Tuesday 19 April 2011

And the winner is...


...me. Thanks, Ryan - in the true spirit of typewriter collecting, the postage on the Rhodia journal must've waaay out-cost the value of the notebook. It arrived today, all covered with typed tabels and accompanied by some impressive business cards for the Typosphere. But it arrived and I'm very happy - I'll treasure it. I feel a typewritten thank you note coming on - but it won't be from the SM-4!

Monday 18 April 2011

Groma

I spotted a two-tone Groma Kolibri, then noticed Georg has some great archive material and photos on his flickr srtream (we bumped into each other there before the Typosphere, I think). Lo and behold - another logo. Only a triangle, but faithfully (well, approximately) reproduced in both print and on the typewriter covers. I thought it would be easy to recreate it as it was originally conceived - but that's a pretty obscure cut of Futura used. Or maybe it was drawn especially for the logo. Right, back to that SM4!

The closest to the original are the bottom pair.

Sunday 17 April 2011

Olympia SM4-still not right

Robert Messenger (hi Robert, thank you) pointed me towards an adjustment screw below and in front of the r/h capstan and advised checking that there was nothing fouling the carriage slides, possibly the carriage lock.

Apart from the lower and upper carriage-shift limiting screws (see photos) on each side of the machine - which are in more or less the place indicated by Robert, I can't see any other means of adjustment.  I have checked, and there's no obstruction on the carriage rails and the lock appears to work perfectly.

Compensating for the small amount of play that the carriage has on its rails does overcome the problem of misaligned lowercase type - but I can only achieve this by physically holding the carriage towards me as I type with my free hand. I don't think the machine has had particularly heavy use, so I guess that the amount of free play of the carriage on its rails is normal. 

I can see the bottom shift adjust screw (second photo) but can only get a too-thin screwdriver to it - with obvious results! I'll buy a better-fitting screwdriver and try that tomorrow - but there's still no way to back-off or re-tighten the lock-nut afterward - apart from pretty extensive (for me) disassembly. Just to get the bodywork off means removing the carriage - and no platen would mean I couldn't adjust the bottom stop of the carriage by trial and error typing.

Again, any help or advice gratefully received. Thanks in advance!
Arrowed: top limit adjustment screw
Arrowed: bottom limit adjustment screw (not in as great shape as it was)






Friday 15 April 2011

More press

Just in case you missed this. Maybe Billy could ship his repairs with a typosphere.net flyer? Click press cutting for link.