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25-9-2017 16:59:04  #1


First look inside an SG1 - what an amazing piece of machinery

Took delivery today of my first SG1, a 1961 version, s/n 7-665931. The seller did a pretty good packing job, but even then it sustained a fender bender on the left front corner of the frame. A bit of careful body work and all is reasonably straight again. Looking inside this thing with the carriage removed, I was amazed at the incredible amount of working room available. I'm reminded of the inline six cylinder engine in a previously owned 1971 Ford truck. Unlike my modern truck, with its crap and gadgets crammed in so tightly they actually form the shape of the inside of the hood, I could sit on the fender of that '71 Ford and put both size 14's down inside on the frame and motor mounts, and work in easy chair comfort with all the elbow room in the world. This SG1 seems much the same.

Everything on the machine seems to want to work with a couple of minor exceptions: the ribbon carrier won't drop back down on it's own after a keystroke, and the shift keys are sluggish and sticky. I doubt the carriage had ever been off this thing, as there is about a 1/8" layer of eraser dust and other stuff all over the place under the carriage. Cleanup will start tomorrow.

The carriage, however, looks like another beast entirely, big, heavy, and extremely complex-looking to my newbie eye. I'm hoping not to have to dig into it. 

This is some impressive engineering. Suffice to say I'm now an SG1 fan!!

 

26-9-2017 10:55:59  #2


Re: First look inside an SG1 - what an amazing piece of machinery

For others who, like me, might not have seen the inside of an SG1, here are three photos showing the acres of room to operate inside the machine. All that red-orange stuff is thick cast iron. This typewriter does NOT wiggle around when you type on it!





Last edited by Uwe (26-9-2017 12:20:41)

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26-9-2017 11:01:21  #3


Re: First look inside an SG1 - what an amazing piece of machinery

Clearly I've never used Tinypic before, and also have not posted images before. I suppose I should have used a carriage return before/after each image URL? Also, is there no way anywhere to edit a post once you submit it?

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26-9-2017 12:10:09  #4


Re: First look inside an SG1 - what an amazing piece of machinery

picker77 wrote:

... have not posted images before. I suppose I should have used a carriage return before/after each image URL? Also, is there no way anywhere to edit a post once you submit it?

I fixed the incorrect links in your post so the images would load. Please consider resizing your images in the future.

Typewriter Talk FAQ - PLEASE READ THIS FIRST!

​Also, of potential interest to you:
SG Owners Club


The pronoun has always been capitalized in the English language for more than 700 years.
 

26-9-2017 16:31:17  #5


Re: First look inside an SG1 - what an amazing piece of machinery

Uwe, thank you for the diplomatically applied steering correction and for fixing my image URL's. I had indeed attached the cart in front of the horse. I blame it on excitement over this marvelously engineered device. Being a sort of long term camera collector and repair guy, I've owned multiple German-engineered cameras over the years, and the SG1 is right up there with Zeiss, Rollei, Leica, and others in precision build quality and top grade materials. I'm really impressed. And with all due respect to Hermes, the Swiss clearly did not exclusively own the precision-built typewriter world back in the day. I will definitely look into the SG1 group/club. Thanks!

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26-9-2017 18:28:33  #6


Re: First look inside an SG1 - what an amazing piece of machinery

There's a lot of love for the SG1 among us Typewriter Talke members, and for some of us its actually our hands-down favorite typewriter. Glad that you're enjoying yours, but as nice as they are to look at, their performance is the real deal maker.


The pronoun has always been capitalized in the English language for more than 700 years.
 

