Homemade Selectric Tools (gauges)

Looking for Selectric tools is like hunting for that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Every once in a while the Internet turns up a nugget though, and this small excerpt from a 1982 issue of Ipso Facto magazine came to the fore, and it has some simple, but useful homemade gauges.

These basically help fill the gap when you do not have access to a Hooverometer.

Selectric Kitty

This rescued stray won't leave my side when I am working on this machine. 

Cracks me up. Had to share. ;-)

August 17, 2014 - "Selectric Heaven"

"Partsy" the parts machine

Visit the golfballtypewritershop by clicking here

Eric Rucker has the first three on YouTube - but the rest are MIA:

10-1A Positive Power: Operational Shaft
10-1B Positive Power: Printing Mechanism
10-2A Negative Power: Escapement, Tabulation, Backspace, Carrier Return

A (mostly) correctly extracted Operational Shaft :)

Selectric Innards

Here is a little teaser...

Before Color Correction:

After:

The series syllabus is as follows:

10-1A Positive Power: Operational Shaft
10-1B Positive Power: Printing 
10-2A Negative Power: Escapement, Tabulation, Backspace, Carrier Return
10-2B Manipulative Assignments
10-2C Dual Pitch: Selectric II
10-3A Input: Keyboard
*10-4A Output: Printing Mechanism
*10-4B Tilt & Rotate Adjustments
10-5A Sundry Mechanisms: Platen, Index, Fabric Ribbon

10-5B Correcting Tape Mechanism: Tech III Ribbon Mechanism

*Series that I am working on currently.

July 19, 2014 - The Face of Your Machine

I was browsing Facebook and noticed a photo posted by collector-extraordinaire, Claudia Tan, wherein the ribbon vibrator/type window seemed to make a face. The particular angle, shadows, and ribbon flow leant itself to what I saw:

And it led me to wonder what other anthropomorphic properties of typewriters might be out there.

Clearly, not all machines will lend themselves to this fantastic stretch of the imagination ... As seen with this 1954 Olympia SM-3:

But other machines do seem to have some "facial" character, like my 1924 Remington Portable #1:

 

So what about your machines? Does your machine seem to talk to you like this? :-)

July 17, 2014 - A Tale of Three Typers

Stuff My Dad Wrote

My father died in 1999, he was 71, which wasn't really that old. How he died is not important and although he and I were somewhat estranged, the whys and wherefores of that situation are also not important.

Before his death, my father sent me some packages of books, hand written notes, industry papers that he'd published, a couple incomplete books, photos, and more. It has been 15 year since his death, and I never really dug very deeply into these things that he sent to me. I've read through many of the books from his library that I inherited, but I never really absorbed his personal writings. I think that his hand writing put me off (it's a little rough to decipher), and I also think that I always held his desire to write in some contempt - again - back to why we were somewhat estranged, but the burden is on me with this one, it was my attitude toward his hobby of writing that I am coming to grips with. In any event, this blog has slowed considerably, largely due to my primary job, but also due to a backlog of other things in my life. So here we are. What's next?

I am undertaking yet another side project, and this one has to do with my Father's writing. The cool thing, to me, is that I am going to transcribe his writing to typewritten form. First it will be as close to word-for-word as I can manage, and then I may take it to the next level and edit it into electronic form. Depending on the piece in question, I may publish it in his name. I may do this just for the family, we'll see. My Dad's sense of humor and chosen topics of interest will have very limited appeal, but I am going to undertake it nonetheless.

So, without further ado, I have launched another blog "Stuff My Dad Wrote" on Blogspot, and I'll be typecasting content there, and if the material is fitting, I may cross-link it here as well.

My Dad did have an interesting life. It was nothing like Lord Baden Powel, or Roy Chapman Andrews, but he was a scientist that grew up in the Depression era, and there are lots of little nuggets of Americana in his work, and he had a great sense of humor.

Hopefully my family will appreciate what I am putting together, and if someone else gets a chuckle in the mean time, all the better.

Happy 4th of July to my American brethren, and a heartfelt "Cheers!" to the rest of ya, and to - Dad, I wish our life circumstances had been different and I'd have gotten to know you better - I hope that bringing your stuff to light would have made you happy.

1 July 2014 - "Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated!"