Ugh, I’ve been getting repeated calls on my burner phone this morning, all with a recording of some woman jabbering at me in Chinese while piano jazz plays in the background. It’s unsettling because I read Stephen King’s “Cell” not long ago, and the obvious associations of a virus being transmitted over cell phones tickled […]
Screeds in the Rain & a Favorite Brother JP-1
Weapon of Choice: Thunderbird 3, 1966 Montgomery Wards Signature 440T Someone in the Facebook ATC asked today what our favorite Brother JP-1 variations are, and by happenstance, I had just spent a drizzly afternoon yesterday outside with one of mine, the 1966 Monkey Ward Signature 440T. Yesterday was all about screeds, unfortunately – stuff I […]
The Linux Chronicles #4: Overcoming the Problem of Trying to Scan Thousands of Two-Sided Pages with a Non-Duplexing Scanner.
Weapon of Choice: 1957 Tower Commander And this is after I already chewed through two volumes… I’m not real sure where I’ll store these Victor manuals after they’re scanned. The shelves are gettin’ pretty full of reference material. Wildlife Photography indoors. Everything’s indoors… The Process: First I scanned the whole book on one side, saving […]
Double-Strike Typewriter Bolding Tests, Part 1
Weapon of Choice: 1972 Royal Mercury – Excellent double-striker! Weapon of Choice: 1970 Royal Sprite – Excellent double-striker! Weapon of Choice: 1978 Brother Charger 11 – Bad double-striker. Weapon of Choice: 1940 Royal Aristocrat – Decent double-striker. Weapon of Choice: 1961 Swissa Junior – Decent double-striker. Weapon of Choice: 1963 Olympia SM-7 – Bad double-striker. […]
One life for yourself, and one for your dreams…
Weapon of Choice: 1978 Brother Charger 11. August, 2016 was the last Quiet-Riter pickup – and I was practically tripping over ’em then.. Don’t wanna wait? Want to do all the cleanup and compiling yourself and print it out for free? Knock yerself out! (: Getting accustomed to a new workflow. I spent a lot […]
Big Screen Madness!
Weapon of Choice: “Bubbles”, 1960 Smith Corona Galaxie Screencap of the entire virtual desktop. My God – it’s full of STARS! Magic Margin’s Gopher Hole, accessible to you if you are on Debian Linux simply by installing Gopher: sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install gopher and typing “gopher gopher://gopher.magicmargin.net“ as the applications go to bed […]
Goodbye Desktop Core 2 Duos and Hello Book I’ve Wanted A Long Time
Weapon of Choice: “Moneypenny”, 1948 Royal Quiet De Luxe. Finally found a copy of this for a reasonable price, after a years-long search. Current project: decommissioning the last of my Core 2 Duo era desktops. 2005 E6400 @ 2.13ghz out of an HP Leonite mobo. 2006 E7300 @ 2.66ghz out of a Dell Vostro 220. […]
UJTU: What’s on my desk, yet more TRB discounts and my 30 days without Windows coin…
Weapon of Choice: “Adwoa” 1961 Swissa Junior Photoshop 7 running in Linux/XFCE. It works, mostly – at least everything I need to work does work. And yeah, an outdated version of Photoshop from 2002 does a lot of things that Gimp and Krita do not do. Things I need still, like CMYK support, batch scripting, […]
1909 Mares Available Again!
In case you don’t want to spend hundreds of dollars and valuable search time finding an original 1909 Mares or the 1980’s Dan Post reprint, there’s now an Operation O.O.P.R.A.P. reprint of 1909 Mares in pocket paperback format: http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/the-history-of-the-typewriter/26104091
Typewriter TV Episode 001 2020/01/10
Typewriter TV – Episode One ########################################## Typewriter Books for Collectors By: Will Davis, the author of the Typewriters by Will Davis page and the co-author of The Davis Typewriter Works blog. http://willdavis.org https://davistypewriters.blogspot.com/ Bonus Youtube content from the Davis Bros. who are basically the Click & Clack of typewriters: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkoFvwDFlV9HxlBxL3Yilag/videos ########################################## A Quick Lesson on […]
1937 Corona Standard – Sometimes The Best Fix Is A Good Cleaning
Weapon of Choice: “Jack Davenport”, 1937 Corona Standard “Squareline”. Well, here’s the master escapement trip adjustment, anyway. Well, at least I understand what’s *supposed* to be happening. I do really like being able to read through a process before poking at it. Maybe for this Squareline it’ll just be “Everything fixed through the magic of […]
First and Second Score of the 2020 Typewriter Hunting Season
Weapon of Choice: 1938 Corona Junior Model “S”. I guess it’s a stretch to call them “Scores”, since Key Snap (Erik) offered them to me as he was slimming down his collection, and I didn’t find them in the wild… The Frozen-solid 1937 Corona Standard “Squareline”. Yeah, not real sure about that giant woodscrew holding […]
Typewriter TV Launches!
