Remington Portable anyone?

Going to let this one go.

Probably a very rare finish. It is still the only Remington Portable #2 typewriter I've seen with this crackle red finish. Spotted a few images of green crackle Portables online, but no red machines.

Even though it works well and has a spectacular finish, the 'Lava' machine will be let go of. Of all the machines to use and tinker with, this one gets picked least often. So decided to let this one go.

This time it comes with the instruction booklet. This should prevent a next owner forcing the lid down over the carriage with the knob extended.

Paring down...   ...well, probably more a case of making space for possible new specimens to tinker with and fix-up.

Lava, still a very striking machine :)

Rolls Viceroy non-electric

An impulse purchase...

Complete in box with instruction leaflet. (Important: Do not blame the dry shaver if you have not read this booklet.)

The Rolls Razor company filed patents for this dry shaver around 1937. Evidenced from mention in advertising directories, the company launched this product onto the British market in 1939. It was manufactured essentially unchanged into the 1950-ies. This specimen with serial number K069535 probably was manufactured in 1953, judging from the year code on the cutting-element (as per Rolls Razor standard practice). 

Early specimens of the Viceroy can be a bright red color and come with a slightly different cassette with purple velvet lining, otherwise identical. Sometime early in the 1950-ies the company dispensed with the screw on the oiling-hole. The instruction leaflet has errata-slips glued in telling the user to ignore any instructions on removal of this screw. From at least 1950 the company also manufactured an electric version of the Viceroy dry shaver. (The ignominious demise of the Rolls Razor company is documented online.)

Good thing to have the instructions - who knows what this dry shaver would've been blamed for otherwise!

The shaver with the handle unlatched.

The cutting elements come out for cleaning. The only thing missing from the set is the original cleaning brush. Perhaps that's just as well. All these parts were rather gross and dirty as can be imagined. All carefully cleaned and disinfected with alcohol.

To properly clean everything (and being curious for its inner workings), the appliance comes apart fairly easily with the mechanism still together.

The body shells washed clean (strong soap and toothbrush) and some of the old grease was removed from the innards. Lightly oiled, good to go!

Rather noisy and hard work. It didn't catch on. Little wonder...

Skipping of the Remington Noiseless Portable and fixing thereof

As noted by several people in the 'Typosphere', the Noiseless Portable is prone to skipping. It needs a very staccato typing technique to work well. Any hint of 'bottom-typing' (pressing the key right to the bottom of its travel) will cause random skipping. The skipping is not completely random though, especially the letter 'a' is very likely to cause a skip.

Looking again at this very ornamental, pleasantly quiet, but still-skipping machine; noted that the letter 'a' is right towards the end of the universal bar triggering the escapement. Over time, wear of the whole mechanism could well mean that the bar is out of adjustment, worn or bent even. A possible cause then could be that the keys trigger the escapement a bit too late, especially the keys at the left-end of the bar.

To test the hypothesis, placed a thickness of some layers of tape on the universal bar right where the letter 'a' strikes it. Uncanny the difference that made. No amount of bottom-typing would cause the machine to skip! Removing the tape again it was up to its usual playful skipping routine. That small test seemed to confirm that setting the escapement trigger a little earlier could do the trick.

Then looking for the adjustment screw - there had to be one.

And there is - it is a small screw-pillar with a lock-nut. The whole linkage that pushes the escapement is a bit 'loose' by now, can well imagine that the play caused by the 8 decades of wear make an adjustment necessary.

A turn clockwise (in) of the pillar seems to have done the trick now.

The very ornamental Noiseless machine should no longer skip right at the end of an otherwise error-free page :)

Lawrence Engineering Service 8B

Faded red cardboard sleeve, about eight inches long.

A very low cost sliderule, to be picked up for the modest amount of 25 cents at Woolworths or so. Currently available online at less modest yet still not excessive cost. Judging from online sightings, these sold well in the US as well as in Britain. (Could actually be Woolworths then :)

Made by Lawrence Engineering Services in Indiana. The company was making these in Wabash from about 1935 to 1938 when it moved to nearby Peru. Simple printed scales on wood with A [B CI C] D and no scales on the back of the slide. Type 8B is the 'B' version of their 8 inch sliderule. The 'A' is identical except that didn't have the reciprocal CI scale. The cursor or runner is celluloid in a stamped metal frame.

On the back there are very compact instructions on how to use the sliderule - very condensed small print. An amazing amount of correct information in a small space there!

After some cleaning and a very little talcum, it works fine and is still absolutely straight. For such a low cost item, it survived very well :)

Coastal C14

An old photograph found in an old book a few years ago.

By now I've learned this is a picture of the 'Coastal Class' airship C14. As with nearly any field of interest, there is an active and helpful society. In this case the Airship Heritage Trust that also have a page detailing this particular class of airship and the hazardous missions undertaken by the men in this fairly 'rickety' craft.

Quite a crowd in the picture, ground crew marshaling the airship it looks like. No sign of this being an aerodrome, just empty countryside. The wide 'stripe' on the ground (plowed field?) and the large crowd however suggest that this is a scheduled landing spot. Most of the men are in uniform; navy personnel then and not local bystanders.

The C14 was delivered in September 1916 and taken off the roster on July 17, 1918 (as 'unserviceable'). The airship looks pristine in this picture; could this have been taken at it's delivery to the navy?

Seeing this scene in an actual photograph print makes it very 'real' - the 'Great War' can sound so far removed from today, but it really did happen and not even all that long ago.

At the reverse of the photograph is this dire warning:

How did this government paper ever end up as a bookmark in a book? What's more, in a book sold at a thrift store in a foreign nation. A non-belligerent nation back then, but still...  One of those little mysteries.
(The book by the way is 'Common Faults In Writing English by Henry Alexander, published 1916.)

Strongly worded notice, but after 99 years the defence of the realm will probably be fine with this picture being in foreign (!) hands.

Keeping it in the book...

Remington House, Amsterdam

Came across this small article/announcement when leafing through a magazine. (An old one.)

Featured in this '36 issue of the illustrated weekly 'Het Leven' ('Life'); the 'Remington Typewriter Co' just opened their new 'Remington-House' with a modern showroom where the products of the company can be viewed.

Today the building still looks much the same, including flagpole. No longer selling typewriters there, but food and drink.

Remington Portable internals all gummed-up

The parts machine Remington Portable #2 typewriter was not working, the typebars wouldn't even lift up and seemed jammed in place. Prodding some more when trying to take off the bodypanels, it turned out that it was just sticky typebars that were jamming the lifting mechanism. The segment has a dark brown tarry substance all over that very firmly holds typebars in position.

That doesn't explain why the protecting hooks are bent all out of shape, but did make it possible to take it apart and get at the internals:

The machine probably was badly oiled some time ago - this 'bad' oil by now has turned into a brown, sticky substance. Looks like creosote in the machinery.

Some keylevers have slipped off their linkages, but overall there looks to be nothing really fundamentally un-fixable, nothing that I don't now have parts for.

In addition to the oiling, it has had some repairs done on the keyboard, with a new 'z' keytop and the shifts getting 'foreign' parts. These look out of place rather (to me). So the one little thing to properly fix this one up again would be some correct pattern keyrings for the shifts and a new 'z' key. Or keep the thing as 'parts' of course.

First up a slow, long, thorough de-gunking!