Hey, Robert Messenger! Meet Kermit.

One or two of Rob's recent blogs sent me giggling to the keyboard.

Rob, Meet Kermit. Kermit, Meet Rob.

Kermit had been on loan to Baroness till recently, when it was at risk of being damaged during a home moving exercise. So for the time being, Kermit is hanging out at my place again. Can I say, I think Kermit is a wonderful typewriter, that has some beautiful curves and features. Thanks for stopping by, Kermit.

Mind you, I just can't type on Kermit in the say way that I can with one of my Hermes 3000 machines. I keep forgetting that I need to slap the keys - just a little harder. But he is a fine, and beautifully lightweight typewriter.

Hell City!

Man, kids.
That convention certainly lived up to it's name.
At least for me.
I was super sick and beat up the whole weekend,
with no voice and way less energy.
Somehow, though, my clients were the best ever,
and I made it through all three days of serious tattooing.
Ryan Smith also accompanied me to Columbus, Ohio,
(13 hours driving there, and 14.5 home!)
and was a huge help.
He kept our side of the Off the Map booth looking good,
and socialized with all the convention attendees.
He was also my main form of communication.
He just read my mind,
and then said my thoughts aloud for me.
But, really, though.
He did.

Thanks to Off the Map for letting me share their booth.
And thanks to Canyon Webb for working next to me,
and even sharing a hotel room with Ryan and I.
And thanks even more to my amazing three clients.
I did so much tattooing, kids.

Here's my piece from Saturday,
I'm hoping for better photos soon.
Elizabeth sat 9.5 hours, and I was blown away.

INTERVIEW WITH BRETT FISCHER - 2 EVOLVE TATTOO SUPPLY - CAPE TOWN, S. AFRICA.

2EVOLVE IS A SOUTH AFRICAN SUPPLIER, HEADED BY BRETT FISCHER, WHO'S FORWARD THINKING AND ETHICAL BUSINESS PRACTICES SHOULD SERVE AS AN EXAMPLE FOR ALL SUPPLIERS TO ASPIRE TO. HIS SENSE OF COMMUNITY, ACTIVE SUPPORT OF EDUCATION AND PARTICIPATION IN RAISING HEALTH STANDARDS AND PRACTICES IN TATTOOING / PIERCING, HAS  ESTABLISHED THIS FAMILY OPERATED BUSINESS AS SOUTH AFRICA'S SUPREME SOURCE FOR QUALITY PRODUCTS, SERVICES & ACCESSIBLE EDUCATION TO ALL ARTISTS.

GIVE US A BRIEF LOOK IN TO THE EVOLUTION OF 2 EVOLVE - WHAT THE GOALS WERE WHEN YOU STARTED AND HOW THEY HAVE 'EVOLVED' UP TIL NOW.

We moved from the supply of piercing to include tattoo when approached by studios for assistance in sourcing supplies. Unfortunately it was a case of naive sourcing by price, demand and availability, the intention was never to rape the industry but the gross naivety of how a Pick n Pay (mini Wal-Mart) type supply concept creates total havoc, never totally sunk in until clients and willing ethical manufacturers such as yourselves better educated us on the affects. That disconnect a supplier and manufacturer can have from the person walking around with a new tattoo is often the source of ignorance in the modus operandi of a supply chain.

When we changed our company name to ‘2evolve’ it was kind of a mission statement in itself – the evolution of our business in its commitment to the community. Our livelihoods are 100 percent linked to the survival of the street shop and their ability to produce quality work with quality supplies.

Today we are drastically improved in many respects but our goals now are;

- Improving supply vetting, monitoring as well as ensuring we maintain it.

- To drop many items from our supply range, replacing them with better quality. This is the one benefit of hindsight in supply- the real end cost of cheap products to both us and the client.

- More selective about manufactures, if they don’t understand our local issues or engage with us on dialogue over it, they no longer interest me.

- Being able to hold larger stock volume to compensate for quality items that are not mass produced, manufacturing lead times frustrate local artists and their increasing ability to parallel import is what is keeping us on our toes right now.

BRETT FISCHER (RT)  - CAPE TOWN TATTOO CONVENTION.

HOW CLOSELY DOES THE S. AFRICAN 'TRENDS' IN SUPPLYING FOLLOW THE NORTH AMERICAN MARKET? - HOW POPULAR IS THE ROTARY COMPARED TO ELECTROMAGNETIC?

