problems with ye olde typewriter

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anyone in ilx know a thing or two about typewriter maintenance? specifically, the type of maintenance that pertains to an ibm selectric II?

the space bar on my selectric (recently purchased over ebay and shipped, apparently, by a small child with little knowledge of the physical world) often has trouble advancing the carriage at all, and especially at certain points where there seams to be a lot of friction in the pulleys or something. when i'm typing, the letters all bunch up at these spots as well. these spots occur in every line, at the same distance from the margin. all of a sudden the space and tab don't advance the carriage, and the words i type are all smushed together.

what do i need to lube/take apart?

and p.s. what do i lube to keep the z key from sticking?

the selectric is a thing a beauty, regardless.

― Mark Danjer (Danjer), Wednesday, 19 April 2006 21:59 (twenty years ago)

i don't know but i bet you'd like to read about martin tytell

― Tracey Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 19 April 2006 22:03 (twenty years ago)

http://staff.xu.edu/~polt/typewriters/tw-repair.html

― gbx (skowly), Wednesday, 19 April 2006 22:06 (twenty years ago)

This is approaching HStencil/Ian territory, Gbx.

― Laurel (Laurel), Wednesday, 19 April 2006 22:09 (twenty years ago)

shit, i don't have an atlantic membership. who's martin tytell?

― Mark Danjer (Danjer), Wednesday, 19 April 2006 22:26 (twenty years ago)

er i don't either! you can't see the site? well, google him or use ILX's search function, he's basically the guy that 1) confirmed the unabomber was the unabomber (by looking at his typewriter) 2) worked the alger hiss case and 3) created the world's first cursive-style typewriter, for mamie eisenhower, who wanted her secretary to be able to type up invitations to parties that looked elegant - among 1,000,000,000 similar crazy achievements. his son still runs his shop downtown in new york which is piled high to the ceiling with type from ukraine, egypt etc, and stuffed with every model of typing machine you can imagine, it's like a little ad-hoc museum of type down there

― Tracey Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 19 April 2006 22:36 (twenty years ago)

fourteen years pass...

1957 Remington manual. Wait till you see what comes out of this thing. pic.twitter.com/LKmmVkCzne
— Dennis Perrin (@DennisThePerrin) August 3, 2020

― brooklyn suicide cult (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 4 August 2020 02:52 (five years ago)

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