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24-8-2021 12:11:28  #11


Re: SG-3 Line lock?

Thats SG1 tho. Dunno about SG3. Dont have those. Dang i cant edit comments here. 


Learned watchmaker and office machine enthusiast from Germany.

 
 

24-8-2021 16:37:52  #12


Re: SG-3 Line lock?

[rant] As a side note, I'm wondering if this is an example of how the internet, social media, and self-publishing has contorted our designation of authoritative sources....I don't know who the OP's authority is, nor do I need to; however, I did cringe at the "typewriter god" description and have to wonder if this god is someone who actually worked in the typewriter industry, or is just an enthusiast like most of us here who became an influencer by way of self-promotion.

Dear Uwe: I'm very sorry your professional life has been overrun by self-annointed, internet-driven experts.  Speaking of the negativity made possible by the internet, let us consider, however, your own rant, which makes a startling number of assumptions about me (and my criteria for ascribing expertise) and about the interolcutor that I cited.  May I offer, perhaps, a more positive direction the conversation might have taken?

You: Dragon Typer, could you share more about why the basis on which you attribute expertise to the person who told you about the SG 3?

Me: Sure!  While I don't want to specifically name the person, since we were engaged in a private, face to face conversation that was not meant for broadcast on the internet, I don't mind telling you a few things about them.  They own and operate a brick and mortar typewriter repair in a major US city, where they have been located for the last 40 years.  They are one of the last fully trained typewriter repair people left.  Their business took a real dive when the personal computer appeared, but they managed to hang on and survive until the (internet-driven!) typewriter "revival" in the early 2000s.  Today, they run a brisk sales and repair business, and they are often consulted by other professionally trained repair people for advice on difficult problems.

You: Oh, wow, they certainly do sound like the genuine article, and not one of these internet-driven "influencers" that make me want to throw up in my mouth.

Me: I know, right?  I vet my information sources carefully, and their stature and training and expertise in the field is why I thought it would be worth asking about their comment on the SG 3 in this wonderful old-school forum, which is typically so free of the superfluous ranting you find on so many other social media forums.

You: How strange that they reported this mistaken information about this SG 3 right margin.

Me: Yes, it is strange.  But everyone has off days, and my takeaway is that even the typewriter gods can err from time to time.  No harm, no foul, and it's wonderful to have the updated and correct information made possible by this wonderful forum that you've created and maintained over the years, Uwe.

You: Yes, you're very welcome, and I'm glad the forum could be of use!

****
 

     Thread Starter
 

25-8-2021 04:22:28  #13


Re: SG-3 Line lock?

Dear Dragon typer,
                               Please leave Uwe alone.  I can see exactly where he is coming from.  Perhaps not in this case, but there are a lot of armchair 'experts' out there who spread misinformation to increase their own sense of self-importance, if not from sheer ignorance.  Some of the things I read on the internet about typewriter engineering makes me cringe, and in fact when someone has brought me a machine that they have totally ruined and expect me to put it right for them, I often refuse to get involved.

 

25-8-2021 09:36:06  #14


Re: SG-3 Line lock?

Dragon Typer, your point was well made and understood, thank you. However, in my defense I didn't actually accuse you of anything, nor did I assume that you blindly put your faith in an internet expert. I openly wondered what the situation was - nothing more - and I wasn't making any judgements about you.

Had you stated in your original post that you were speaking with the owner of a "brick and mortar typewriter" shop who has been in business for over 40 years, I wouldn't have wondered anything about who believed the SG-3 lacked a right margin stop. And I would have agreed with you that he had just made an uncharacteristic mistake.

To add more context to all of this, your sourcing of information about the Olympia is in my experience atypical; the more common thing that I come across is typewriter enthusiasts who get their information from authoritative-sounding bloggers, who themselves are examples of Alexander Pope's "a little learning is a dang'rous thing."


The pronoun has always been capitalized in the English language for more than 700 years.
 

25-8-2021 11:11:21  #15


Re: SG-3 Line lock?

All's well that ends well, Uwe; I appreciate your reply.

More generally and not specific to the SG 3: 

This entire discussion, and especially thetypewriterman's forceful intervention, raises a number of interesting (and probably irresolvable) paradoxes, tensions, and oxymorons.  I am thinking here of the indisputable importance of specialized expertise, on the one hand, and its necessary relationship to amateurism, on the other hand.  With a domain like mechanical typewriters, which are a form of antiquated knowledge, over-emphasis on the exclusivity of specialized expertise would mean, eventually, the death of repairs and the complete shriveling up of that very expertise.  After all, for all the distaste of the internet and of "influencers," it is the amateurs (and since early 2000s, the *internet-fueled* amateurs) who are reviving and creating unprecedented demand for typewriter repair knowledge.  Would it really be possible to think of the current interest in typewriters without taking into account Richard Polt's books and blogs, or the documentary film California Typewriter, for example?  Without this groundswell of amateur interest, there would be scant financial, social, or status support for typewriter repair persons.  Historically, it is worth noting that a job that was once very commonplace and not so high in social status--typewriter repair--has taken on a rapid rise in *social status* with the internet fueled growth of amateur typewriter lovers.  These days, for example, no one thinks much of the store corner iphone screen repair shops that dot every major city; as any yellowpage book from the 1960s will demonstrate, typewriter repairpersons used to similarly be a dime a dozen.  But, in the amateur, internet-driven typewriter environment that arose in the early 2000s, those repairpersons who managed to survive the near-death of the typewriter from 1980-2000 have taken on a kind of elite status within the typewriter world.  (Thus my use, only slightly tongue-in-cheek, of the term "typewriter gods" earlier in this post).  But-- and this is an important and friendly rejoinder to thetypewriterman's ire against amateurs--many (most?) of these amateurs do not have ready access to a specialized typewriter repairperson, or to the financial means to pay such a person, and so must often rely on their own tinkering, trial and error, and consultation with previously printed diagrams, manuals, etc. (see, for e.g., Munk's Bible series, advertised on this very forum).  Here, the internet--including this very forum--serves as a space of exchange for ideas about repairs, for hard to find parts, and for general encouragement and camaraderie.  Not only that, this amateur-wave is seeing the invention of many brand new forms of repair:  witness the increasing importance of 3D printing, for example. 

