A happy accident, and a silly accident.

As they say in science: You always learn from failure, but rarely learn from success. And really the only people that will ever tell you otherwise tend to be the kind that shove the word 'Success' into almost everything, and charge $1000 for tickets to their 'motivational success seminar'.

However, I digress.

I had a bit of a modern technology fail yesterday. Via Email I chided Robert Messenger for his 'Pointless Tippa', with a post that was dripping with eye-rolling.

The problem was that I actually meant to write 'paint less', but the iPhone I was typing on while sitting back and enjoying the cool afternoon air outside of the hospital I work at decided that 'pointless' seemed my accurate. This was simply because I didn't put a space between the words. 

Rob's been on my facebook long enough to have probably seen me intentionally and subtly twist words when I'm in a bad mood to deride a politician or public figure. And on a really bad day, close friends. 

A few hours later Rob politely replied that he'd figured out that I had meant 'paint-less', but I suspect he might have been originally a bit taken aback. And rightly so, even if it was far from my intention.

The really annoying thing about this was that I actually had my Gossen Tippa in front of me at the time; a device that would have not re-translated me for my reader, and just left the mistake in all of its much more readable glory. 

Thanks Apple developers. Thanks a heap. And again, sorry about that Rob. 

Anyway.... 

There are sometimes happy accidents. 

If you recall I bought a Royal Portable typewriter with the intention of using it for parts to get my Royal Chrome back to life. However, when push come to shove I wasn't able to use that machine to do so. Subsequently the typewriter has sat idle in a box, in its quite worn and inglorious state rather unused and unloved. 

One evening I had a bit of a brain-fart and I decided that this structurally sound but beaten and battered old machine, could used for a very special and particular purpose. And so the fate of this machine was decided during a bout of insomnia. 

The next day I immediately set about working on this machine. The nickel on much of the typewriter's adornments was in very poor shape, and so I decided to try and strip the damaged nickel off the key-rings and other pieces of the typewriter. 

Some time back I had been investigating how to strip chrome off parts easily and I read a suggestion that chrome can be removed by soaking it in Coke for a period. Coke eats away the chromium oxide, and leaves the nickel undercoating behind. 

Everyone that had attempted this had detailed how a nickel coat was left behind, so it was pretty clear coke wasn't going to eat through nickel, or at least wouldn't be as useful in removing it. But I decided I was going to try it anyway and see what would result. 

Most of the metal stripping from the typewriter remained un affected by the coke. As it was, it too heavily worn for anything to happen anyway. However, something very unexpected happened with the key rings. 

A corroded key ring.

I'm sure most collectors have seen these rings looking quite damaged before. When I was repairing the rings on my Royal Chrome, I spent a good hour or so just rubbing the surface of these down with a piece of 0000-steel wool and Silvo, to try and get them shining up nicely again. It actually took a lot of work, and was frustratingly fidgety. 

This time around I threw about a dozen of these into a ziplock bag and poured coke in with them in the hope of maybe removing the nickel, then I left them in the bag on the windowsill for 24 hours. However that also turned out to be something of a failure. I drained the coke out and dropped the rings onto the table, and despondently looked at the corroded rings in front of me. 

By this stage I had other ideas, so I decided to prep the rings for my next experiment. I needed to get the coke off the rings before they went a bit sticky, so I grabbed a cloth and just started to wipe them dry. 

Then something unexpected happened. 

Without any real effort the corrosion just wiped off. I'm not saying hard rubbing, scouring or grinding. It literally just wiped off as though I was wiping dirt off. 

I immediately attempted to repeat this experiment with a bit of a variation, with some more of the rings. I dipped them in for about 5 minutes, and then tried to wipe them off. The corrosion remained steadfast and defiant.

So I threw them into a bag again and then sat them in a coke bath overnight. To my joy the experiment was repeated successfully. At this point I threw the rest into the bag and soaked them, then forgot about them for... oh, two weeks.

