cobwebs with the vacuum and adjusted one linkage. The keys all work, as do all levers and buttons. One rubber foot was gone however, which I replaced with a cheap bung from a wine shop.
So that is the story. It couldn’t have been better: a Royal 10 acquired from an old typewriter shop where it sat for decades gathering dust, just like the Magic Typer! Now to order up some magic…
I admire the symmetry of the back panel. The bell has a wonderfully pure tone. The tab stops are missing and the tab bar is slightly bent, but I’m not very concerned about such triviality! 
All the beveled glass is perfect, although there isn’t really much to see inside.
The left front foot was missing the rubber, but there was a thick felt washer still in place. The feet are remarkably well designed to absorb shock.
Parts of the machine have been repainted, as evidenced by the faint appearance of the original decals on the dished part of the front panel and on the paper feed panel at the top. If anyone has replacement decals please let me know. I have been polishing the paint and it seems that there is an endless layer of tobacco smoke embedded in the black enamel. Whoever used this must have held their smokes over on the right side of the machine, judging by how much more stained the rag gets when wiping the right side! Fortunately there is no tobacco smell after all the years. This machine is close to the last of the dual beveled glass models according to the serial number, as they switched to single glass in the latter part of 1923.
Filed under Typewriters
very expensive Royal 10
the frontispiece de resistance
p.s. although I got some printed I haven’t yet published the book. I sent it to several agents who were too busy to even reject it! Woe to them when it sells a million copies!
Filed under Books, Typewriters, Uncategorized, Writing
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
nathanguitars 