Point taken, Uwe. 40-50 years of not using a manual did wring out all my fingers and brain ever knew about real typing! I'll be taking delivery of both a Silent Super and a Royal QDL tomorrow, really looking forward to those.
In the meantime, I'm working on a poor-boy replacement for the Hermes 3000's famously self-destructing platen knobs. It appears the original Hermes plastic knobs chemically outgas and shrink over time, but of course the steel shafts they are closely fitted to don't, so the knobs eventually just split open and disintegrate. I noticed when looking for my 3000 that it was very rare to see one with both original knobs intact. Usually at least one was missing, like mine. Once I found some green replicas on line, at (choke) $54 a pop, I ordered and received some sample knobs from an online supplier to experiment with - I hope to modify one of them to be a $3.00 replacement. Black, yes, but $51 cheaper.