It was at this point that I discovered that one of the rings had been replaced with a chrome plated one. The shape of the ring was slightly different to the others, so I should have realised earlier. And true to the information I had gained from the internet, the ring was stripped of its chrome which left a dull and slightly brassy coloured finish. Mind you, the finish is still nicer to look at than the corrosion. 

I told John Lavery and Steve Snow about my findings, and in true form John's response was quick and witty. "You know what you've learned from this, don't you? Don't drink Coke"! 

I saw on Teeritz's blog that he was working on one of these machine recently, and attempting to remove the rings. I posted a quick mention of the coke soaking in his comments, as it may save him a lot of pain. I'm now trying to figure out what other parts I can experiment on, to see what may result. 

Now.... Let's get back to trying to finish that project of mine. 

Round 2 (of 3) - Scott v's the Royal P

Round 2 - Scott v's the Royal P. The Royal strikes back. 

For those that missed round 1, it can be found - here.

Warning: This blog entry is rated MA - for mature audiences. 
*Occasional coarse language. Which has nominally been bleeped out for you protection.
*Low level violence.
*Frequent bad movie references.

The relative peace from my earlier days was now broken, and the fighting had become heavy and brutal. The battle of wills between the chrome Royal P and myself was now becoming intense. Tools and parts lay strewn across the battlefield. Blood and been shed numerous times from my fingers, and my battle-cry had become a single word that started with an 'F'.

I tried to asses if the escapement on the royal was repairable, but the Royal P clutched it firmly in its heart and I couldn't pry the thing from the grip of the rapidly deteriorating screws. It seemed hopeless.

I attempted to ease off the pressure on the draw band one afternoon, in the hope that it would allow the escapement to catch. But my attempt to do so ended in the bloodiest battle of this war. As I released the spring, the coil inside the drum erupted and shattered inside. I heard the spring implode with gusto, and then sound like a baby's rattle as the pieces flung about internally. The initial crackling sound it made as it gave out was as surprising as much as it was sickening.

It was like I had been punched in the chest. I sat back and caught my breath, before letting out a long and pained battle cry - that also happened to start with an 'F'. 

I gripped the platen tight and raised it above my head, and hollered: "You can take my Main-spring. But you will never take my FREEEDOOOOOOM". 

And then I dropped the platen onto myself, and further worsened my dignity injury.

*SIGH*

So the decision was made to seek out a possible parts machine, or a machine for transplanting. I remember Robert Messenger talking about how Royal didn't make a lot of changes to their machines after the first Royal P, so I pulled out my old black Royal that I had restored back to working order some months before, and had a bit of a cursory look to see if there could possibly be a way of using parts from a later model. 

The Black Royal - repair in progress.

It was around this point that I observed that the frame on my Royal Arro, and the frame on my chrome Royal P were pretty much identical in their structure. I looked at the anchor points below the frame, around the ribbon covers, and leading out to the keyboard. Structurally it was very similar. Even the clearances on this segment shifted machine's carriage and basket appeared to be a good fit. 

I didn't want to destroy my black Royal, so I didn't pull it apart to see if I could do it. Instead, I powered up eBay and gumtree and had a good, hard look any kind of cheapish Royal portable typewriter of this era. 

28 days later......

I awoke one morning to see my iPhone screen blink with emails shooting along its face. Blue icons with blurry white text that I couldn't read flooded the black glass. I put my glasses on, and the white text came sharply into focus.

Ebay: You have won!

Ebay: Invoice for....
Ebay: Please pay for your item. 

Ebay: The seller has contacted you. 

"Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn" I said as I rolled back over and went back to sleep. It was a Saturday. Saturdays are not typewriters on eBay days. Well, not Saturday morning at any rate.

The typewriter in question was an identical machine to my Black Royal - right down to the "Made in the British Empire" decal being stuck on the front at a haphazard angle. The machine was rusty and crusty, and looked like it was looking forward to retirement, but I was sure I could rejuvenate the mechanical side of it and get it going again. 

