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)

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.

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

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.

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.

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!