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Maintenance & Repairs » Underwood No 5 - caps-lock lever broken? » 25-4-2023 06:49:07

Kanar
Replies: 7

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Great Work WJC, thanks a lot for four help, it put me on the right track!

And guess what, I guess I fixed the problem.
Or at least I hope I fixed it, but so far everything seems to work as it shoud.

It seems one of the levers connected to the bar of the shift-knob, which you described in your post, was slightly bent, so it did not touch the lever above anymore.
I took some pictures to illustrate this. unfortunately I only have pictures AFTER I bent it back, but I think you guys can see what I mean.

So far, it seems to work flawlessly;
I am only not sure if it will misalign again somewhat in the future, since it is such a small connection the two parts have. There is only a 2 or 3 milimeter wide surface where the two parts meet. 

Is it like this on your typewriter as well?




Next thing I wanted to do is to clean and/or replace some of the Inlays on top of the key, since some of them are slightly miscolored. Maybe it's discoloration from sunlight, maybe just dirt underneath the caps.
Any tips how to proceed?
I thing I could bend open those metal clamps under the caps (which can be seen on your pictures)... but I dont wanna break those small parts.



Maintenance & Repairs » Underwood No 5 - caps-lock lever broken? » 18-3-2023 11:01:51

Kanar
Replies: 7

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Hello Ladies & Gentlemen!

I recently acquired my first typewriter.
It's an Underwood No 5, presumable from 1911.
Yes, it is not rare or special by any means since there should be plenty of them around;
But I don't care. I saw it, fell in love with it's looks and I thought it deserved a good home, so I bought it.

I especially love that it has white keys (black seems more common for the Underwoods), which have an almost ivory look to them.
That Edwardian-Era color scheme of black, gold and the white just speaks to me and I find it very appealing.

Anyway... I am completely new to this, but I ironed out several issues it had to the best of my abilities, replaced the ink ribbon, gave it some love and attention and gave it a cleaning as far as my limited time permitted it.
It already looks nice and shiny, but needs another thorough cleaning later.


The main problem it has is that the tray gets stuck in the upper-case-position once I press one of the shift-keys.
It only returns to the lower-case-position once I hit the caps-lock lever which sits on the bottom right.

This lever is supposed to switch between caps-lock operation and normal shift-keys:
If you set it into caps-lock, after pressing any of the two shift keys, letters will stay upper-case until you hit one of the shift keys again.
If it is set to normal operation, the tray returns to lower-case if you release the shift-key.

Unfortunately, the lever is broken and sits somewhere below the keys (see pictures). I have to reach in between the keys to reach it. It is supposed to be up there where you can reach it.

If the tray is suck in uppercase-position, i can reset it to lowercase by reaching to the caps-lock lever and pressing it down... but this is not practical for typing, of course.


Any help would be appreciated, it would be a shame if this beautiful machine could not be fixed. 


Pictures:

https://imgur.com/8RRfAZ3

https://imgur.com/ptGlFNg

[url]https://imgur.com/HPz8zuP[/ur

Early Typewriters » Oliver 5 » 17-3-2023 07:36:14

Kanar
Replies: 5

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C'mon, give us some pics of your progress! 

I can imagine it will be a quite beautifyl machine after the work on it is done.
Also, I like the shape of the keys.

Off-Topic » Faster typing = WORSE than slow typing » 17-3-2023 07:29:38

Kanar
Replies: 11

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fountainpensplus wrote:

At least for now I have plenty of power in my hands and fingers for the downward motion I use to strike the keys on a manual typewriter. If and when that becomes a problem I have some electric and electronic typewriters but I sincerely hope that is a long way down the road. The majority of my typewriters were made in Germany from the late 1950s to the early 1970s. They can easily have another 50 years of use in them. I’m thinking that when they were being designed and built it was not to ’upgrade’ them every few years.How many PCs can make that same statement.

Ha... not many, I guess. : D
Ask the typical smartphone-user... the majority perhaps replaces it after only two years of usage.
After that, typically the battery or the loading cable connectors start to malfunction, and I am quite sure many OS-updates... let's say they do NOT really try their best to not slow down the phone. ; D

Back then, good quality sold a machine. Now, often the opposite seems to be the case.

Got luck to you and your hands!

