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| Organ donor. Sad face. |
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| It is crude, but it works! |
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| The pivot screw from a child's compass is un-blued and looks out of place, but is a perfect fit. |
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| Centre feed roller from bike pump adaptor. Yellow ones from the inflation tube of a Rock-it toy (you fill a plastic coke bottle with water, pressurise it until it lifts off). Original brass wire roller pins re-used - bike spokes are too thick! |
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| Who could resist those hi-tech spools and cheeky grin. |
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| Click to enlarge |
Improvising to make something to get something to work is half the fun of the project. My mentor used to fashion all kinds of things to repair his customers appliances, motors, small engines, and whatever someone would bring him to repair. His motto (unwritten was he could do anything but pick the fly (best let alone) and pin soap bubbles on a rusty wash line even with a safety pin. How many people remember the old steel copper coated wash lines? The copper would wear off and the line would rust. Now the same cheap wire is sold at high prices to ham radio operators for antenna wire.
ReplyDeleteBirchwood-Casey makes and sells gun blue that you can use at home to blue steel. McMaster-Carr sells black oxide chemicals.
Sounds like an inspirational mentor. I was thinking about blueing, and various cleaning chemicals. But an un-blued screw and nut will hold fast, and probably for ever. I hate the thought of introducing more chemicals into our environment than is absolutely necessary.
DeleteGood ol' Yankee ingenui---er, never mind.
ReplyDeleteRock-It! Awesome! I think I still have one of these sitting here with a missing part - now I just need to find it.
ReplyDeleteLast used by the river. Landed in river. Dashed home for the canoe, paddled furiously downstream and rescued. Got to watch which way the wind is blowing :-)
DeleteNicely done! That's the sort of fix I like to try.
ReplyDeleteQuite amazing, actually. Great work McGyver!
ReplyDeleteI love the "Society for the Ethical Treatment of Typewriter" idea - long live the SETT!
ReplyDeleteAs time goes by, I suspect that those of us using typewriters will need to become increasingly resourceful about repairs. It is sad news indeed that Ames has closed.
ReplyDeleteI just told James, who laughed and said, "You'll just have to use an extra sheet of backing paper!"
The use of bike pump parts, bungee cord and screw from a compass is brilliant. Whatever gets the job done!
I've wrangled the line spacer on a Remington 16 into place with a piece of wire... The Remington is missing a part due to a previous owner taking out the Platen, and as such was causing problems advancing the line. I've locked it into double space now, which I am very happy with.
ReplyDeleteBut I have ideas.... YES.... ideas... on how to replace parts in future.
Well done! Well thought out.