On Sunday, the seller was contacted. Addresses and phone-numbers were exchanged, and I organized a time and a date to get to the sellers house. I didn't want to collect late evening, so they gave me a 30 minute window of opportunity to collect the typewriter from 4pm on the Monday. I finished work at 3:30pm that day, so it was going to be a little tight getting to their place in time. 

Enter Roxanne:

I chose my speediest traffic-dodging vehicle for the task: Roxanne the motorbike. I always have Occy-straps at the ready on the bike, so it wasn't going to be a problem transporting the machine on the luggage rack. I had a blissfully chilled ride to work in the morning, and everything seemed to be going to plan. But by the afternoon I was anxiously looking at the BOM site radar, as I could see something that looked like a storm coming across 'the range', near Toowoomba. 

Expecting the worst, I shuffled through the cupboards at work for a plastic bag that would be big enough to cover the typewriter. Much to my dismay the biggest I had, that didn't have holes in it or would dissolve in water was a big yellow clinical waste bag that had several huge bio-hazard symbols on it. Not to worry... It was only there as a 'just in case'. I was pretty sure I had plenty of time before the storm hit.

I stuffed my earbuds into my ears, put my helmet on, and Ilet Karen - the voice on my TOMTOM app, direct me to the address. Unfortunately some of the roads leading to the seller's house were still being reconstructed after the 2011 floods, and as such I had to sort of find my own detour. Time was starting to look very tight, but eventually I got there.

I was given several tips by the seller about how to use a typewriter (Really? You turn the knob which turns the big rubber roller to put paper in? Who knew! The lever is the return key? Fancy that!) before long money was exchanged, and the sale was done. I had mere minutes left of the allotted time, and I was pretty happy to have got the transaction done. Meanwhile, what apperred to be an army of children had surrounded me to check out this typewriter.

I strapped the Royal onto the back of my bike... Took a photo for blogging purposes, and then took off, with Karen again in my ears - telling me how to get home. 

Rev it up, Rev it up, little boy and ride.... Or write. Your choice.

 I sped and weaved through traffic with the greatest of ease. Over my left shoulder I could see the storm clouds closing in, but I sighed with relief as soon as I when back on a familiar road, and ever so close to home. There was a traffic jam at some roadworks, but no matter... I just darted around them. I was stopped at a set of lights, looking down the length of a very busy main road - unaware that tragedy was about to strike. 

As always, it is something small and unexpected that starts the tragedy. In this case, it was an itch on my neck. As I took off from the lights, I accelerated hard ahead of the traffic. I felt my engine sputter a little, but it still accelerated just fine - until I took my hand off the accelerator to scratch that itch. 

The engine just simply shut down, dead. Deader than a dead parrot. Deader than the main-spring on my Royal P. Deader than the sales of the HIghlander 2 DVD. (gosh, that really was a sh*t movie). 

I coasted to the side of the road, put the kickstand down and told myself 'don't panic'. Just then a Vogon starship..... oh wait..... 

I tried to start it again a few times, let the engine dry out from being flooded and then tried to start it again. No good. I popped off the seat, checked the fuses and found they were fine. I wiggled them a bit, tried to start the engine, and still didn't get any life.

So, I popped out the tools from the little caddy on the side of the bike, and pulled out the spark plugs to see if I was getting any spark. No spark... nothing. I checked the spark  making box thingy (how's that for a technical term) and all connections were fine. I resolved that the magic little black box itself must be shot. 

A guy on a Triumph Boneville, suavely parked his bike next to mine. Small drops of rain started to gently patter down around to us, and he asked me if he could help. He was a member of the 59 club, and was on his way to a meet. We both stood there looking at my motorbike, talking dirty finger-nails and trying to look as manly as possible without scratching our balls. 

"I don't actually know anything about the mechanics of a motorbike. I hope you know what you're doing" he eventually said. "But I can offer you a lift". I politely declined, he gave me a card for the club and suggested that I should look them up "when you get it (Roxanne) working again", and then took off into the slightly spitting weather. 