20 Years ago supply trends were limited to the release of new catalogues from suppliers like Spaulding or information shared by artists returning from Europe and America. Today with manufacturer web-sites, social media platforms and blogs, artist are being exposed to supply trends almost immediately. This equates to an artist demand for certain items ultimately driving the suppliers to source accordingly.

To a large extent a lot of what is going on right now, matches North America in terms of flavour of the month or ‘endorsed’ products. There is a demand we can directly correlate to endorsed / sponsored products appearing in blogs, online advertising and technique related DVD’s by the more internationally recognised artists. The upside is good endorsements give confidence in the products where there is no history and the downside is bad endorsements are creating a fad consumer culture in the community.

Right now we sell way more electro-magnetic machines than rotaries; however, the demand for rotary machines is definitely on the rise.

HOW MANY COUNTRIES, PROVINCES IN THE CONTINENT DO YOU HANDLE?

Currently we supply throughout South Africa and her nine provinces. We also supply Swaziland, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Uganda and Botswana.

THE DYNAMICS OF THE TATTOO INDUSTRY HAVE BEEN A HURDLE FOR US AS FAR AS COMMUNICATING THE MUCH A NEEDED CHANGE IN ETHICS DIRECTION AND EDUCATION.

HOW DO YOU HANDLE THIS? HAVE YOU SEEN CHANGES SINCE THE BEGINNING,? AND IN HOW LONG OF A PERIOD, WHAT PERCENTAGE OF THE ARTIST POPULATION THAT YOU SUPPLY "GET IT"?

The challenge has always been an adoption of unified best practices, getting to a point where there is a unanimous consensus on issues like studio hygiene, cross contamination etc. We lack national laws and where by-laws exist we lack enforcement, this has lead our business to adopt internal standards we expect clients to adhere too, however I don’t believe this is ideal….

In terms of ethics, suppliers have a commitment to the products they supply and whom they supply them to. But right now those ethics are meaningless in stopping the wave of supplies that are readily available on almost every online auction site! Many manufacturers have gone a long way to removing their products from this sales domain, but it’s been a needle in a haystack approach to cutting off the supply to minute made artists….

All in all, I am not going to lambaste other suppliers as we have our own history and faults to be critiqued – but we do all need to up our game in this regard. Much like the artists that lack a consensus, the same applies to the suppliers and manufacturers. However it’s important that the artists realise that they themselves hold the key to supplier ethics by virtue of funding. A simple case of not purchasing equates to a vote of no-confidence in the suppliers ability to maintain their ethics. Personally I don’t think artists realise their ability to control the supply is in their hands and that the ethics they exude are basically mirrored in the suppliers they purchase from.

GODOY SEMINAR - JOHANNESBURG

 WE KNOW THAT YOU PROMOTE EDUCATION, WE HAVE SEEN IT - ORGANIZING SEMINARS AND PAYING PART OF THE FEES FOR ARTISTS WHO HAVE POTENTIAL AND HAVE ECONOMIC DIFFICULTY - THIS IS UNHEARD OF IN THIS SELF ABSORBED INDUSTRY… WHY DO IT AT ALL?

When we started our company in 1987 it was done with R200.00 (about 100 dollars at the 1987 exchange rate) and zero resources, because of that we understand the hand to mouth nature of many small studios as they build a client base. On-going education should be a core focus and being able to assist with that meant a great deal to us.

When we had the opportunity to host you in RSA it was a huge deal for us, it was largely because of you that we progressed to be the supplier we are today. Hosting your seminar was also an opportunity to learn from you while here and also to see that information parted among artists locally was a fantastic experience for us.

WHAT KIND OF CHANGE DO YOU SEE THIS TYPE OF ACTION BRINGING TO THE S. AFRICAN INDUSTRY?

I don’t think I can overstate the importance of getting peers into the same room, to get them chatting and sharing ideas in an educational setting. To be able to share information is pretty much the only way the community moves forward. North America is spoilt in this regard – attracting global skills and dispersing them through seminars and conventions. To have seminars brought here, to see internationals arriving on our shores to guest or participate in conventions like the Cape Town tattoo convention, is fantastic. It up’s our game but the fundamental is the dynamic of peer participation and shared skills development.

WHAT ARE DISTRIBUTOR ETHICS? IS THERE SUCH A THING? ETHICALLY, WHAT ARE SOME REQUIREMENTS WHICH SET YOU APART FROM OTHER SUPPLIERS?

