1 of 1- overwood
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- Registered: 10-11-2018
- Posts: 284
shipping typewriters
Any general recommendations for shipping typewriters to avoid damage? Obviously the carriage should be locked, if possible. What else? How about shipping portables that have lost their case? Can it be done safely or is it too risky?
- Phil_F_NM
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Re: shipping typewriters
Do NOT lock the carriage. The carriage release should be unlocked with a rubber band, zip tie, or tape, and the carriage should be secured to the chassis, using something like a few layers of cling wrap or shrink wrap, heavy duty rubber bands, bicycle inner tube, etc. When the carriage is locked, it can damage the escapement, the rails, the tabulator or whatever it wants. Unlocking the carriage allows it to jiggle back and forth a bit and move along one axis if it needs to, instead of stressing the escapement. The carriage locks are meant for moving the machines around in their cases as a suitcase; it's generally assumed that the owner of the typewriter will handle the case carefully. A shipper such as UPS, FedEx, or the USPS will NOT handle a typewriter carefully, even when labeled FRAGILE.
Other than that, I like to put a crescent shaped piece of cardboard against the typebars, or a ball of closed foam packing wrap to prevent the typebars from moving and bending against each other. Then the case should have at least 2 inches of packing material around it on all sides in the box you ship it in. After all of this is done, you may still be rolling the dice on the machine getting where it needs to go in good condition.
Phil Forrest
- overwood
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Re: shipping typewriters
That makes sense about the carriage lock. Glad I asked!
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Thread Starter- overwood
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Re: shipping typewriters
Phil_F_NM wrote:
Do NOT lock the carriage.
I'm finding other sites that are telling me TO lock the carriage, like Phoenix Typewriter's vid
and
I don't know what to believe now. I don't have enough, or any, experience shipping typewriters lol. Maybe I should ship a few to myself and see which ones break. Just kidding. I'm mostly concerned about what to tell people shipping them to me, since I can't seem to stop buying them.
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Thread Starter- Phil_F_NM
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Re: shipping typewriters
It depends upon if the carriage lock disengages the carriage from the escapement or if it just sits the carriage in one position but otherwise remains operational. My thought and what was taught to me is that the carriage locks may not be strong enough to take impacts or rough handling. By fully unlocking the carriage, then securing it with something like cling wrap or your newly cut bicycle inner tube, you are taking one more step to keeping the escapement in good shape. I had a Royal KMG, Remington Noiseless Portable, and a wide carriage Olympia SM9 shipped like this and they all arrived with perfect escapements. If you do engage the carriage lock, make sure you have another means of securing the carriage very tight so as to not allow shifting when that box falls off the back of the truck or the delivery person ungracefully drops it at the door.
Phil Forrest
- overwood
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Re: shipping typewriters
I guess the moral is to stick with whatever works!
I don't plan to ship any soon, but I probably will sell my Brother (if all goes well) since I have a new XL-747 on the way, yay! Paid more than I should have but felt terribly guilty about breaking the other one.
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Thread Starter- AlwaysAPartLeftOver
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Re: shipping typewriters
You can't add enough padding, even if it's just a lot crumpled newspaper. Just received a 1938 Mercedes Selekta that the seller left completely unpadded in its original case. I heard the jangle of metal as the USPS carrier dropped it on my porch. Sure enough, it's a mess. The seller probably thought that the case was enough to protect it, but the case itself fell apart when I lifted it out. The machine had way too much room to rattle around in.
- skywatcher
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Re: shipping typewriters
Hi Left Over
Here's where you take pictures of the machine in its current condition and send them to the seller saying the product you received does not match the listing. Ask for a full refund, plus shipping back to the seller or you will open a complaint against the seller. That's my 2¢ worth,
Sky
We humans go through many computers in our lives, but in their lives, typewriters go through many of us.
In that way, they’re like violins, like ancestral swords. So I use mine with honor and treat them with respect.
I try to leave them in better condition than I met them. I am not their first user, nor will I be their last.
Frederic S. Durbin. (Typewriter mania and the modern writer)
