Thank you for your reply. Your insights to the tab-stops explained so much of something I didn't have the slightest glue before.

Now that I'm starting to understand the tab-stops, I was able to figure out that the ASE II button sets and POIST button removes tab-stops. So only REUN button remains mysterious, along with the A levers.

The levers indicated by A are not margin release. I so wish I had the vocabulary to explain things with their own names, but I hope we can manage with me using general terms.

There's the wheel that winds a string and that string pulls the carriage. That system sometimes stops pulling in middle of a line. At that point you can still pull the carriage back to the right, but the wheel doesn't rewind the string if you move the carriage to the left.

It seems that there's some connection with the ribbons, the whole mechanism is somehow geared together, unlike in any other machine I have seen, where this wheel+string system is fully independent and applies constant pull. Note however that the wheel does have a spring inside of it, it applies pull unless the gear system prevents it from doing so (even then the gears allow it to release more string, just not rewind it, so this seems somewhat intentional function).

Now the problem is that this mechanism engages apparently at random. I don't know if it's a problem related to the ribbons, or if there's just a certain way this machine has to be used. Alone everything works fine, but when I start to type, the pull eventually disappears and the gear has to be released with the lever.

Hi
Can be a little help, perhaps; I think the language of this machine's keys is Finnish, which I have only a few words of myself, but an inquiry along those lines may get you somewhere.

Perhaps you can find a Finnish typewriter forum on line?

Last edited by beak (06-7-2013 20:21:03)

I'm Finnish so I knew it's in Finnish (like I noted in the original post). However I'm impressed if you figured that out just by looking at the keyboard. And like Shangas said, I was lucky enough to find this forum. Although maybe in time I have brainwashed enough of my friends to be able to set up a forum with them...

Now that I started thinking the REUN button again, my initial thought that it was short for RETURN was silly and misguided. Why would they name only one of the buttons in English. So I started thinking again, and realized that it's short for some border-related word. Turns out it's a margin-release Shangas already mentioned.

The typewriter has the normal carriage release lever in the carriage. The lever indicated by A doesn't move the carriage, it merely releases some sort of lock from the drawband mechanism. When the "lock" is engaged, you can still feel the resistance the mainspring gives if you pull more drawband out, the drum simply isn't allowed to rewind it back clockwise.

Thank you for the words! I'm probably soon able to talk more about typewriters in English than I am in Finnish (and that's okay because there's so few people in Finland to talk about typewriters with).

Last edited by tatte (07-7-2013 02:59:13)

I got it for free from my dad's workplace. It had been sitting in their archive for who knows how long, story tells that it was supposed to be given as a retirement gift for one of their employees, but that never happened. She retired years ago, so I don't feel bad for getting the machine instead. (Oh and it wasn't exactly in working condition when I got it.)

I had a part time job there a few years ago, so the boss knew personally to whom the machine was going. That probably helped a little bit too, or so I like to think. Not that I'd undervalue my dad's major and undoubtably critical role.

Last edited by tatte (07-7-2013 07:12:57)