I think the simplest definition for me, would be the understanding of the end impact of supply choices: what the product impact is as well as the impact in the hands of the person whom you have sold it to.

There are suppliers with great ethics, some maybe better than ours. But my personal concern is to eliminate poor products from our range as well as the poor usage of our products.

YOUR PRODUCT STOCK HAS PROBABLY CHANGED ACCORDING TO THE NEEDS OF THE ARTIST? DO YOU FEEL THAT THERE ARE UNFOUNDED DEMANDS FOR PRODUCTS THAT ARE NOTHING BUT HYPE? ARE YOU LOOKING OUT FOR ARTISTS AND INVESTING IN PRODUCTS THAT ACTUALLY DO WORK?

I find this all the time, the ‘flavour of the month’ products that come and go so fast these days. Every second person is making tattoo machines these days it seems. There is massive pressure on suppliers to keep up with the demand or be seen as ‘behind the times’. It’s a double edged sword for us, we prefer to invest in lines of substance and not in trends but it even goes into the issue of cheap vs quality. I think quality manufacturers also need to be more progressive in pricing structures to assist smaller countries like ours where scales of economy are not factored in on the ‘bulk price’ and moq’s.

HOW MANY OTHER SUPPLIERS ARE 'YOUR COMPETITION? 

It’s a good question, not so long ago you could count suppliers on one hand, today there are 20 odd in Cape Town alone that I know of. But in terms of quality supplies and not just a stock holding of straight up Chinese only products, around 3 to 4 only.

THERE IS A SAYING 'IF YOU DON'T BUY, THEY CAN'T SUPPLY" THAT MEANS WE AS ARTISTS CAN POTENTIALLY CONTROL WHO IS ALLOWED 'INTO' OUR INDUSTRY AND WHO CANNOT COME IN. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE INFLUX OF THE CHINESE LOW GRADE PRODUCT?

It’s not an easy answer, we were one of the suppliers who went this route when we started, the problem as you have stated is not with Chinese product, it’s the demand for cheap Chinese product. More worrying though is the demand for dangerous products like counterfeit inks.

Ultimately it’s based on demand – We have been trying to phase the cheaper needles out, but find we hit a brick wall with demand for them. Again here we are stuck between demand and ETHICS of knowing the product supplied is not of the production standard it should be. The middle ground route we have undertaken is to get an improvement on the production of the product whilst still keeping the pricing reasonable for local artists and our much lower buying power. Here again like you have mentioned – the demand is created by the artist, if you don’t buy it – they we won’t supply it….

WHAT IS MORE IMPORTANT, AN ARTIST'S EDUCATION OR THE ELIMINATION OF THE CHINESE MACHINE - THERE ARE TONS OF OTHER 'REPUTABLE' MACHINES WHICH ARE ON PAR? WE FEEL THAT WITH A REAL EDUCATION ON MACHINE FUNCTION AND TECHNIQUE, AN ARTISTS CAN SHOP WISELY AND REPAIR OR MODIFY ANY PRODUCT HE ORDERS. HOW DO YOU SEE THIS?

Education, education, education. The elimination of an inferior cloned product comes down to the education surrounding it. Having the ability to modify and repair is still a major issue locally and fuels the ‘full draw of useless or problematic machines’.

2E MACHINES  - BY GODOY MACHINES

IS THERE A STANDARD? DO YOU SEE THAT THERE IS A HOMOGENIZED STANDARD ON PRODUCTS, OR IS IT A FREE FOR ALL ? OR IS THERE A MADE UP STANDARD' WHERE A REPUTABLE MACHINE IS REALLY NOT AT ALL WHAT THE HYPE SAYS IT IS? AND NEEDLES TOO?

I think there is repetition above all else, a copy of standards created years ago. We see it with machines out of China as well as new ‘machine builders’ who pretty much clone others and modify the side plate to create a sense personalisation. I think most would agree there is a lot of copying above all else.

WHAT DOES THE FUTURE LOOK LIKE.. YOU SPONSOR ARTISTS WITH THE 2E PRODUCTS, DO YOU SEE THAT THE TORCH IS GONNA BE PASSED DOWN TO UP AND COMERS OR WILL IT DIE WITH THE GREAT ORIGINALS LIKE DEREK BAKER, RASTY… RYAN BOLTOON,, DAMIAN MARTINS…TAMAR THORN… ARE YOU LOOKING AT SPONSORING ANY OTHER TALENT?