Because what the world needs now is another YouTube channel :D Yup, I spent much of today starting up a new YouTube channel, shooting and editing an intro video, and finally getting around to figuring what I’m gonna do with the TypewriterTV.com domain name I’ve had for quite awhile. I even started writing a couple […]
The Linux Chronicles #3: RiftCasting and KdenLive
Screenshot of KdenLive linear video editor, editing out the awkward pauses between words in the video stream from Guvcview webcam and SimpleScreenRecorder. I’ve not used *any* of these tools before, but in about an hour, I was able to easily put together and edit a video. Very pleased about the performance of this old machine […]
The Linux Chronicles #2: Mah Conky!
Mmm, Conkies. One of the delightful things about X11 is the ability to run an active system resource monitor on your desktop, and theme it pretty much any way you want. I themed mine in TWDB livery. I haven’t had this much fun customizing my wallpaper since the days of the fatally flawed, but oh-so-fun […]
The Linux Chronicles #1: Let’s get Trion’s RIFT Running!
Weapon of Choice: 1962 Triumph Perfekt, Raro #85 Cubic Pica typeface. Yes, I like to wring every last bit of use out of my technology, and I use a lot of technology that most people would consider to be very obsolete. Both of my main use computers were built in 2010, and are rounding out […]
Cyber Monday 30%+15% off TRBs, Plus Mothra Comes Back To The Desk
The Lulu sale has gotten even better! now you can get the 15% base discount on Typewriter Repair Bibles, plus use the discount code “CYBERMONDAY30” for an additional 30% “LULU20” for 20% off of your Lulu order (all caps, expires Dec 5 on midnight). Get ’em while they’re hot! And now some other stuff not […]
Holiday Sale on Typewriter Repair Bibles!
Hey, it’s the Holiday season, and maybe you want to get a jump on your Black Friday shopping? Well, all Typewriter Repair Bibles are now 15% off in the Lulu store, *and* Lulu is also offering an additional 30% off your whole order using coupon code “CYBERMONDAY30” (all caps, expires Dec 3 on midnight). These […]
Phoenix Type-Ins for November & December 2019
Phoenix Type-Ins for November & December 2019: Changing Hands & Daily Platen present The Typewriter Harvest When: November 29, 2019 – 11 am to 2 pm Where: Changing Hands Bookstore 300 West Camelback Road, Phoenix, AZ 85013 Chandler Sunset Library and Jeremiah Bukovszky present Sunset Type-In When: Saturday, December 7, 2019 – 10:30am to 12:30 […]
Olympia SM-7 1961-1964, a Correction
Weapon of Choice: “Cadwallader”, 1963 Olympia SM-7 Nick’s post on Olympia SM Series 1948-1964. The TWDB Olympia page. The TWDB Olympia SM-7 by Serial Number page. The TWDB Olympia SM-5 by Serial Number page.
We’ve gone full circle: Amazon’s 2019 Christmas Catalog
Heh, remember when you used to get Christmas catalogs in the mail from Sears and JC Penny and Monkey Wards and about a dozen other department stores who wanted you to phone or mail in your orders? Remember when Amazon started up and slowly those catalogs stopped coming in the mail as those department stores […]
Six Months With a $4 Dell Latitude D410
Weapon of Choice: 2005 Dell Latitude D410, running MX Linux 18 2.0 GHz Pentium M CPU (Single-Core) 2gb DDR2 400MHz SDRAM, 40gb IDE HD, 1024×768 XGA screen Intel GMA 900 128mb shared I saw this little Dell Latitude D410 laptop on the bottom shelf of the camera aisle at the Deseret thrift store, no price […]
Removing Old Masking Tape from Smith-Corona SCM Galaxie Typewriter
Weapon of Choice: 1976 Smith-Corona Galaxie Twelve. Suggestion: Put this on in the background for soundtrack while you read this post. (: Digitizing cassette tapes again – gotta do this in batches so the memories don’t sweep you away. Let’s remove this calcified masking tape that was originally applied at the factory to protect the […]
Weekend with a head full of bees
Weapon of Choice: “Cadwallader”, 1963 Olympia SM-7. and now some more pics from happy Typewriter Repair Bible owners :D.