My bike was going to need to be towed. I didn't have the number for the tow guy in my phone, so I called up Ms Jane - who just happened to also be riding today, and had used the guys towing services a couple of times in the past. "You'll need cash", she reminded me on the phone. "About $100. He only takes cash. I'll message his number to you. Are you near an ATM"? Jane was always aware that I never carried much cash, and usually used EFTPOS for most transactions. 

The spitting rain started to turn into random fat drops of rain, and I could see that I was mere minutes away from a tropical down-pour. I reached into my bag and pulled out the big yellow Clinical Waste bag, and dropped the typewriter into it for protection from the elements, before strapping it back onto my bike. As I did so, I noticed the heavy traffic on the road near me started to slow even further. It seems that a big yellow bio-hazard symbol with bold lettering saying "Clinical waste" under it, is a bit of a head-turner. "Oh well" I thought, "at least no one was going to steal it".

I began to walk towards the Warner shopping center, which was about 1.5km back up the road. I HATE the Warner shopping center, but there was no avoiding it. You will never find a more wrenched hive of scum and villany. But I needed folding money. Just as I started to walk, the sky opened up with the fury of as much rain as it could possibly drop, and I was soaked to my toes within minutes. 

It took me 45 minutes to walk to the Warner shopping center and back, all the while I walked along a muddy roadside strip (because no one uses footpaths in Warner, as no one walks) and I was as miserable as I could possibly be. People - stunned at seeing someone 'walking' were yelling abuse at me from their cars. The traffic had slowed right down now (mostly because of the roadworks, partly because of my bio-hazard typewriter), and had a prolonged period of having to cop sh*t from lengthy row of Warner bogans in rust-bucket racers with big stereos, big exhausts, and a big complex about their small penises.

Somewhere... there was an in-bred kid playing a banjo. Or, knowing Warner, a plastic guitar and guitar hero.

I got the cash, walked back, and was surprised to not have received the number from Jane on my phone yet. So I called her.

"Where are you"? she asked.
"I'm about a K or so past Warner Tavern".

"Ohhhh" I could hear a whince in her voice "Funny the message didn't go through. I'll be there soon. Could you have picked a better spot?".
I could hear traffic noises around her, and I could tell that she was talking on her head-set while she was on her motorbike.

The rain started to ease a little as I waited, and then just stopped. Jane, on her big and shiny Yamaha V-Star pulled up next to me - virtually dry, and briefly looked at the Clinical waste bag with a confused look, before asking me what had happened.

"Show me it starting again" She said. So I did. I had put the bike back together, so I just sat on it, put the key in and gave it an attempted rev. Jane twiddled the accelerator for a bit, and then looked at the kill switch to the left of it.

"When did you turn this off" she asked while pointing to the switch. I looked, and saw that the switch was indeed to the 'off' position - which typically kills the engine dead.
"Eeeerm... I didn't switch that off" I replied. I turned the switch to on, gave the engine a bit of a squirt, and the bike again roared back to life. When I had lifted my hand to scratch that itch earlier, I must have accidentally knocked the switch. 

I again let out my Battle-cry starting an 'f', while Jane looked at me with a little bit of frustration. I on the other hand felt like an utter dickhead. We rode home, and I could see Jane shaking her head from time to time as I looked at her in the mirrors. 

I got home and sat the Royal out on the back deck of the house to inspect it. 

The machine had seen much better days. A fair bit of the chrome had flaked off, and parts of the typewriter were pretty dirt filled. But it wasn't horribly rusty, and the machine actually worked really well. This would have to be my first ever Royal portable that arrived in fully operating condition. 

A few days later I pulled the shell off the machine, and attempted to put the shell from the chrome Royal onto it. As I had estimated, the frame was almost a perfect fit - except of course for one very crucial difference. As I wrapped the shell around the frame, it seemed to end about 5mm to short. As it turns out, Royal were still using the same identical frame as the Royal P, but had welded an extra piece of metal onto the back of the typewriter, to give the shell at the rear a little more clearance - in order to keep it looking flush with the shell that was bolted onto the carriage. 