I am very upbeat about our future locally and the attention our country is receiving, recently after the very successful Cape Town Tattoo convention, I had the privilege of getting tattooed by Bob Tyrell at Metal Machine – next to me tattooing in quest spots were– Rosanna Demadona and Randy Englehart…..

Our local artists are creating an outstanding calibre of work and are being invited to travel to conventions in Asia, Europe (recently: Derek Baker) and Australia (recently: Tamar Thorn) as well working as guest artists throughout the USA (recently: Ryan Bolton and Tyler B Murphy) – to name but a few.

There are planes in the works to sponsor some very talented new up and coming artists, but I don’t want to give away too much on that just yet ; )

IF YOU COULD HAVE YOUR WAY WITH THE INDUSTRY IN S. AFRICA, WHAT WOULD IT LOOK LIKE?

I wouldn’t like to meddle to much outside of my role in the community, but If I could have one wish, i would like to see the total eradication of counterfeit goods, namely the cheap toxic knock off pigments coming out of China.

WE WERE SO IMPRESSED WITH YOUR OPERATION, THAT WE OFFERED TO DO A GREAT MACHINE FOR A GREAT COMPANY… HOW DID THE 2E AND THE A2E IMPACT YOUR BUSINESS?

ALUMINUM 2E MACHINE - BY GODOY MACHINES

You guys have been the first manufactures to honestly take note of us and South Africa, the fact that you built us a quality custom machine still amazes me today. The 2E was important to us for two reasons; it offered us a brilliant quality machine at a very reasonable price to local artists, as well as showing your trust in us with your brand. The A2E was just the crème on top, a super light-weight aluminium frame with no sacrifice on the typical super smooth Godoy machine performance.

SOUTH AFRICA F*CKING RULES. - GODOYS

Round 2 (of 3) - Scott v's the Royal P

Round 2 - Scott v's the Royal P. The Royal strikes back. 

For those that missed round 1, it can be found - here.

Warning: This blog entry is rated MA - for mature audiences. 
*Occasional coarse language. Which has nominally been bleeped out for you protection.
*Low level violence.
*Frequent bad movie references.

The relative peace from my earlier days was now broken, and the fighting had become heavy and brutal. The battle of wills between the chrome Royal P and myself was now becoming intense. Tools and parts lay strewn across the battlefield. Blood and been shed numerous times from my fingers, and my battle-cry had become a single word that started with an 'F'.

I tried to asses if the escapement on the royal was repairable, but the Royal P clutched it firmly in its heart and I couldn't pry the thing from the grip of the rapidly deteriorating screws. It seemed hopeless.

I attempted to ease off the pressure on the draw band one afternoon, in the hope that it would allow the escapement to catch. But my attempt to do so ended in the bloodiest battle of this war. As I released the spring, the coil inside the drum erupted and shattered inside. I heard the spring implode with gusto, and then sound like a baby's rattle as the pieces flung about internally. The initial crackling sound it made as it gave out was as surprising as much as it was sickening.

It was like I had been punched in the chest. I sat back and caught my breath, before letting out a long and pained battle cry - that also happened to start with an 'F'. 

I gripped the platen tight and raised it above my head, and hollered: "You can take my Main-spring. But you will never take my FREEEDOOOOOOM". 

And then I dropped the platen onto myself, and further worsened my dignity injury.

*SIGH*

So the decision was made to seek out a possible parts machine, or a machine for transplanting. I remember Robert Messenger talking about how Royal didn't make a lot of changes to their machines after the first Royal P, so I pulled out my old black Royal that I had restored back to working order some months before, and had a bit of a cursory look to see if there could possibly be a way of using parts from a later model. 

The Black Royal - repair in progress.

It was around this point that I observed that the frame on my Royal Arro, and the frame on my chrome Royal P were pretty much identical in their structure. I looked at the anchor points below the frame, around the ribbon covers, and leading out to the keyboard. Structurally it was very similar. Even the clearances on this segment shifted machine's carriage and basket appeared to be a good fit. 

I didn't want to destroy my black Royal, so I didn't pull it apart to see if I could do it. Instead, I powered up eBay and gumtree and had a good, hard look any kind of cheapish Royal portable typewriter of this era. 