Off-Topic » Faster typing = WORSE than slow typing » 17-3-2023 07:22:16

Kanar
Replies: 11

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Uwe wrote:

Jim is spot on.
Correcting errors is less of a normal thing for good typists. And by focusing on technique, and as a result, efficiency, the goal should be to minimize errors of any kind. Regardless of how fast or easy it is to correct an error, imagine how much faster you would be able to type if the backspace key was never needed.

Yeah... in theory, I agree. But in daily application, everyone needs it from time to time. Unless you really try to avoid it, but the only way to avoid that is careful typing, which I am sure slows you down more than the occasional backspace (which is so firmly integrated into the muscle-memory that it happens really fast).
Anyway... I think the teacher should have told us beforehand! Still bugs me.

But I recently acquired my first old typewriter. Even though I still have to iron out some mechanical issues with it, I could already try a bit and it's amazingly different from typing on a normal keyboard.
I mean I am a really good typist on a PC keyboard (years and years of computer coding, so even special symbols, numbers and all the stuff included)... but typewriter is completely different
Very fun actually, I really enjoy it.

Perhaps I will ask some technical questions in the repair-forums later on.

Off-Topic » Faster typing = WORSE than slow typing » 16-3-2023 05:25:43

Kanar
Replies: 11

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It is interesting to hear that a typewriter is easier on the joints with arthritis then holding a pen... I thought it would be the other way around.

I feel the same way... a typewriter is a reminder of a past that I have never experienced, so it let's me discover a tiny bit of what it must have been like. I recently acquired my first, and the build quality of the time is amazing. A heavy, sturdy machine that has stood the test of 110+ years exeptionally well. Great craftsmanship indeed!

Type Talk » New Member Thread » 15-3-2023 10:36:13

Kanar
Replies: 984

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Hello from Europe!

I live in Germany as well, and I recently acquired my first typewriter.
It's nothing special (an Underwood 5 from 1911), but I like it very much.

More typewriters to come, so I get the feeling I will have to ask some questions from time to time. ;)

Off-Topic » Faster typing = WORSE than slow typing » 15-3-2023 10:01:31

Kanar
Replies: 11

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Now that you mention it, I remember we had such a book for our lessons as well.
It went like typing "fbf fbf fbf" or "mhm mhm" and the like, all the time. It was tiresome, but... it worked.   
Did you learn to type well just by using a book? It's a quite useful skill.

Well, typewriters were in use before my time... so I never actually had the pressure for that "careful" typing. I imagine it feeling like a mine-field and you type slowly and carfully, if the letter is important.

But I can understand that you can't stand any errors... it is a thing for me as well.
I try not to make any errors, even while typing right now, and even when I'm using my mobile and just sending Whatsapp-messages.

But writing in English is a different story for me, since it is not my mother language, so there will be a lot of errors here anyway.  ;)
 

Off-Topic » Faster typing = WORSE than slow typing » 15-3-2023 08:15:11

Kanar
Replies: 11

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Hello.

Just a small anecdote from my school life.  ;)

Back in the day before I got my first PC, my father insisted that I took the typing-classes my school offered to make good use of it. Which was a good thing, I never regretted it and during the classes, I got quite good at typing since I wanted a computer!

Al the lessons were done on a PC (typewriters were a thing of the past for a long time), but my school did not have very modern equipment, the teacher was an old man and the methods used were a bit antiquated, too.

So... when we were done with the typing lessons, at the end there was the final typing test!

We had to re-type a letter and time was taken. The sooner you finished, the better grades you got, of course.

I still remember that I had no errors in the final text I had been typing, and my time was well below the limit for the best grade.
So naturally, I thought I would get the best possible grades and was already proudly presenting them to my father in my mind to get my first PC...

But nope! I did not get the best grade!
How could that be, I wondered? No errors in my text and the best time.

So I asked the teacher and he said, even errors you made during typing were counted and were taken into account for the grades. No matter if you corrected them.

So it turned out that the system he used for the test was actually made for a typewriter, not for a PC.
While on a typewriter, correcting an error can be a problem, on a PC it is not - all you do is press the backspace-key and retype the letter.

Most people here who are good at blind-typing on a PC-keyboard will know:
When you make an error, you already FEEL it during typing and you KNOW it immediately. Pressing backspace and retyping the letter is an almost automatic thing which happens fast as lightning, you don't even think about it.
Correcting such errors is not a problem and happens all the time during the typing process, it is a normal thing.

So... outside of some special cases or the enthusia

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