28-9-2017 06:43:53  #7


Re: First look inside an SG1 - what an amazing piece of machinery

Well, I've had time to clean it up a bit and do more extensive testing, and cleaning cleared up the sticky vibrator problem. The shift keys are still sluggish, although they do work, just not as "snappily" as I would expect. If I press down a shift key and let it up slowly with my finger, I can feel a slight dragging, and letting the key back up slowly will often cause it to hang partway. However the biggest concern right now is none of the keys are quite reaching the platen. To my fingers it feels like at the last couple of mm of the stroke the keys are hitting what feels like a springy-feeling brick wall. I can get an impression on the paper only by stroking a key super fast and hard. Red, black, or stencil setting makes no difference. Normal keystrokes simply never quite get there. Ribbon advance is normal. It almost seems as if the platen is a couple of mm too far back. Further investigation will take place today, and I'm studying hard in my downloaded SG1 "Repair Text" and "Repair Illustrations" manuals. Lots of digging and looking to do yet, but I'm not going to try adjusting anything until I first have some understanding of what I'm adjusting. At this point it might be this thread should be over in the "Maintenance" area instead - ?

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28-9-2017 09:47:36  #8


Re: First look inside an SG1 - what an amazing piece of machinery

I've come across both of the little problems on SG1s that you mentioned.
The first one may be nothing more than a slight tensioning of the shift support spring.  It's a big spring, one on either side, and easy to identify.  Try taking another turn on the adjuster - after having made sure that the all the associated linkages and clean and free, of course.
The other problem (keys seem to be short of the platen) I cured through the two slotted adjusters which move the entire carriage to the front or back relative to the rest of the machine.  Take care with this one; the adjustment is a very delicate one, and should be researched before ploughing into it to quickly.  Good luck.


Sincerely,
beak.
 
 

28-9-2017 14:38:02  #9


Re: First look inside an SG1 - what an amazing piece of machinery

Thanks, Beak. I had read some last night in the SG1 manual about the front/back carriage adjustment, but haven't gone further yet. It also describes a method to measure the clearance from the type to the platen using a folded sheet of paper. That's a non-destructive and easy to do test that I'll try today. Hadn't looked at all yet into curing the shift lock problem, tnx for info on springs. This typewriter, although quite well packed and padded, was dropped in shipping on it's left front corner, rolling the corner sheet metal under/inward about 1/4", which in turn jammed up the left end of the space bar and the left shift key. Some judicious sheet metal bending got things back close to correct again and freed up both the space bar and shift key, but the shift key's return is still slow/sticky. Will get going on checking it out. You sure look a lot like Sean Connery, lol.

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28-9-2017 17:09:38  #10


Re: First look inside an SG1 - what an amazing piece of machinery

After trying the doubled-up paper quick check in the SG1 manual, I found the paper was literally flopping around and not touching the type slug at all. So I measured the platen to type slug distance with a good feeler gauge. Olympia calls for about .008" (thickness of a double sheet of paper), and you should feel some medium amount of drag on the paper  with the H or N key held tightly forward in the striking position. Mine measured .028-.030". Strangely, the sliding carriage adjusters still had their factory dab of paint and looked as if they'd never been moved. (Maybe a shrinking platen..?) So I carefully took .020" off the distance with the carriage locating pin adjusters, and after several iterations ended up at almost exactly .008". The machine then typed wonderfully, clear and distinct with no smear or cutting. Vibrator still seemed a bit sticky (doesn't want to easily drop all the way back down between keystrokes). Looking closely to see what should cause the vibrator to drop back down, it appeared the obvious thing was the touch adjust spring near the right side plate. I recalled when I got this machine that the touch adjust was on the heaviest setting (8), but I thought nothing of it and set it down to 1 and forgot about it. So, bottom line is I moved the adjuster back to 8 and Voila! The vibrator worked fine. Rolled the touch back to 5, vibrator still worked well. However, starting below a touch setting of 4 things get iffy, and below 3 the touch spring is nearly fully relaxed and sort of flopping around, and vibrator operation goes totally to pot. I can only guess that somebody must have stored this thing away for 30 or 40 years with the touch control set on 8 (string fully extended), causing a permanent set in the spring. I'm going to look for a replacement and try that out. In the meantime, as long as I have the touch control at 5 or above, everything is fine with the vibrator. Now on to the sticky shift return!

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