The Typewriter Chronicles

The Lost Safari

Today I repaired a less than perfect Royal Safari typewriter. At first glance it didn't look like anything was seriously wrong, but once I opened it up for a closer look I realized the paper release lever was loose. The line advancement was also not working but that might have been because it didn't have a good grip of the paper due to the paper bail essentially being stuck open.  

 

Once I got it open I realized that these cams didn't make contact and I had to re-tighten the nut onto the mechanism to get it to essentially re-make contact with the lever, once I tightened the nut it worked again! It was a simple fix but finding what was wrong was a huge process considering I know very little about fixing typewriters. 

 I would not have been able to find this out without the help from the people on the Discord or the wonderful tear-down video that the Hotrod typewriter co. did regarding this model of typewriter which I greatly appreciated because it helped me greatly in disassembly and visualizing how everything worked. I will say that the typewriter community has been very nice and welcoming and helpful when it comes to any help ive needed diagnosing any issues Ive had with any machines i've purchased, especially since i'm not a technician by any means. I feel as if I've tinkered with enough machines now that i could at least be considered a bit of a tinkerer though haha.  

 

 

 

Honestly once I got it figured out and realized it actually fixed the problem felt amaze amaze amaze! I thoroughly enjoy fixing things and with typewriters having the advantage of being fully mechanical makes it much more satisfying because most of the issues will be fixes like that so anything is possible in the world of typewriters which is why I think I've grown to love it. 

 

Now for the fun part, a type sample, drum roll please!

 

The Typewriter Chronicles

 The Typewriter Chronicles

The moody Olympia Splendid 33

I recently got this Olympia Splendid 33 in the mail, it has a mixed keyboard layout with both Spanish and German keys, its very interesting which is why i picked it up for my collection, that and it was fairly cheap on marketplace, so i couldn't resist. It says its been serviced by a typewriter company, so i don't think it was a factory option from whoever owned this machine before me.  

 

 

The only hiccup with it is that the margins seem to be having an issue, so I opened it up to investigate, and for some reason the bell doesn't seem to want to ring as well, which could be a problem related to my findings once I opened it up. Another issue it seems to be having although its not as consistent is that it doesn't seem to enjoy ringing the bell every time, its very moody when it does it or not, I'm not exactly sure how I would go about fixing that issue even though its not major, although I guess neither of these issues are major, the mighty typewriter works almost perfectly. 

 

 

This margin tab came loose and was rattling around in the machine, which explains why the left margin seems to be busted, i cant find a way to put it back without it slipping off so I'm thinking I have to solder it on or something but im not too confident in my skills in that regard so i might ignore it for now. 

 

Another thing i noticed once the machine was open is that this bar (not sure the technical name for it) was loose, seemingly whatever screw or metal link that held it in place became loose from what I'm assuming was too much force at some point, my solution for now is to just not mess with the left margin at all, but i do need to replace that bar with something later on hopefully there's good options for it I'm not too sure.  

Type Sample (Original Ribbon)