1mo ago

A productive evening

My Adler Contessa de Luxe now works! It has a lovely font. I cleaned it, changed (respooled) the ribbon, and made a few little adjustments. It still has two problems: one of the sticky keys is still sticky (the others aren't anymore), and the bell doesn't work most of the time. But I'm happy, it's the first machine I actually repaired.

@typewriters

typewriter #typewriters

13 comments

I was wondering the other day if it would be possible to convert a typewriter into a printer (for words anyway, not pictures). That would be fun.
- I was wondering the other day if it would be possible to convert a typewriter into a printer
  This is essentially what early digital printers were: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daisy_wheel_printing
  The letter hammers were rearranged into a circle which would spin to align the character with the page:
  Basically the same mechanism as the typewriter, without the keyboard.
  This was later replaced with dot-matrix printers, which were similar in that a mechanical striker would whack an ink ribbon into a sheet of paper to make a mark. The dot-matrix replaced the fixed characters of the daisy wheel with a row of pins that could be selectively raised or lowered to make different patterns of dots:
  (for words anyway, not pictures)
  Well, there's always ASCII...
  
  This was later replaced with dot-matrix printers,
  My very first printer, lent to me by a friend, was a dot printer. I both hated it (for the stupid amont of noise it was making and the (lack of) printing quality) and loved it (because it was so cool, and it was my first printer). I printed an entire book draft using that and probably started losing some hearing at the same time too :p
- It can't be too hard using an electric typewriter like the Lettera 36. It could be fun indeed.
  We would be reinventing the teletype though.
Congrats! I failed so badly when I tried to fix my first machine!
Oh, an azerty Layout? The Frenchie in me wholeheartedly agree with that ;)
- @Libb That's why I said “actually repaired”; the first one I tried to repair is still unusable 😅. I had to give it to a seasoned collector who proposed to repair it for me.
  And yes, I'm French too 🙂.
  @typewriters
I just looked what white spirit is and just found out it is the same thing I tried to clean the first machine I had, hahahahaha. On my second attempt I got much better results with gasoline, remove everything plastic or rubber just in case.
Nice!
I'll share what I do, first I remove the casing, the platen and as many plastic and rubber parts as I can, keys included, I don't remove the wheels driving the spools if they are plastic.
Then I soak it with degreaser, let it do its thing for a minute and rinse it with a pressure washer or an engine cleaning gun with water, not too hard just to rinse. This I do two or three times.
To dry it fast and avoid corrosion, first remove the excess water and then put the typewriter in the oven at 45-50°C for about 45-60 minutes.
After that, I oil everything and put it back together.
- @quediuspayu @typewriters Thanks for sharing this! I'd love to be able to clean that deeply. I don't have a lot of tools, even not an air compressor… I used a bottle of compressed air, emptied it completely and there's still dust.
  Which oil do you use, and where?
  
  I use the same oil I use for sewing machines, it is very thin, low viscosity. I apply it using syringe with the bevelled tip of the hypodermic needle cut off.
  I put oil everywhere there's metal moving against metal, it doesn't need much, just a thin coat. Too much oil can collect more dust or even drip inside the case.

13 comments