Well, you come by your "handle" honestly, then! Welcome.

Hello,
I'm a young'un looking to expand my knowledge and skill with typewriters. I have a vivid memory of banging away on my parents' typewriter as a toddler and recently rekindled my desire to type.
I own an Underwood approaching its 70th birthday and a Royal Arrow with a broken 'a' key (working on fixing it). I disassembled most of them to see how they work and successfully repaired and cleaned them. I'm inquiring around to see if I could clean others for a little money and experience. 
Working in/owning a typewriter shop is my future goal.
Looking forward to learning lots here!

SquireDante wrote:

Hello,
I'm a young'un looking to expand my knowledge and skill with typewriters. I have a vivid memory of banging away on my parents' typewriter as a toddler and recently rekindled my desire to type.
I own an Underwood approaching its 70th birthday and a Royal Arrow with a broken 'a' key (working on fixing it). I disassembled most of them to see how they work and successfully repaired and cleaned them. I'm inquiring around to see if I could clean others for a little money and experience. 
Working in/owning a typewriter shop is my future goal.
Looking forward to learning lots here!

I've done this kind of work as a hobby for quite sometime--35+ years,and I never get tired of it.  I've got an Underwood that's older than yours by about a year--Katwoman I call her--because she's got a fairly tall carriage return lever and a thumbpiece on the other side that look alot like cat ears.  Also, she's sleek, black, and has stainless still stripes on either side.  I also took the silver feet "spats" off of a junker Underwood Five and put on her, and she really is the bees knees.  Also my 1949 Royal Arrow--AKA "Daddy Sam," is still a travel buddy of mine.  I've made a few bucks here and there repairing these machines, out of my house, and I've even made housecalls too.  Just get a few tools that can tackle small nuts, bolts, springs, et cetera, and you should have enough to start with.  And remember--you'll always learn something.  I still do after all this time.
 

Unfortunately the last place near me that repaired typewriters closed. I found one guy near Charlotte, NC but he's not taking apprentices as it would take too much time to train them for the refurbishing work he does.
I bought both my typewriters at antique stores and would like to ask them if I could clean any they receive.
I have a couple neighbors who mentioned owning typewriters and I'm gonna offer to clean them and make sure this is a direction I want to head in. Luckily my dad has plenty of tools to help me out. 

Greetings folk: I am the new guy on the block, I guess. My name is David and I have spent most of my life working on computerized building control (hvac and security) systems. Prior to that I was a marine engineer. I am very over the hill (and am long time retired) but regardless of that I find myself becoming interested in typewriters.

So, I taught myself to touch type (on a computer) and then purchased an old 1965 Olivetti Lettera 22, And learned to type on it. I want to do some writing but am stymied when using a computer. I have been online too long, I guess. I become distracted when using anything at all that is associated with the net. My muse is moving along though and I am very pleased.

Yesterday I did something dumb: I was wandering around an antique shop and came across an old Erika typewriter. It looked very nice (and was very cheap) so I purchased it.

It has a serial number of: 3007140 and looks like a model 12 but is in an 'Optima' case (which looks original) and needs some work.

It types nicer than my Olivetti 22.

I am not entirely sure that it is a model 12 though. Can anyone help?

David_A