28 days later......

I awoke one morning to see my iPhone screen blink with emails shooting along its face. Blue icons with blurry white text that I couldn't read flooded the black glass. I put my glasses on, and the white text came sharply into focus.

Ebay: You have won!

Ebay: Invoice for....
Ebay: Please pay for your item. 

Ebay: The seller has contacted you. 

"Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn" I said as I rolled back over and went back to sleep. It was a Saturday. Saturdays are not typewriters on eBay days. Well, not Saturday morning at any rate.

The typewriter in question was an identical machine to my Black Royal - right down to the "Made in the British Empire" decal being stuck on the front at a haphazard angle. The machine was rusty and crusty, and looked like it was looking forward to retirement, but I was sure I could rejuvenate the mechanical side of it and get it going again. 

On Sunday, the seller was contacted. Addresses and phone-numbers were exchanged, and I organized a time and a date to get to the sellers house. I didn't want to collect late evening, so they gave me a 30 minute window of opportunity to collect the typewriter from 4pm on the Monday. I finished work at 3:30pm that day, so it was going to be a little tight getting to their place in time. 

Enter Roxanne:

I chose my speediest traffic-dodging vehicle for the task: Roxanne the motorbike. I always have Occy-straps at the ready on the bike, so it wasn't going to be a problem transporting the machine on the luggage rack. I had a blissfully chilled ride to work in the morning, and everything seemed to be going to plan. But by the afternoon I was anxiously looking at the BOM site radar, as I could see something that looked like a storm coming across 'the range', near Toowoomba. 

Expecting the worst, I shuffled through the cupboards at work for a plastic bag that would be big enough to cover the typewriter. Much to my dismay the biggest I had, that didn't have holes in it or would dissolve in water was a big yellow clinical waste bag that had several huge bio-hazard symbols on it. Not to worry... It was only there as a 'just in case'. I was pretty sure I had plenty of time before the storm hit.

I stuffed my earbuds into my ears, put my helmet on, and Ilet Karen - the voice on my TOMTOM app, direct me to the address. Unfortunately some of the roads leading to the seller's house were still being reconstructed after the 2011 floods, and as such I had to sort of find my own detour. Time was starting to look very tight, but eventually I got there.

I was given several tips by the seller about how to use a typewriter (Really? You turn the knob which turns the big rubber roller to put paper in? Who knew! The lever is the return key? Fancy that!) before long money was exchanged, and the sale was done. I had mere minutes left of the allotted time, and I was pretty happy to have got the transaction done. Meanwhile, what apperred to be an army of children had surrounded me to check out this typewriter.

I strapped the Royal onto the back of my bike... Took a photo for blogging purposes, and then took off, with Karen again in my ears - telling me how to get home. 

Rev it up, Rev it up, little boy and ride.... Or write. Your choice.

 I sped and weaved through traffic with the greatest of ease. Over my left shoulder I could see the storm clouds closing in, but I sighed with relief as soon as I when back on a familiar road, and ever so close to home. There was a traffic jam at some roadworks, but no matter... I just darted around them. I was stopped at a set of lights, looking down the length of a very busy main road - unaware that tragedy was about to strike. 

As always, it is something small and unexpected that starts the tragedy. In this case, it was an itch on my neck. As I took off from the lights, I accelerated hard ahead of the traffic. I felt my engine sputter a little, but it still accelerated just fine - until I took my hand off the accelerator to scratch that itch. 

The engine just simply shut down, dead. Deader than a dead parrot. Deader than the main-spring on my Royal P. Deader than the sales of the HIghlander 2 DVD. (gosh, that really was a sh*t movie). 

I coasted to the side of the road, put the kickstand down and told myself 'don't panic'. Just then a Vogon starship..... oh wait..... 

I tried to start it again a few times, let the engine dry out from being flooded and then tried to start it again. No good. I popped off the seat, checked the fuses and found they were fine. I wiggled them a bit, tried to start the engine, and still didn't get any life.

So, I popped out the tools from the little caddy on the side of the bike, and pulled out the spark plugs to see if I was getting any spark. No spark... nothing. I checked the spark  making box thingy (how's that for a technical term) and all connections were fine. I resolved that the magic little black box itself must be shot. 

