Wednesday 14 August 2013

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.





13 comments:

  1. Ha, ha, ha! You guys are nuts! Oh, if Scott had come off his bike, can you imagine? Keytops and typeslugs everywhere.
    I'm glad you got those keytops straightened, Steve. And here I am, doing it the primitive way.

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    1. Oh, it came close on the way home. I got caught in a downpour on the way back. But that story is coming soon.

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  2. Ha ha ha.

    Oh, by the way... It is a Yamaha. I must have been half drunk when I said Suzuki to you (I think I did....) Anyway, yeah it's still a V-Star.

    You know, I am rather tempted to see how many I CAN get strapped onto the bike! Mind you as the saying goes: You can only use one at a time.

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  3. Whoa, you guys just made the whole concept of "travel typewriters" stand on its head; I'm just glad it didn't happen literally on that motorbike!

    Are those special set of tools called something?

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  4. You Ozzies and your crazy stunts! :D

    Looking forward to John's blog!

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  5. Ton- they'll definitely be called something, but exactly what I don't know. John will know. In the interim I quite like the term 'keytop popper-offers'

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  6. At least Scott didn't go this far:

    http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/bbq-rider-sees-error-of-ways/story-e6frf7kx-1111115457891

    (What could be more aussie than that...)

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    1. That's gold Rino! Perhaps we should amend the challenge to read: "How many barbeques, typewriters and barbequed typewriters can you fit on an (otherwise) road-legal motorbike?"

      I can only assume that barbequing typewriters (well more modern plastic typewriters at least) you'd manage to shrink them in size so you could fit more on the motorbike. Let me know how you go with this one.

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  7. Hi Steve,
    How are you getting with that Remington Line space Lever?

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    1. I haven't got the parts machine yet! I'll catch up with Scott a bit later. Sent you an email with more detail.

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  8. Hey Steve. When I get back, I'll drop the parts machine over. You about on Monday?

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