In Mechanica Antiqua

It was cool, it had just rained, and no blue streaks made their way through the dense cloudy sky.  Not the best weather for an outing...though it wasn’t like Chicago was ever chock full of nice-weather days.  Lucky for me, I love it when it rains, and after it rains.  Sure it’s muddy and wet, but a wet ground gives you better contrast, especially when your subject matter is mostly concrete and brick. I shut the car door and slung my camera over my shoulder.  Me and my friend stood in the shipment lot of some large packaging facility.  It would have been preferable to us to go someplace obscure, but schedules, traffic, and a plethora of other things deemed it necessary to start small.  Several large trucks drove by, paying no heed to us, despite how blindingly out of place we must have looked.  A small railroad track, unused, ran parallel to a muddy section of the Chicago river.  It was where the river and the track met, that this triangular grassy area was formed, and beyond th

I have heard of many people using auto wax on their machines to give them a nicer finish.  Thought it would be a good idea to try, given the fact that my typewriters look like they survived an apocalypse.  Went to the store this weekend to pick up a tub of turtle wax.  It had an interesting consistency, akin to half-turned butter, and it smelt like fruit cool-aid.  Against my better judgment, I tasted it.  Don’t do that. One might say that I’ve been “blessed” with many eccentricities...perhaps that’s the reason my social circle is more of a social point (mathematically speaking) or a social singularity if that makes sense. Anyways, moving on from my carnal desire to see what auto wax tastes like.... I also removed all the main body panels on my Royal 10, and Portable Model.  Panic gripped me momentarily as I discovered that I had misplaced the tiny pin that holds in the margin release key. I did find it eventually, it helped to put on my glasses.  It was them rub, buff, an

A Fox #5 from 1905, purchased from a key-chopper by  D. Seaver One of the major downfalls of the typewriter was not the rise of the personal computer, but the recent intere st in the "steampunk movement."  I have nothing against this style, or the people who create unique pieces in it.  What I don't like, and what many people don't like, are the people who cut the keys off of old typewriters.   They target the oldest and rarest of machines and strip away the interface between the fingers and the page, leaving the rest to rot in a waste bin. Rather then restoring them and letting them survive to educate another generation, to be allowed to continue their purpose which they were so carefully crafted to do, they are crudely dismantled and ruined. Above is a picture of an early 1900 upstrike typewriter.  Rare enough on its own, machines like these are usually the victims, with their charming glass keytops.  It is in fully restoreable condition, however the distin