Welcome captainslack & comma - the more the merrier!

I'm Darren from Vancouver, BC, Canada.

I'm 45 years old, a writer, teacher, and an analogue guy in a digital world. I prefer to do things with machines rather than have the machines do things for me.

To that end, I have a 25 year old car, a 94 year old house, and 10 typewriters of various make and model.

I have one Remington Standard 10 (currently not working), one Remington Quiet-Riter (portable), one Eaton's (a store brand) which is really a Smith Corona in disguise, one Smith-Corona Silent from the early 50's, one Underwood Typemaster (standard - ex-Royal Bank), one Adler electric (still in storage), and three Olympia SG-1s (two 1st gen, and one 2nd).

The Eaton's machine is the most interesting to me personally because it was my mother's and she got it when she was 12. I typed on it as a kid and when it came time to type my college papers I used it for a semester until we got a computer. She recently let me have it and it had been stored in the basement (!!!) so needed some TLC. She's now all cleaned up and types well. I still think there needs to be some lubrication done, but I don't want to get oil all over the place so have held off. She may need to go in for service (thank goodness there is still a repairman in Vancouver) because this is the machine I will never part with. 

My other passion are the Olympias. They are such great work horses. I love the action and the way they just fly when the creative juices are flowing. 

I'm a secondary school English teacher and often type my comments directly onto student's work. Not only can they read it, it's faster for me too. I just use that handy dandy paper injector on the SG-1 and, swoop! their work is in the machine and ready to be typed on. 

I usually have a machine or two in my classroom for students to use when writing. They find that they really have to think ahead of the machine and work out what they will say ahead of time. Writing  first drafts on a typewriter is very frustrating for them. On the other hand, they get to practice their touch typing and they do revise their work beyond a simple spell check. 

Looking forward to reading the forums and getting to know other people who have the same "problem" with typewriters that I do. 

Darren
 

Last edited by Daebir (24-7-2014 00:37:07)

Olympias are quite wonderful -- I have 3 (not SGs, SMs), and none of them needed any work done on them when I got them. They're like tanks.

24quad6s here love the way old papers look typed up really interested in underwoods prewar any suggestions on good ones?

Welcome to TT Andy and 24quad6s!