How many typewriters can you fit on a road-legal motorbike?

Recently Scott K from The Filthy Platen and I made a second trip down to John and Margaret's house near Beaudesert. The first of these two trips is documented in a The Filthy Platen post here, along with some rather aesthetic black and white photography. This time, because Scott's partner Jane was using their car, I said I'd drive us both down. However with Scott living some 50 minutes away from me in the opposite direction to John's place, picking him up wasn't a viable option. So it was decided Scott would ride his motorbike to my place, park it there and we'd both drive to John's in my car. This map gives an idea of the logistics. The scale bar is not actually a good indication, as the road-distance is considerably further than the straight line distance.

 

When Scott arrived at my house that morning, my immediate thought was: "Holy smokes! How many typewriters did you fit on that motorbike?" In a true display of dedication to the cause, Scott had strapped no less than four portable typewriters onto the back of his motorbike; all of them wrapped in plastic to protect them from the rain. We're not talking four wafer-thin Rooys either, but four decent sized portables strapped to a Suzuki V-Star. "Was this the limit?" I hear you asking... No way. "I reckon I could've done at least 6".

Guinness World Records are always on the look-out for stuff like this- most scorpions in the mouth, most gymnasts in a mini etc- why not most typewriters on a road legal motorbike? I very much doubt this record has been set yet and I shall notify Guinness in due course.

   

 

Once down at John's, we got to work with some serious show and tell. John showed us some of the impressive work he has been doing restoring various machines and enlisted Scott's advice on the repair or re-cast of a broken support on a Hammond (pictured below). Scott enlisted John's advice with a couple of repairs on some of the typewriters he had brought down, including a stunning Kolibri, which is pictured in a recent Filthy Platen post here.

One job I had hoped to tackle on this trip was straightening the keytops on my inexplicably wonky-keyed Remington Portable 5. I had bought the typewriter in this condition, with the knowledge that: (1) the keytops on this model of Portable 5 are not fastened on with metal clasps that can be removed with a screwdriver- they require a special set of tools to be removed; and (2) John might just have these tools hidden away somewhere. I was in luck and John did have the right tools. One tool to pop off the silver ring which secures each keytop (such that the letter inside can be removed or turned) and another tool to re-attach it.

 Before

 

 After

The result looks marvelous and I'll look forward to attacking the other minor problems with it in time to come. These include (1) attaching a new line-spacing assembly, as it is completely absent at the moment; (2) figuring out why the L, O and Y keys don't always trigger the escapement; (3) recover or repair the feed-rollers; and (4) clean the typeface, as there's no daylight to be seen in the holes of the e's or o's at the moment, when printed on a page. None of these are major repairs and once completed, I'll look forward to writing Grandma a letter on this shiny little gem of a typewriter.

After lunch (many thanks Margaret), we got stuck into another key purpose of this particular trip. This was to give John a hand with some of the legwork associated with setting up a certain internet based story-telling medium. I shall say nothing more about this, other than that although this venture is not yet complete, I am definitely looking forward to reading whatever stories may be shared through it in time to come......

Thus concluded another enjoyable and productive day in typewriterland, many thanks to those who made it that way.