A guy on a Triumph Boneville, suavely parked his bike next to mine. Small drops of rain started to gently patter down around to us, and he asked me if he could help. He was a member of the 59 club, and was on his way to a meet. We both stood there looking at my motorbike, talking dirty finger-nails and trying to look as manly as possible without scratching our balls. 

"I don't actually know anything about the mechanics of a motorbike. I hope you know what you're doing" he eventually said. "But I can offer you a lift". I politely declined, he gave me a card for the club and suggested that I should look them up "when you get it (Roxanne) working again", and then took off into the slightly spitting weather. 

My bike was going to need to be towed. I didn't have the number for the tow guy in my phone, so I called up Ms Jane - who just happened to also be riding today, and had used the guys towing services a couple of times in the past. "You'll need cash", she reminded me on the phone. "About $100. He only takes cash. I'll message his number to you. Are you near an ATM"? Jane was always aware that I never carried much cash, and usually used EFTPOS for most transactions. 

The spitting rain started to turn into random fat drops of rain, and I could see that I was mere minutes away from a tropical down-pour. I reached into my bag and pulled out the big yellow Clinical Waste bag, and dropped the typewriter into it for protection from the elements, before strapping it back onto my bike. As I did so, I noticed the heavy traffic on the road near me started to slow even further. It seems that a big yellow bio-hazard symbol with bold lettering saying "Clinical waste" under it, is a bit of a head-turner. "Oh well" I thought, "at least no one was going to steal it".

I began to walk towards the Warner shopping center, which was about 1.5km back up the road. I HATE the Warner shopping center, but there was no avoiding it. You will never find a more wrenched hive of scum and villany. But I needed folding money. Just as I started to walk, the sky opened up with the fury of as much rain as it could possibly drop, and I was soaked to my toes within minutes. 

It took me 45 minutes to walk to the Warner shopping center and back, all the while I walked along a muddy roadside strip (because no one uses footpaths in Warner, as no one walks) and I was as miserable as I could possibly be. People - stunned at seeing someone 'walking' were yelling abuse at me from their cars. The traffic had slowed right down now (mostly because of the roadworks, partly because of my bio-hazard typewriter), and had a prolonged period of having to cop sh*t from lengthy row of Warner bogans in rust-bucket racers with big stereos, big exhausts, and a big complex about their small penises.

Somewhere... there was an in-bred kid playing a banjo. Or, knowing Warner, a plastic guitar and guitar hero.

I got the cash, walked back, and was surprised to not have received the number from Jane on my phone yet. So I called her.

"Where are you"? she asked.
"I'm about a K or so past Warner Tavern".

"Ohhhh" I could hear a whince in her voice "Funny the message didn't go through. I'll be there soon. Could you have picked a better spot?".
I could hear traffic noises around her, and I could tell that she was talking on her head-set while she was on her motorbike.

The rain started to ease a little as I waited, and then just stopped. Jane, on her big and shiny Yamaha V-Star pulled up next to me - virtually dry, and briefly looked at the Clinical waste bag with a confused look, before asking me what had happened.

"Show me it starting again" She said. So I did. I had put the bike back together, so I just sat on it, put the key in and gave it an attempted rev. Jane twiddled the accelerator for a bit, and then looked at the kill switch to the left of it.

"When did you turn this off" she asked while pointing to the switch. I looked, and saw that the switch was indeed to the 'off' position - which typically kills the engine dead.
"Eeeerm... I didn't switch that off" I replied. I turned the switch to on, gave the engine a bit of a squirt, and the bike again roared back to life. When I had lifted my hand to scratch that itch earlier, I must have accidentally knocked the switch. 

I again let out my Battle-cry starting an 'f', while Jane looked at me with a little bit of frustration. I on the other hand felt like an utter dickhead. We rode home, and I could see Jane shaking her head from time to time as I looked at her in the mirrors. 

I got home and sat the Royal out on the back deck of the house to inspect it. 

The machine had seen much better days. A fair bit of the chrome had flaked off, and parts of the typewriter were pretty dirt filled. But it wasn't horribly rusty, and the machine actually worked really well. This would have to be my first ever Royal portable that arrived in fully operating condition. 

A few days later I pulled the shell off the machine, and attempted to put the shell from the chrome Royal onto it. As I had estimated, the frame was almost a perfect fit - except of course for one very crucial difference. As I wrapped the shell around the frame, it seemed to end about 5mm to short. As it turns out, Royal were still using the same identical frame as the Royal P, but had welded an extra piece of metal onto the back of the typewriter, to give the shell at the rear a little more clearance - in order to keep it looking flush with the shell that was bolted onto the carriage. 

