- CoronaJoe
- Touch Typist
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- Registered: 24-1-2016
- Posts: 143
Re: Typewriter Key Action
Uwe wrote:
This is a tip I heard from a Portland typewriter repairman: Most Olympia type bars are hardened stainless steel. His experience is they do NOT bend well if at all. More than likely, they will crack.
That tip sounds strange to me. Is this guy a bona fide professional typewriter serviceman, or a hipster who claims to be able to fix typewriters (we have a couple of the latter group in my area)?
Type bars are made from tempered steel, and some even have ridges to give them additional strength, but that hardness is not uniform along its entire length (its softer at the slug) because of the action a type bar must perform during its type stroke. Type bars do get bent over time and through abuse (especially when slamming one into another during a jam), and I can assure you that they can also be bent back into a correct shape. I have a number of specialty tools meant to manipulate a type bar in a number of different ways and haven't yet cracked a single one. I once had to straighten a bar that inexplicably had been bent to look like a banana. Incidentally, one part of a type aligner's job in the manufacturing process was to bend type bars so that each machine had perfectly aligned type.
He's had the same shop for over 30 years, and known in the Northwest here. One of the few remaining, and he's done good work for me. I don't know, but perhaps he was cautioning me towards the right tool or set up lest I be tempted to free hand it. The short conversation came up when I asked about seeing bent type bars and what to look out for if I should attempt fixing them.
- Uwe
- Moderator
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- From: Toronto, Canada
- Registered: 12-3-2013
- Posts: 4,410
Re: Typewriter Key Action
He's certainly no hipster then! And he definitely would know a lot more than I do, which is mostly based on personal experience, what I've read, and from talking to a few of the veteran repairmen in my area. I've never cracked a typebar - yet, but he could - as you suggested - be trying to put the fear of God into those who might otherwise attack a type bar with a pair of Vice Grip pliers when repairing a bent bar often requires a subtle series of adjustments.
The pronoun I has always been capitalized in the English language for more than 700 years.
- Fleetwing
- Typewriter Talk Vet
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- From: Hartford, CT USA
- Registered: 30-6-2015
- Posts: 1,011
Re: Typewriter Key Action
.... snip ....
Did you see Michael's note above (#14)? (I believe that's his name -- don't have an easy way to do an umlaut here.) I'd be interested in what you might know, as an Olympia maven.Yeah, it's Michael.
In Windows, hold down Alt while you type 0 2 4 6 on the numeric keypad and you'll get an "o" with an umlaut over it.
On Mac, first type Option-u (mnemonic, "umlaut") followed by the character you want the umlaut over.
On Smith-Corona, fit the appropriate Change-A-Type slug, type that character, backspace, and type the character you want the umlaut over.
:-)
Dang -- at one time I had kept a list of all those Alt + three digit codes. I'd totally forgotten about them (and I must have pitched that list inadvertently). Thanks for that refresher. The Smith-Corona tip -- yeah, that's less likely to happen!
- M. Höhne
- Key Master
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- From: Maine
- Registered: 14-3-2013
- Posts: 640
Re: Typewriter Key Action
On Smith-Corona, fit the appropriate Change-A-Type slug, type that character, backspace, and type the character you want the umlaut over.
That made me laugh, Mr. Höhne. I recommend ordering Changeable Type Slug #18, which gives you both umlaut and the Eszett (ß).
That would be the best choice when you're working in German and is probably the most common one, but there were also these: #6 Umlaut over Grave, #7 Umlaut over Acute, #11 Primero over Umlaut, #12 Angstrom over Dieresis (Umlaut), #13, Low Quotes over Umlaut, #14 Cedilla over Umlaut, #18 as you say, and #21 Umlaut over Inverted Question.
Curiously, the item numbers were sometimes different on other lists so don't be too precise with your searches.
- M. Höhne
- Key Master
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- From: Maine
- Registered: 14-3-2013
- Posts: 640
Re: Typewriter Key Action
And #60 Umlaut over British Pound. Hmmm.
- Fleetwing
- Typewriter Talk Vet
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- From: Hartford, CT USA
- Registered: 30-6-2015
- Posts: 1,011
Re: Typewriter Key Action
Oh, that's just so you can write British-y words like coöperate and Brontë [Alt 0235]. Nothing sinister about it, I hope.
By the way, I don't have a separate numeric keyboard so I have to hold the Function (Fn) key and Alt key down together, and the Fn numerals marked on the regular keys. Easier than, but not as much fun as, having a typewriter with the umlaut!
