Olympia Traveller

Same difference

Road

© John Hinde Curteich

TypeRider web site

AEG Olympia Traveller de Luxe S

Still about the badge?

Functional, businesslike aesthetic

The AEG has a bigger footprint

Twins under the hood

Almost forgot - it came with an illustrated manual - available here to download [4Mb pdf]

Keira Rathbone

This just dropped in to my e-mail inbox. Keira Rathbone carries the drawing-with-a-typewriter torch.

   

Seen on Toxel.com

SM3 induction

Surprise, surprise, I have decided this typewriter is a keeper. Now on permanent display (and with a foot-fetish friendlier photo) in the Typewriter Heaven Olympia gallery.

Wilhelmshaven vs Frankfurt

Got one of these?

The Emoticon Legend types thank you letters to aunts, uncles and grandparents for birthday presents

...get some of these :-)

However will we survive when these are all used up? Note lack of bar-code on the 1980s' packaging

Strip show

By popular request, a slide show of the stripped plywood case from the Olympia SM3. The case had been somewhere damp as you can tell from the tarnished metalwork and black stain. I haven't tried to conceal any blemishes and the only work on the furniture was to polish the chrome and emery one of the handle fasteners which was all rusty. The tricky part (aside from removing the paint) was to protect the interior which is flocked (not fabric lined) and easily damaged by clamping in a workbench. It wasn't in great condition to start with. Clean flock by dabbing, not wiping.

You can see that the case was only intended to be painted - the joinery is crude and the beech veneer marked, though the original paint in those areas was intact. The rubber feet were compacted, crumbling and damaged. Since they are symmetrical, I sliced the damaged surface off, reversed them so the good side is on the outside, and glued them in place after varnishing the case - they'll need tidying inside with a patch of felt.

Anyone fancy a go? After removing the handle, catch and feet (4x metal and 4 rubber), here's a list of what I used:

1. 1/3 sheet orbital sander (beech is pretty tough and shows no sanding rings)
2. 40 grit Aluminium Oxide abrasive paper to remove the top paint
3. 80 grit once the wood starts to show through
4. 240 grit emery paper to hand flatten the surface prior to varnishing
5. Rag and spirit to clean between sanding and varnishing
6. 2 coats quick drying polyurethane varnish (at least)
7. Dust mask, ear protectors and forgiving neighbours.

Have fun...

True grit

Furniture screwed back in place. The varnish said "satin" on the tin - but it looks almost glossy.

So there I was, thinking I'd never get all the paint off the Olympia SM3's case, but I decided to try a new batch of paper on the orbital sander. Wow! 40 grit Aluminium Oxide paper really shifts paint without clogging. 80 grit swept away the undercoat and primer all the way down to bare wood. All in about half an hour. £3.00 well spent.

Thanks Richard the Bikecaster for the ID tip. Looks like it is a non-Deluxe SM3. I should have guessed by the way it doesn't say Deluxe on the type basket.

Striptease

Un-painting this Olympia's box could end up being a lost cause. The promise of a fine wooden finish seems out of reach because of the tenacity of hammerite primer.

Richard commented he was curious about how these boxes were made: the bottom and two sides are solid wood and the curved top is steamed ply. They are nailed and glued with any gaps filled with... filler. In short, they were made to be painted. But the same heavy duty sanding which originally profiled the corners isn't proving anywhere near as effective at removing the paint.

I'll persevere a little longer before preserving with varnish and replacing the hardware.

Also, I'd thought I had an SM3 but the manual I downloaded from MLG suggests otherwise. There's no tabulation and the paper support isn't push-button operated. These are reffered to in the manual. It DOES have spring-loaded key tops though. Any helps with ID welcome. The SN is 728899.

Hardcase

Blond beech veneer shining through the grey hammerite - photos of the SM3 to follow soon.

Dove grey

I just picked up this Olympia from a nice lady in Cowley, Oxford, home of the Mini. You could say it was Dove Grey - a favourite colour of the Mini's forebear, the Morris Minor. It needs some cleaning and the carriage is grinding on the bodywork, so I'm just off to the hardware shop to get some half-inch tap washers to replace the rubber mounting bushes.

The case is painted metallic Hammerite grey. From the finish, the styling and the age of the machine - I'd guessed it was fibreglass like the case for my Imperial Good Companion 5. Not so. It is steam formed beech ply and I'm tempted to strip it and varnish it! According to Schumann, the s/n 728899 makes it a 1956 SM-3. It has sprung key tops but no tabs.

It was a lazy purchase. I saw it was local and checked I could pick it up from the seller (nobody wants to package a typewriter if they don't have to) and got it for £9. The intention being to fix it up and sell it - just for fun - to see if I could turn base metal into gold like the recent Channel Blue Corona 4 proved was possible. Could be tough parting with it now though...

Picture post

Gratuitous sculling photo from this evening's stroll by the river.

Finally got around to posting the SM4's mug-shot to the "Etc..." gallery. 

Daylight and tinfoil instead of the usual pair of Anglepoises.

Contre-jour crackelure

So, now it works can I fetishise the SM4? The crackelure finish really chews up the light and scatters it around in way a gloss enamel finish never could – and chrome trim gives twice the shine.

All work and no play

After a week's neglect, I revisited the misaligned lowercase on my Olympia SM4 with the same hopes I might harbour returning to a baffling crossword clue. 

The upper and lower stops for the carriage's vertical travel (see earlier post) were so hard to reach, I decided that their adjustment shouldn't be the solution to fixing the unusefully large amount of play problem on an otherwise pristine Olympus. 

There were two sources of to-and-fro play in the carriage that I could see. One being the (unfathomable) shifting linkage, the other the bearings and the tracks the ball-races run along. I unclipped the carriage strap and spent a few minutes running it from side to side to see how the play might be eliminated. I'd assumed the two rails were part of the same pressing but when I got my magnifying glass out I could see that the rails were separately mounted and that the rail on the keyboard side showed a tell-tail knurled surface beneath one of the screws. An adjustment slot? Could be. After slackening the screws at both ends of the rail, I pushed each rail away from the other as far seemed practicable. I'd guess somewhere between 0.5mm and 1mm. Then I retightened the screws, adjusted the back rail stops (at bottom, see photo) and checked that the carriage still ran freely under ts own weight. It did and it worked! A few lines of type showed legible descenders on the lowercase where previously they'd been faint ghosts. The seven eighths is joy to behold!

Both photos taken under a desk light, typing not scanned. PS: The slow bike ride happened - I lost - and I didn't suffer the indignity of the knobbly knees competition.

So, if you find yourself with misaligned lowercase on an SM4 - maybe the above will help. I hope so. And thanks again to Robert and Mike for their helpful suggestions. Sometimes it is good to walk in the wrong direction before arriving at the destination.

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)