I was so... very, very close! I could just cut the metal off. The frame structure for the Royal P was still there, located behind a tack-welded piece of sheet-metal!. All I had to do was grind off the extra pieces, drill 4 holes and tap them, and I could have my chrome Royal working! With nicer, smoother black keys!

But I couldn't do it. I couldn't just 'chop' up a machine that still had plenty to offer. I knew I could use parts from both the original machine, and the newer one, and get a pretty awesome typewriter out of it. But I couldn't just kill off a great working Royal.

And it IS a great Royal. I bolted the shell back on, cleaned and serviced it and scrubbed up the metal a little while getting rid of the dirty bits and the corrosion. I now have two identical Royal typewriters, and I have no idea what to do with either of them. Does anyone want a Royal? No, seriously.

The chrome Royal was going to have to wait. I packed it up into a box, and dropped it down with a few other project machines. 

But it wasn't a long wait. About a month later I eyed off a Royal P on ebay with a shell in shockingly bad condition. If there ever was a machine that was born to be a donor. It was this one. I tapped in a figure into and hit enter and waited for the auction to finish.... Hoping no one else would bid.

But that's another story. 

Coming up in Round 3 - Scott v's the Royal P:

I fight with eBay buyers and sellers. 

Then do some rather painful work getting my chrome Royal back together.

And I add a special tool to my typewriter repair kit.

Hey now, hey now, my noiseless is back.

 Why just write at home?

Sometimes my projects can get a little beyond my skill and ability. I pride myself on my lateral thinking and problem solving capacity. But like everyone, I sometimes can get locked into an intellectual box that I just can't find my way out of. In times like this, it is best to just stop what you are doing and pack it up. Coming back to a problem with a fresh attitude and set of eyes can often help. Forcing things in situations like this, can often just see you doing further damage and while increasing your stress.

One of these 'boxed up'  projects has been slumbering in my cupboard since last year. That is, until just recently when I awoke to an email from the 3D printer, Shapeways, telling me that someone had ordered one of my carriage levers.

It was Mike over at Clickthing, who had just purchased a beautiful Remington Noiseless - as seen here.

The trouble was that while I had designed this part with considerable effort, and even installed it into my own machine, I had yet to actually get the typewriter working. A couple of big issues had stood in my way last year, and I more or less had relegated the machine to the back of the cupboard.

Mike has also had to confront some of the these same problems as well. Not only did he have a broken lever, but he also discovered that the drawband for the mainspring was also shot - and very difficult to replace.

With Michael Clemens rapidly making progress on his machine, I thought I had better get off my arse and  perhaps finish my own. So I busted it out of the cupboard, slapped it on my desk, and tried to ignore the collective half dozen or so hours I had burned trying to get it going in the past.

And, within an hour or so I had the machine mostly working. Much to my surprise.

 Let's talk about the lever.

For those who haven't seen my previous blog about producing this part, here it is.

I wish I had my own 3D printer - even just one that does plastic, so I could have done a couple of cheap prototypes before I printed the main product. Instead, while the lever was quite cheap to print, posting to Australia turned out to be hideously expensive, so I just did the best I could with the design and produced the main.

As such there were a few things about the design that I only learned were wrong when I had it bolted into the machine. There's no fatal errors in my design that makes it unusable, but the design could still do with a revision.

Firstly, as mentioned before the part needs to be drilled out to be usable. No big deal, and it gives the hole a better fit anyway. But it is something that I can fix with a re-design.

Secondly, the angle of the lever is a fraction out. Coupled with a curve that the original didn't have, it means that the lever can knock on the side of the paper when you use it. It wouldn't have been a problem if this machine wasn't designed in a way - that it had the paper sticking up and out of the typewriter at an absurd angle. This was easily rectified by just shifting the paper locator across to the right a bit. No big deal, but I could have done better. Then again, so could have Remington. In the next version of this machine they put in a proper paper table that didn't have the paper jutting out into the air stupidly, and in the way of the lever.

My understanding is that even with the original lever, this posed something of a problem.

Third: I needed to put a chamfer onto the edge of the tiny square knob that slots into the machine. This can be easily filed into it, as it only needs to be small. But without it, when you unfold the lever for use, it occasionally catches on a small metal piece that it should just slide over. All you need to do is push the lever a little bit towards the back of the machine (don't worry, it is made to do this) and just move it past the obstruction.