I was so... very, very close! I could just cut the metal off. The frame structure for the Royal P was still there, located behind a tack-welded piece of sheet-metal!. All I had to do was grind off the extra pieces, drill 4 holes and tap them, and I could have my chrome Royal working! With nicer, smoother black keys!

But I couldn't do it. I couldn't just 'chop' up a machine that still had plenty to offer. I knew I could use parts from both the original machine, and the newer one, and get a pretty awesome typewriter out of it. But I couldn't just kill off a great working Royal.

And it IS a great Royal. I bolted the shell back on, cleaned and serviced it and scrubbed up the metal a little while getting rid of the dirty bits and the corrosion. I now have two identical Royal typewriters, and I have no idea what to do with either of them. Does anyone want a Royal? No, seriously.

The chrome Royal was going to have to wait. I packed it up into a box, and dropped it down with a few other project machines. 

But it wasn't a long wait. About a month later I eyed off a Royal P on ebay with a shell in shockingly bad condition. If there ever was a machine that was born to be a donor. It was this one. I tapped in a figure into and hit enter and waited for the auction to finish.... Hoping no one else would bid.

But that's another story. 

Coming up in Round 3 - Scott v's the Royal P:

I fight with eBay buyers and sellers. 

Then do some rather painful work getting my chrome Royal back together.

And I add a special tool to my typewriter repair kit.

Round 1: Scott v's The Royal P

Warning: This blog entry is rated MA - for mature audiences. 
*Occasional coarse language. Which has nominally been bleeped out for you protection.
*Low level violence.
*Frequent bad movie references. 

This war, like all wars, started in a period of relative peace. I like relative peace. It is so peaceful in a relative way that I almost lull myself into a sense of security, before I snap myself out of it - in anticipation of the next major crisis. 

And no, I haven't built a bunker for the impending 2012 disaster and filled it with cans of Spam, beans and Camp Pie. I don't have to... I have still have the one set up for the millennium bug disaster. I rented it out to Harold Camping briefly last year, but he left it in almost perfect condition and I haven't seen him since. 

It was in this relative peacetime that I took a trip down to Canberra. While I was there Robert Messenger gave me two beautiful typewriters. A Bijou 5 and a chromed Royal P. 

 The beautiful Palestinian Bijou. 

The Royal P from hell. 

Both machines are stunningly beautiful. The Royal P in person is one of the most amazingly beautiful machines I have ever seen. With gleaming glass keys along with its chromed body, this machine looks so sharp, I feared touching it for ending up with bloodied fingers

Both machines have their problems. The Bijou's are simple and straight-forward. The Royal however, had a few faults that were likely to need some more serious attention. While Robert and I were talking at his house, he implied that the machine would need a complete teardown and rebuild. I felt this was a touch extreme, but i suspected that thee machine's frame - or at least internals, were somewhat warped.

The shell wasn't lining up with the body and some of the type bars were raised in the segment - but not as a result of being jammed with muck. The reason wasn't immediately obvious.

Also, the carriage wouldn't stay put. When the carriage moved closer to the middle of the unit, it would suddenly take off - before the escapement came back into play a couple of inches later, and the typewriter seemed to start operating again in typical fashion.

Outside of that most of the screws holding the body onto the machine were missing, as were a couple of springs that lock down the ribbon covers. The rubber feet were non-existant. On the plus side the platen appeared to have been re-covered sometime in the last 20 years, and although it showed signs of lots of typing activity it was still very nice and rubbery.

Looking at the machine from the front, I should have known what was going to come next. This machine is trouble - under the stunning supermodel looks was a machine with an attitude of pure ugliness. It was the epitome of the phrase "Beauty is only skin deep".

As I looked at the machine it felt as though the middle type bar was raised that little more than the others intentionally. Surely this machine wasn't giving me 'the finger'? Typewriters don't flip the bird...

But can I tell you folks... The machine damn well was giving me the same big 'f**k you' as I suspect it had given the previous ambitious repairers before me.

