Typewriter Escapement Repair

[@ianrobbins]

Whenever I see the insides of typewriters I experience a sensation of awe and wonder what it must have taken for our civilization to engineer these machines. And then I consider the potential use Joe Van Cleeve's videos may have for future generations trying to rebuild after a gkobal calamity.

[@douglasjackson9058]

Joe... thankyou, thankyou, thankyou. Escapements are my Achilles heal. This is a wonderful video. I know so much work goes into the making of these videos. I sure appreciate all your time and work. Very.. creative 😃

[@Nick215NY]

Joe, I gotta say that you could've taken out the part of the escapement you wanted to work on merely by loosening the two pivot screws on either end of the rocking dog plate; you didn't need to pull the whole star wheel out or unhitch those springs....

[@BobFalkenstein]

Excellent video. Your lighting and closeups are perfect. Thank you for the effort.

[@tmunk]

Nice work! I bet those buffer pads become the curse of Smith-Coronas like the rubber buffer washers on Olympia SM's that are always smashed and cause problems. Something easy to fix, but inevitably *has* to be done eventually because rubber doesn't last forever..

[@dadtype2339]

Hi Joe, Very cool here, and helping the school, one of the blessings of the Smith Corona is they're all the same and very easy to work on. I've checked my Galaxie Deluxe and thankfully that rubber bit in mine is fine, course I suspect the example I have had one owner and he/she took very good care of it, and didn't use it all the time. Dug it out to write a friend, as I was able to leave the bed. Now im recovering from a procedure and its back to the EP-20 and 43, although I tend to use the 20 in the day and 43 at night, I have been favoring the 43. The ability to do Auto Return AND keep typing while the carriage is in the process of a return is just too good to pass up. Thank you for all the recent posts, really enjoy them. Also before my return to Castle Bed, lol, and I had the Galaxy out, I looked up Old newspaper (North East West South People and Places Event Report if you ever wondered what Newspaper meant read that in a reader's digest eyons ago.) Old Newspaper and using some yellowed paper, I used a metal ruler and a pin to draw out the boxes and did reproduction typing the 1906 report on San Francisco Earthquake. Though not as exciting perhaps as Military field work and reports, but this was pretty interesting and came out pretty good. With a cup of coffee I tried to get into character and imagined what this must have been like, unfortunately I do not have a typewriter from that era, to fully complete the tast, however, I was born and raised in CA San Francisco East Bay and a survivor of the 1989 Earthquake. I do not care what they say, it lasted longer that 3 seconds lol, cars were jumping, telephone poles were dancing at least a min or two. Man we had no water for weeks, my Dad was smart and collected water immediately from the taps and after it was over he dashed out to the garage and emptied the water heater. Thankfully we did a lot of camping and had a camping stove, I remember the power was off for a week or so as well, no restaurant was open, and our next door neighbor, us as well as a few other people rolled out the propane grills and broke out the meets in freezers while still good and right there up and down the sidewalk of my neighborhood I remember it looked and smelled so good like street vendors but it was neat to see a community pull together and help each other out, helping to feed families, and this went on for a few days crazy to think there were even camp fires in controled pits in the front yards, I had a tear in my eyes seeing ny Dad and out neighbors all cooking all of us pulling together, I have not seen anything like that, well not cooking and not to that extent, but Im also a survivor of the Florence Hurricane, and when the power was out I had this Off brand Panda company Washer for camping I ised as I lived for about 2 years in a Scamp trailer and Brother let me tell you, they are not good for winder camping lol woke up frozen in my bag...well anyway, I brought that washer that was prettbeat for a little plastic thing, to my Wife's family home and using the generator was able to do laundry, the neighbors offered fuel to wash and a bardering system quickly formed and few more people had one we all were washing and singing hymnals thankful Florence dropped to a 3/4 and didn't stay the category 5 as predicted. Ill look look at doing some reproductive typing based on something in the mid 60s as that's what my machins are in my collection so far 72 as well. My best to you Joe, Happy Weekend and Cheers my friend!

[@Joe_VanCleave]

You have some remarkable memories that would make great stories.

[@dadtype2339]

@@Joe_VanCleave thank you my friend I do write. Working on several stories now. Best thing to do while I'm stuck in bed. Although there are days I can't even do that.

[@AtelierDBurgoyne]

Did you use rubber from a tire tube? Or does it need to be stiffer? Thanks for a well explained procedure.

[@Joe_VanCleave]

I cut it from a thin sheet of rubber that I’d bought a few years ago as an experimental rubber backing sheet for hard platens. I think an inner tube rubber would work too.