Happy Typewriter Day

It's Typewriter Day today, the anniversary of the first U.S. Patent by Christopher Latham Sholes, and a good enough reason as any to celebrate the establishment of the machine that transformed writing, business, and the lives of thousands (millions?) over many decades.

Today is also, I later learned, what would have been Alan Turing's 100th birthday. It's just as arguable that Turing's work also transformed writing, business, and the lives of millions.

Though neither man can get sole credit for the invention (and later perfection) of their creations, both stand out in their respective fields, and you wouldn't be reading this -- nor I writing it -- without their work. I'd like to think that both would have appreciated the natural contrariness and DIY-ish-ness of the Typosphere, too.

I started today off on a decidedly curmudgeonly tear, ripping down advertising that appeared to have magically affixed itself to the street light poles in my immediate neighborhood. I consider this sort of thing vertical litter, and feel that I have just as much right to remove ads stuck to a public pole as the originator had to post them. (More, in fact, since I'm sure they are violating codes.) After stuffing the accumulated paper into a nearby garbage can, I happened to look down and notice how much the metal covers on our local residential water lines look like a certain Sholesian invention.

In honor of both these gentlemen, today I will be typing something and it will be cryptic. I'll say no more right now...

Have a grand day, everyone! Don't forget to share the outcome of your own celebrations over at the Typosphere.

Silver Suffer

The Silver Surfer project continues.

I finally managed to get a replacement bolt in place to secure the carriage return lever. Just to recap, here's what the business end of the carriage looked like "before," after I'd carelessly sheared the bolt in two while trying to tighten the mechanism down.




And here's the replacement bolt in place, approximately the same length, and mercifully, the same threading as the bolt it replaced. So now all I need to do is put the lever on and tighten (carefully!) the nuts that hold it in place, right?

Right?

What do you mean, "no?"



Well, no. When I fasten the lever in place, it doesn't stay put. Since this is a travel machine, the return lever folds down for transport, and then snaps upright for use. But the "snaps upright" part isn't happening. If your name happens to rhyme with "Pitchard Bolt" then you surely have seen it already...

That little hole you can see there, in that angled bit of metal? Yeah, that? That is supposed to hold a teeny-tiny little ball bearing, which presses against the return arm and provides enough friction to keep it in the stowed position. The return arm has a smaller hole through it which the ball bearing pops into and acts as a lock. It's a really clever system, and obviously far more clever than I am, he who blinding removed the arm without paying attention to tiny round Important Parts that likely went pinging around the room someplace.

In short: dammit.

So, I'm off to see if I can source a tiny, tiny ball bearing. Small enough to fit into this hole, but not so small that it passes through the return lever's hole. That's the bad news.

The good news is: I wouldn't have been able to puzzle any of this out without a working example of the same mechanism to compare. (Installing the bolt meant removing the whole piece, including a spring under tension.) But I won't tip my hand about that quite yet.

Edit:

There was some discussion in the comments about how tiny the "tiny, tiny ball bearing" actually is. Based on some shaky camera work, I'd guess it's a 2mm size, or pretty close to it. I'm going to see if the craft store has any metal beads that might fit the bill.

Cutting the Cord

Type on the frugal-find Remington KMC

Shear Impatience

We're nearly there. Only two small setbacks to report on the silver surfer Kmart 100 project. One minor, one not-so-minor.



The minor issue is feet: none of the ones I have laid in will fit in the slightly-smaller wells in the case, necessitating a return trip to the hardware store with the only remaining non-crumbled foot to get a sense of size. I should be able to find something.



The more serious issue came in replacing the return arm, which had to come off so I could remove the side panel for paint removal. Over-exuberant me decided to over-tighten the small bolt that holds the whole thing together, shearing it apart right in the middle. After filling the air with the heady perfume of weapons-grade profanity, I slipped the broken bolt into the film can which will accompany me to the hardware store. There's some sort of rule here: for any home project that requires N trips to the hardware store, expect to make N+2 trips.

While in the process of fixing things up, I noticed that the backspace mechanism doesn't work, or at least doesn't choose to work with any sort of regularity. This seems to be the fault of a long-broken spring, and I'm not going to fret over it. Maybe that key has a future role to play if I ever yearn to open this machine up again. LED lighting? It could happen.

Meanwhile, I've re-felted the interior panels, obscuring the old blue surfaces. With some extra fabric, I even glued a little inside the repainted knobs, which came out pretty cool, in my opinion. I have a couple of simple decorations I want to add to the machine before I call it "done," but repairing the unintentional damage caused by my zealous tightening and finding suitable replacement feet needs to happen first.

Unsound

Typed on a Remington Model KMC (confirmed that it's not a 17)

Silver Surfer Update

I think I've done as much with the shell of the surfer as I want to do, or have the patience for. There's still a touch of blue paint here and there, but it may wear in time. Next steps:redo the interior felt, put the badges back, and put the typewriter back together.

I've learned a lot from this project, not the least of which is the amount of effort it takes to strip the paint from a typewriter! I've got a new appreciation for the level of effort involved in the other silver-surfer projects I've seen online.