The day after I got back from Canberra I extracted the machine from its case. The case had been a huge problem the day before, and had taken Robert roughly quarter of an hour to find a case that would hold the machine. Even then, it refused to be locked into the case properly, and I had stuffed bubble wrap around it to give a level of protection. Unfortunately I had to shift a lot of that bubble wrap at the airport  so that the security team could 'bomb check' it.

It put up a bit of a fight at the airport, and had almost tumbled onto the floor. The same thing happened at home the next day. Eventually I managed to get it out of the case, and I plopped it onto the top of cupboard nearest my desk.

I inspected it for a while and started to take a note of some of the faults. As I did the escapement seemed to loosen up somehow and the machine launched its carriage into my face, almost hitting my eye. Surprised by this, I recoiled away from the machine. The carriage slipped a tiny notch along its escapement by itself before once again engaging and sitting silently.

I felt like Rocky. This was going to be a tough repair, but if I played eye of the tiger often enough and ran up and down the stairs a few times (my tools were in the shed down stairs) eventually this movie would end in my triumph. I'd raise my hands in victory and call out through my numb but joyous face "ADRIAN! ADRIAN!"

I pushed the carriage back to the middle again, and felt the escapement travel with the machine perfectly. I let go of it, and less than a second later the carriage launched itself left again, but only a few stops.

"You little prick" I muttered quietly, before continuing: "So this is how you're going to play, huh"? 

I grabbed the machine and flipped it onto it's tail to inspect the underside of the machine. I couldn't see any misalignment, nor could I find any broken springs, levers or teeth. I rotated the machine back over onto the steel bolts that it is currently using as feet, and scratched my head a little. 

I turned the machine around and looked down the rails from the right hand side (spring loaded part away from my eye) and carefully released the escapement and slid the carriage. Again, I could not observe any major fault, even when I tapped on the space-bar and keys. 

Again I looked at the machine from the front of the keyboard, and started to thank about how I could dismantle it to have a better look. I tapped the space bar and keys roughly and..... 

"CRUNCH". 

The carriage raced across to the left and slammed against the right margin. A small black piece of something shot out the side of the machine and skidded across the surface of the cupboard. 

It was clear what this was. My opponent had now moved beyond the trash talk - the "F**k you" finger raising, and after copping a few whacks - had just spat out a loose tooth at me. It was ready for a fight. 

The sound that it made as the part skipped across the table told me instantly that his wasn't rubber or plastic. It was metal... cold and hard metal. Crucial part kind of metal.

Yes. You know what this is, don't you. I bet you do.

I kept a calm face. I was not going to show any fear to this machine. But on the inside I was saying "F**K F*K F**K F**K F**K F**K F**K F**K F**K F**K F**K F**K F**KETY F**K, YOU F**KING F**K-F**K".

I knew what this piece was. It was a tooth off the escapement wheel which was located deep in the middle of the machine. This part is as difficult to get to, as it is to find a replacement for.

There was a moment of silence between me and the machine. Till I leaned over and spoke quietly to it. 

"I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for typewriters like you. If you play good now, that'll be the end of it. I will not dismantle you, I will not transplant you. But if you don't, I will find you, and I will kill you"

I slid the carriage back to the centre, but the escapement almost immediately slipped a little... Just a little... 

And with that  I reached my hands in (with the aid of a screwdriver or two) and tore out the machine's still beating heart - the platen. Screws and knobs lay strewn across my table, and I held the platen in my fist above the typewriter to show it what I had done. It sat there with its mouth wide open - almost in shock.

I grabbed the filthy and cracked platen from another Royal I was working on and drove it into place of the original platen. I screwed it all back together again before looking at the machine and saying with malevolence; "There you are - the ugliness on the outside now reflects the madness that you have on the inside. You shall wear that scar to remind you - every day - that you have crossed the wrong repairer".

And with that, I shoved the chrome Royal back into its case, and locked it into the cupboard. 

I had promised Rob that I would repair this machine. And repair it I shall. But I know the battle has only just begun, and this war of egos will eventually come to a head because this town isn't big enough for the two of us. 

The first battle was a draw, but the war has begun. 

P.S. Has anyone got a trashed Royal portable or some kind? 

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