No big deal, but Michael may need to be mindful about this when his turns up. Eventually I'll revise the design.


Let's talk about mainsprings.

Like Michael, I had a broken drawband.

Michael, for the record, you cannot.... I repeat, cannot... Simply tie a new string to a piece of the old one. Why? Because the lumpy knob brushes and catches on parts in the typewriter. Cut your loses, and cut that string and get rid of as much of it as you can.

And while you're cutting - on the side of the drum with that biggest lip, cut yourself an angled grove like the one in the photo above. This is similar to how the drum on the portable Royal typewriter of this era is set up, and it works perfectly.

Just knot your line, and slip the string into the grove. Have the knot facing outwards of the drum on the flat side, and wrap your string onto it. Be careful when winding the spring though, as you might catch your finger on this grove if you accidentally let the drum slip while winding. I made sure that I had enough string on the line to wrap around the drum at least once, with the carriage fully extended along its tracks.


Now. Let's talk about Rollers.

One of the biggest problems that stopped me in my tracks last time, were the crystallized rollers. These were fossilized to the point that the hardened rubber inside of the cracks sparkled in the light. They had flats-pots, cavernous cracks and hardness that was almost diamond like. Suffice to say, they were pretty freakin' useless. The platen was also as slippery as a cockney con-man.

The platen was easy to resolve as it hadn't cracked, and it at least still sort of felt like rubber. I just rubbed horizontally across it once with a piece of course sandpaper, which gave it plenty of traction.

However the rollers were quite different.... but.... have a look at this!

That's one sexy recovered roller.

I've been experimenting with producing my own rubber parts of late, and it nicely payed off with this typewriter. I'll blog on this in the near future.

 

The machine now works. It still has some problems to resolve, but it is now a largely working example of a Remington Noiseless. When I showed it operating to the long-suffering Ms Jane, she exclaimed "Wow! It's silent. Feel free to type with this one anytime". 

I suspect she was hinting that my typewriters are noisy.

I think I have hit the boundaries  of what I fix on this typewriter at this stage. But it has shown me that I have learned quite a bit since I started toying with these machines, and I am learning quite quickly - while coming up with some great solutions to problems I'm often facing.

I also hope that Michael finds something here that can help him. Best of luck Michael!

TATTOO OF THE DAY...

Mamie... (ma maman....)

Well, that was the first... So, what about the second?

 

 

TATTOO OF THE DAY....

Cedric...

Opening the box...

 

 

*Sigh* I wish that I could just get 1 machine in the mail that didn't need repair! 

See the rather crucial saw piece hanging down? It's supposed to be straight across the typewriter.

 

 My SG1, stepping in when my computer fails.

I really want to get this machine working. I have wanted a push-rod Alder for some time, and this machine seems to fit the Art Deco direction of my collection. Which typewriter gods do I need to make a sacrifice to, to get this machine working again?

Schrödingers Typewriter

Disambiguation: This is not a typewriter that belonged to Schrödinger. But it might have been. It may have belonged to or not belong to Schrödinger simultaneously.

Okay, this blog might hurt your brain a little.

The cat is out of the bag. Or moreover, the box, and is now being looked after by Anna Strad. Cats are her thing, after all.

So now we have Schrödinger's cat out of the way, we have a box. A box with a typewriter now in it.

Here is the box. 

 A box... a very taped up box. 

Now, if you're not familiar with Schrödinger's cat, you're probably already finding this blog confusing. The premise is a simple theoretical experiment in Quantum Mechanics that implies that a cat in a box potentially exposed to circumstances that are toxic to it, can be witnessed to be alive or dead independently simultaneously by different people, but a single individual will not see both.

Sorry guys, that was just a really, really quick and dirty explanation which leaves a lot to be desired.

Anyway, here the toxic circumstances are - the efforts of Australia post and Deutsche post to handle and transport this typewriter over the last 23 days to me. Being that Munk and Richard Polt have both received pulped typewriters lately, it is clear that posting these machines poses a fatal risk.

I collected this machine from the local post office this afternoon. It feels light, and particularly well taped, but not padded.

So, peeking into the box from the comfort of your chair... Is the typewriter alive, or dead?

TATTOO OF THE DAY...

Alex...