1 - Spazmelda
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- From: Ohio
- Registered: 25-2-2015
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New Hermes Rocket, with new feet!
I've gotten this typerwriter fairly well cleaned up, and got new feet put on, so I thought I'd post some pictures. This is the one I got at a local antique mall. It was really in pretty good condition. Was dingy on the outside, probably tar, and there was some grime inside, but not too bad. I cleaned the outside with soft scrub, and scrubbed out the inside with solvent and q-tips, etc... then lightly oiled whatever I thought needed oiling. The biggest issue was the feet being mostly degraded, and one completely missing. The serial number is 5,707,205. I think that puts it at 1959.
Here are the pics:
The old feet (may they rest in pieces):
What I ordered for the new feet. The ridged portion fits perfectly in the original holes, and is snug.
And the new feet on the typewriter:
Last edited by Spazmelda (09-4-2015 14:10:07)
- KatLondon
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- Registered: 11-10-2014
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Re: New Hermes Rocket, with new feet!
Wow, THANKS, I need one or more feet for a Splendid 33 and that might do the trick.
Also, funnily enough, I sort of somehow won a Hermes Baby of about this same vintage the other night... seafoam, with the cute fat little green keys. Mine has a Qwertz keyboard with German symbols; really pleased with that. And I'm hoping it might arrive on Saturday. We can compare serial numbers when it gets here 
- Spazmelda
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Re: New Hermes Rocket, with new feet!
Cool. I need to read up on the difference between the Rocket and the Baby. It's interesting that I actually thought this typewriter was a sort of olive green until I cleaned it with soft scrub. I wish I'd taken a good before picture in the same lighting, because the difference after cleaning was a dramatic change from olive green to the more recognizable sea foam green.
So, wrt the feet... I measured the hole in the bottom of the case as 5/16, but I couldn't find bumper feet that would fit 5/16. I found these at 11/32, and they fit great. Snug enough so I don't think they are going to slip out of I slide the typewriter on the desk or anything like that.
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Thread Starter- retro
- Platen Punisher
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- From: Suffolk, England
- Registered: 11-2-2015
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Re: New Hermes Rocket, with new feet!
KatLondon wrote:
Also, funnily enough, I sort of somehow won a Hermes Baby of about this same vintage the other night... seafoam, with the cute fat little green keys. Mine has a Qwertz keyboard with German symbols
By a strange coincidence I was going to bid on a Hermes Baby with German keyboard the other night but I couldn't make up my mind whether I could get on with the keyboard. It was from a charity so I could have bought it with a clear conscience as a charitable contributution. I would be interested on how you get on with it. I could imagine me forever hitting the z key instead of the y.
- Spazmelda
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Re: New Hermes Rocket, with new feet!
I'd also like to get a qwertz keyboard one of these days and see how badly it messes me up.
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Thread Starter- KatLondon
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Re: New Hermes Rocket, with new feet!
Retro, where are you? It was probably the same one! Mine came from the British Heart Foundation. And it has just arrived - I have to say, these are pretty things and so on, but my experience of Hermes tyoewriters is that they are no Olympias. You can't hold it against them, and they're lovely, but given my choice of ultra-portables purely to type on I might just choose a Splendid. Sacrilege! And I love this little Baby that just arrived. I love all the accents and umlauts it has. All typeweriters should have those.
- KatLondon
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Re: New Hermes Rocket, with new feet!
Oh and btw mine is serial number 5836475: firmly in the earlier parts of 1961.
- Uwe
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Re: New Hermes Rocket, with new feet!
I switch between QWERTY and QWERTZ keyboads often, and I find it only takes a paragraph or two before I'm no longer tripping over the two swapped keys. It really isn't a big deal, but I'll never forget the first time I tried to use a French AZERTY keyboard. That was a little too dramatic of a change and I've never come to terms with using those machines.
Nice Rocket, I especially like the textured paint, which from your photos looks more like a stipple finish than the common crinkle.
The pronoun I has always been capitalized in the English language for more than 700 years.
- malole
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Re: New Hermes Rocket, with new feet!
Excellent replacement feet. I never know what terms to use when searching for things like that. I'll take a note of it.
- retro
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- Registered: 11-2-2015
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Re: New Hermes Rocket, with new feet!
Retro, where are you? It was probably the same one! Mine came from the British Heart Foundation. And it has just arrived - I have to say, these are pretty things and so on, but my experience of Hermes tyoewriters is that they are no Olympias. You can't hold it against them, and they're lovely, but given my choice of ultra-portables purely to type on I might just choose a Splendid. Sacrilege! And I love this little Baby that just arrived. I love all the accents and umlauts it has. All typeweriters should have those.
I'm not that far from London, a village near Felixstowe in sunny Suffolk. You don't know how close you came to losing your baby! I only had to press the button with my bid but I was agonising over the keyboard. Still, it's good to know it's going to a good home. I really wanted to know how they compared to the Empire version. They may not compare favourably with an Olympia but at the time they were the only true portable. From the age of ten my 1930's Empire baby went on holiday with me and travelled all over Europe. It went under the seat of a BEA Dakota DC3 and the later Viscount with my BOAC (Better On A Camel) flight bag, real aircraft back then with propellers 
. They are very basic but tough machines and did everything I needed including the compulsory school essay 'What I did in my school holiday'.