UJTU: The Many Platens and Worlds I’ve Enjoyed Lately
Weapon of Choice: 1957 Tower Commander. The Smith-Corona Floating Shift Typewriter Repair Bible. PDF Typewriter Books on TWDB. Weapon of Choice: “Einstein” 1956 Smith-Corona Silent. What’s in the BOX?? A buncha new service manuals to scan! Weapon of Choice: “Indy” 1959 Tower Chieftain III. Weapon of Choice: “Little Jake” 1933 Monarch. Hey, it’s been awhile […]
The Joys of Fresh Platen Rubber on Old Writing Iron
Weapon of Choice: “Richard The Deep Breather” 1925 Corona 4. Soft Left Margin happens when there’s too much play between the margin stops and the protrusion on the carriage that stops against them – ie: if you return the carriage and notice that there is either a lot of bounceback when returning softly or no […]
Got some new printed typewriter repair manuals ready fer ya!
The Lulu store is back again, which allows me to offer a bit better pricing on printed books and much better shipping rates outside the USA than Bookpatch was able to do, still professionally printed and coil bound to lay flat on your work table. This also allows me to introduce some new books in […]
Proofing Hermes 3000 Bible!
Weapon of Choice: “Joanie” 1964 Hermes 3000.
The Travelling Typewriter
Leoben Sez “Hey, stop typing and pet me!” Weapon of Choice: 1972 Royal Mercury. New traveling typewriter case on the shelf, ready to go! Cleaning out the “e” slug with a Spyderco Endura. Franklin-Covey typewriter satchel $2, Canon A-710 IS camera and holster $6. Not a bad thrifting day at all. Add in the $10 […]
In Praise of the Typewriter’s Lack of a “Send” Key…
A Pile of Royals and a Pile of abandoned Typescript – Sometimes, well, a lot of the time, it’s best just to beat out your thought on paper and then let the paper pile up somewhere unread… Weapon of Choice: “Thunderbird 4” 1968 Signature 440T. The Hot, New Typewriter Go-Bag.
Rainy Night Typing
Weapon of Choice: 1956 Smith-Corona Skyriter.
Rejuvinating a Cloth Ribbon Cartridge for Electronic Typewriters (Nakajima)
Ahh, Cloth ribbon cartridges meant for electronic daisywheel typewriters, AKA “Multistrike” ribbons. They do exist but are fairly rare, so when you do find one, it’s certainly worth the trouble to restore them to functional condition. The main problem isn’t that the ribbon is invariably dry, though- the biggest problem is that the internal transport […]
Staplers, Stapling Machines & Fasteners – Volume 2: Neva-Clog
It has been a bit over 1 year since I reviewed Volume One of Frank Parsons’ “Staplers, Stapling Machines & Paper Fasteners”, on the Hotchkiss line of staplers. Since then, I’ve been eagerly awaiting further volumes that would indicate that this important project is continuing on course, and this past January, Volume Two was published […]
New Feets for Richard The Deep Breather
Weapon of Choice: “Richard The Deep Breather”, 1925 Corona 4. I found a bag of 4 sizes of rubber feet on amazon, 10 feet per size. I figured one of the sizes would be right for what I needed.. Chuck the foot into a drill and use a thin file to file a grove about […]
Richard The Deep Breather, a $10 1925 Corona 4
Weapon of Choice: “Richard The Deep Breather”, 1925 Corona 4. Bichrome selector is a spindly thing directly attached to the ribbon vibrator. Yas, but what patents? Ugh. screw head broken, will have to figure out that before I can get the platen off.. Sanded and LPS’d the platen to make it ever so slightly more […]