Hey, just thought I'd write something a little more general since I've been a bit quiet lately... so many of the threads here are geared towards acquisition and kind of 'collector' activities, and the main thing I've been doing with the little machines lately is just typing on them. I've been in the thick of a so-far-unsuccessful job search, and spent a few weeks almost typewriterless - after which I took the Hermes 3000 on our short bank-holiday-weekend holiday and had some very happy afternoons working up some stuff on it! Definitely not buying them, though. 

But that's all changed a bit this week. I had a 1949 Hermes Baby in the typewriter hospital, aka with the Typewriter Man, and I went to get it the other day. This Baby was the first typewriter I ever bought, from an antique shop in Chiswick, and it had clearly had a very eventful life. He has fixed it up lovely, and even beaten the metal case back into shape, and made it new feet. We had a very interesting chat as always - the Typewriter Man is a mine of information and anecdote - and the Baby is back in the land of the living. Hurrah!

I also had a Remington Quiet Riter I had bought and stuffed under a bed, and I spent the other day very happily cleaning that up. There wasn't anything really wrong with it, and it is now gleaming in that quiet, car-like way these typewriters have. It types like a dream. I think these machines are a little underrated, no one ever mentions them as a favourite, and the famous-writers&-their-typewriters brigade seemed to eschew them for other models. But I have two (one about to be given to my partner's 13yo son, & I bought an exact duplicate) and love them. 

I have a friend who's an artist, and curates an exhibition once a year in her flat; it's the real deal, she has converted her work room into a professional-quality gallery space. This year the theme is 'Please Do Touch', and I'm contributing a typewriter installation - with a plinth, a ceiling-mounted roller, and a long roll of paper (added to when needed with a new roll, stitched on with tiny stitches) which will come up over the roller and then down to the back of the plinth, where over the course of the exhibition it will with luck become a pool of typed text. Her last year's exhibition is currently the subject of an article in the Royal Academy magazine, so we have hopes that this one might even get noticed. Yesterday she came over and we decided which typewriter will be in the show. It's a 1947 Remington Rand De Luxe Model 5, with a South American Spanish keyboard. It belonged for over 50 years to an Englishman who went blind of a fever in Africa, and bought this machine when he went to convalesce with relatives in Argentina. He used it every day for fifty years - a lifeline of a machine whose owner never once saw it, only only touched it. He had an active life, too, and even retrained as a physiotherapist. It's a moving story and couldn't be more perfect for an exhibition about touch.

But it's ridiculous. Today, when I should have been working, jobhunting etc, or just going outside because it was so nice out for a change, I found myself working on this machine to transform it into a little trouper for the people who come to the show. (It was all over the place - the type looked terrible and various functions were stiff. It's not quite there yet, but it's coming along in leaps and bounds. It's looking plausible now - certainly more instant gratification than what you get filling out applications and emailing strangers.)

The only thing that's still annoying me is that the ribbon vibrator seems to be getting a bit stuck in an 'up' position. I've cleaned and fiddled with everything I can find, all along the whole thing, and can't see what to do to free it up. Any suggestions welcome. 

It's dangerous, though: with all this activity going on, I found myelf on eBay buying an Adler Junior 3 with a script typeface. 

And that's the news from Lake Wobegon. Hope you're all well and typing!

Last edited by KatLondon (10-9-2015 14:40:39)