I've Gossen myself a Tippa!

Pardon the feint print, but I'm using the ribbon that came with the machine which still had a fairly good amount of printable ink in it.

 

 OH! OH! A BOX! Note the bashed corners.

 I don't think I mentioned the stabilizing protective cardboard.

 

 Oh! It's love at first sight.

 I absolutely adore the style of the badge on the Gossen Tippa. That 'SS' part of Gossen is very subtle, and stylish. 

Link to Cameron's Tippa can be found HERE. Does anyone have any ideas about the skipping?

 

 And finally, it has a magnificent folding arm that folds into a slot on the keyboard.  

I absolutely adore this machine. Compared to the gruff industrialism of the first model, and the over-styling and fattening of the latter Tippas, I feel that this machine is the most refined and beautiful. The Tippa that followed immediately afterwards is a fine machine,  but this one has my heart.

Where the wild mechanics roam....

I'd loaded Ruby the Exxy (my car) up with a load of typewriters  and headed south to Beaudesert.  It was a nice day for a drive in the country, and John had suggested that I come out and have a bit of a typosphere hangout with him. On this occasion, I had the company of 'the impatient typewriter mechanic' - Steve Snow in the car with me who also had brought a handful of machines along for the ride.

Steve was great company for the drive, and the weather could not be more perfect for the trip. Last time I was down that way, the temperatures were exceeding 40 degrees C. This time, it was a modest 22. And soooo much more comfortable.

Which was just as well, as we spent at least 7 hours in John's workshop.

John had invited me to bring whatever machines needed the his experienced hand to look at. So I took the opportunity to bring some of my more interesting machines, which also had some faults that had to this stage proven a bit beyond my current skills.

I had three machines of a defective nature, and I had also brought two just to 'show and tell'. The 6th machine in my car was a machine I was giving John, in exchange for a surplus small air compressor that he had.

Steve also had some machines for John to look at. Chiefly, he had a Smith Premier 10A that had a few issues that he wanted to see if John could do something about.

Steve made some really interesting progress on his machine, and I think he'll be writing about it quite soon. So I'll let him tell you all about it.

Meanwhile, John took a crack at fixing the three machines of mine that I'd brought with me. We made good progress on my Olympia SG1, but it is still a bit munted in a couple of keys. We identified the problem with my beautiful pearl Olympia Monica, and a part is on its way to me already courteously of Barry Fielden in the UK - via Will Davis's Portable Typewriter Yahoo group.

John also blitzed adjusting my Remington 5's action, and after the machine's extensive repairs it is now a 100% working piece of beautiful machinery. But more on that machine soon.

However, the two machines that I had brought just to show - also got a round on John's workbench. I was happy with the operation of both machines, but now John has assessed some problems that I hadn't even thought about, and without even thinking he was making adjustments and suggestions on the two of them. It seems that John's repair man instincts seem to be forever in his blood. 

Both Steve and I had a great day. Not only did we get to get our hands on some real typewriter service tools, but we both learned an awful lot from John. I've learned how to use some of the professional's tools, and I picked up quite a few little techniques.

Watching John in action is great. He just rips through stuff that usually takes me a lot more time to achieve. And while he worked, he he was telling us magnificent stories about his working days that are very entertaining and interesting. John's been talking about getting his own blog going, which I am very excited about. Steve and I are going to give him a bit of a hand where we can.

Another great part about visiting John's place, is that we get to have a look through some of his machines. A lot of his 400+ machines are still packaged up and concealed in cardboard, bubble wrap, newspaper and old carpet. Every so often Steve and I would see a hint of something that looked sort of familiar, and we'd ask John if we could take a look. John was quite obliging, and we got to crack open the wrapping and have a look at some magnificent machines.

I was especially wrapped when I got to get my hands on a gorgeous Groma Kolibri in Burgundy. It typed better than I expected, and I now feel an urge to hunt one down for my own collection. They are such an amazing little machine!

It is easy to spend all day in John's workshop, and I always love hearing about what he's got on his workbench that is currently being worked on. Both Steve and John are great to hang with, and it is a real privilege  to been able to spend the day with them. 

Thanks Guys. Hope to catch up again soon.

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!