Yes, in many cases this is probably the myopic leading the blind.  Yes, there is undoubtedly bad or outright false repair advice.  And yes, there are undoubtedly some "reputations" that are overly inflated by the celebrity culture that is fueled by social media. A

But we must remember that this balance between expertise and amateurism is a co-constituive one.  Get rid of the latter, and the former will also die, and die in obscurity.  How to live in the space of this paradox, tension, and oxymoron is part of the art and the beauty of what happens right here in this very forum.  And within the space of this paradox, I am inclined to think that broadsides against amateurs who are, in all good faith, trying to keep the typewriter alive probably do more harm than good, even when those amateurs are mistaken, as all of us can be (some more often than others!). 

Specialized expertise matters, but so does the amateur groundswell that sustains it economically, socially, and hierarchically.

End of musings.

 

     Thread Starter
 

25-8-2021 15:41:26  #16


Re: SG-3 Line lock?

Amateur 'repairs' were the bane of typewriter engineers even fifty years ago.  Customers would bring a portable typewriter in, together with a matchbox containing screws and parts, and tell us that 'The kids had taken it apart' - yeh right   However, someone once pointed out to me that it was only the failed amateur repairs that I got to hear about.  The repairs that were successful didn't need any further attention and I would therefore not know about them,  So only seeing the failed fixes does tend to make you a bit cynical over the years.  However, I do stand by my remarks about 'armchair experts' !

 

26-8-2021 07:46:48  #17


Re: SG-3 Line lock?

I recently started to watch a typewriter video by some Internet "influencer".  Good filming and lighting set up, lots of views of hair, make-up, nails & polish, etc.  Not too much in-depth video-time on the machine.  Turned it off when a 1960's German-made Olympia was described as a great Japanese machine.  Geeze, Louise.  Made me really appreciate the repair videos Duane Jensen does from Phoenix Typerwriters on You Tube.

 

20-1-2022 15:48:46  #18


Re: SG-3 Line lock?

People need to cool their heads on the internet a little here.  Yes, there is merit in the new wave of typewriter interest, and though it is not as "clean" as some of the older generations would like it, it is the best chance these machines have at surviving the next century.  Of course there will always be people who for one reason or another make a mistake in presenting information, I myself have fallen into that pit.  But we are all here to learn, and to be respectful.  

As to the original topic, I can 100% assure you the SG3 has a line lock, but I can see where your original source may have been confused.  The SG3 does NOT have a right margin stop, meaning that you can manipulate the carriage completely to the right without ever hitting a margin by means of the carriage release leaver.  The line lock, therefore, is the only means of encountering a "right margin," it will stop the action of the type at the appropriate moment.  It is a complex and finicky mechanism hidden behind the rear panel of the carriage.  It is this way due to the removability of the carriage from the machine, the easy-liberation means limited mechanical communication from the main base to the upper-carriage functions.  A hard drop or shock can knock things off kilter quite easily.  So yes, there is a line lock, but it is not easy to identify, especially since it is not very apparent.

You'd be surprised how many decently common machines a pro-tech might never come across.  In all the years I've worked, I have only had TWO Royal 10s on my bench, one of them was my own.  The best take away is simply not to judge, there is a reason and a story for everything.  And I know personally it can be hard, but nothing ever comes of it.


Typewriter Service Tech (and avid nerd)
 

20-1-2022 15:53:06  #19


Re: SG-3 Line lock?

thetypewriterman wrote:

when someone has brought me a machine that they have totally ruined and expect me to put it right for them, I often refuse to get involved.

I must disagree, is it not the job of a repair tech to set right any machine that crosses their bench?  I understand twisted piles of scrap metal might be a bit of a stretch, but if the client is willing, I would say bill them and fix the machine.  I've worked on many many machines in disarray from attempted repairs, and even reassembled some from grocery bags.  It isn't pleasant work, but at the end of the day it puts more machines on people's desks.


Typewriter Service Tech (and avid nerd)
 

20-1-2022 15:57:45  #20


Re: SG-3 Line lock?

I will add an afterthought, the last thing any of us want is for this forum to read like a Facebook group!  This is a typewriter oasis 


Typewriter Service Tech (and avid nerd)
 

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