Soon to become a member of the club. I've arranged to collect an SG1 next week. Looking forward to comparing it to the Hermes Ambassador, which I absolutely love. Does anyone know if the plastic paper guide from an SG3 will fit the SG1? Thanks.
 

Yesterday's excitement was driving for a couple of hours to bring home my first SG1. It is a bit tired! Peeling chrome plate on the carriage return, rock hard platen rubber with some cracking and I'm guessing missing sound damping felt from the top cover plate. A swift vacuum clean, wipe of oil on the carriage rails then straight on with a carbon ribbon. It's lovely! I stayed up til three in the morning tinkering and typing.

It is very noisy in use, making a metallic ringing sound from the back cover plate on the carriage - the side panels sound dull when tapped but this one is a bit like a gong. Should there be damping felt on this cover plate? The type slugs have 12 and 7.6 marked on them. It types ten characters to the inch. I like it a lot!

I had the back cover of the carriage off on one of my SG1s a couple of days ago. I don't believe there ever was any sound dampening foam inside. However, I wonder whether your machine is missing the two piece washers (metal and rubber) between the screws on the back and where the screws mesh with the carriage frame. These can easily fall out if the back carriage cover is removed, and their absence might account for the resonance you're experiencing.

Fleetwing wrote:

Regarding your question about the paper guide, I believe so. But a question I have is, how do you remove the paper guide? I've looked at it but I can't figure out a way to remove the pins that hold it in place. Maybe that's not how you remove the guide? I'm sure there's a trick to it but I sure can't figure it out. (I have four SG1s and one SG3, and only one paper guide among all of them!) 

I take it you are referring to the clear plastic part. I would call this a paper rest; I'd call the tab which guides the left side of the paper the paper guide. If that's what you are referring to the pins are held in place by clips; given the embrittlement of 50 year old plastic though I wouldn't try just popping it out, but gently prying apart the clip to release the pin. The rests on the SG-1 are longer and more elaborate. but believe the SG-3 rest fits.
 

I wanted a typewriter recently so Googled around to see if I could recognise the model my dad has when I was a kid. I remember being fascinated by it and playing around with it and trying to work out how it worked. I remember I used to play a game with it: Try to get every single key stuck. I don't remember typing much with it though!

I was really excited to identify it, and it turns out it was an SG1. I managed to track one down. It took a long drive to pick it up, but it basically works and I'm quite happy with it. I didn't really want the very wide carriage, but beggars can't be choosers.

Here it is:



The TAB key didn't work. It just made a grating sound as the carriage slid along limply a little way then stopped (and not at a tab stop). I put it on its side and studied what happened to the internals when I pressed TAB and just wiggled the associated bits around and now it works! There was a component that was apparently supposed to slide up and down with a screw in the middle of it, but it had become bonded to the screw. In trying to unsieze it I accidentally forced another component out of place but managed to get it back using a lot of force. I thought I'd ruined it for a moment!

It's a bit tatty in places. You can see the paper rest is bent down in the middle. I wonder if that happens over time, of it a weight has been put on it? Some of the rollers under the platen are cracked, but the two in the middle are okay, so it's fine if I use A4 sheets in the middle.

I may have been very lucky with the platen - the slightest pressure with a fingernail leaves an indentation, and it leaves quite a nice type on the page.