Post by scrapaddict702 on Jan 11, 2017 22:53:53 GMT
I searched high and low for over 2 years for a typewriter and finally found one in the midst of my scraproom remodel last year. I was beyond excited but had to wait months to use it until my room was put back together. I had a blast when I first started using it but it slowly became more trouble than it was worth. Constantly it was misaligning the last letter in a long sentence or starting at the wrong point by a few spaces and one spool of ribbon just wanted to unwind like crazy. Today, I decided to give it a go with a new ribbon and the mechanism that lowers and lifts the ribbon to allow the letter to strike ink onto the paper kept jamming and wadding up the ribbon. Wd40 did nothing...I tinkered for a bit and the mechanism there that you pinch to change to ribbon was swinging freely on one side (shouldn't be) and there are some other issues, mostly on the left side. Upside is that I can take it apart and mess with it more and since it can't really work any worse, if I can't put it back together or solve the problem, oh well. But it looks like my search starts over. I am soooo sad.
ETA - So I paid probably more than I should have for a replacement (it was the only thing that fit my criteria and I was really sad my first one broke after so little use) not long after this post and of course, now there is one for less than I paid of a similar machine on Craigslist, lol. However, aside from a few quirks, the one works really well. I would waste almost an entire piece of letter paper trying to get a few sentences written with my old one...I always thought it was user error. I still struggle a bit at typing slowly and do mess up here and there but I've managed to get more use in 2 PL pages with the new one than I ever successfully typed with the old one. I would sit and optimistically envision what I wanted and after an hour, I'd get pissed off, fight off tears and give up or push my way through while desperate for it to work properly. Not so with this one. The few quirks are easily dealt with or add character to what I'm typing. The space bar likes to stick the first few times you press it but is fine after that and the letters like to ghost where the next character strikes which tends to go away the longer I write in one sitting. I also don't have to be so hard on the keys with this one and I'm still adjusting to it because I got used to having to pound the crap out of the keys on the last one (I keep busting holes in paper when I add punctuation...oops).
Oh and I'm also putting an offer up on the other one listed (it popped up the day after I bought this one and still hasn't sold...it's also only a few miles away, I had to drive 30 minutes out of the way for this one)...if they take the offer, it will be cheaper than I paid for the first one and I'll have the spare that I wanted.
For anyone curious, I ended up with a Smith-Corona Galaxie Twelve. My first was a Royal Safari.
ETA - So I paid probably more than I should have for a replacement (it was the only thing that fit my criteria and I was really sad my first one broke after so little use) not long after this post and of course, now there is one for less than I paid of a similar machine on Craigslist, lol. However, aside from a few quirks, the one works really well. I would waste almost an entire piece of letter paper trying to get a few sentences written with my old one...I always thought it was user error. I still struggle a bit at typing slowly and do mess up here and there but I've managed to get more use in 2 PL pages with the new one than I ever successfully typed with the old one. I would sit and optimistically envision what I wanted and after an hour, I'd get pissed off, fight off tears and give up or push my way through while desperate for it to work properly. Not so with this one. The few quirks are easily dealt with or add character to what I'm typing. The space bar likes to stick the first few times you press it but is fine after that and the letters like to ghost where the next character strikes which tends to go away the longer I write in one sitting. I also don't have to be so hard on the keys with this one and I'm still adjusting to it because I got used to having to pound the crap out of the keys on the last one (I keep busting holes in paper when I add punctuation...oops).
Oh and I'm also putting an offer up on the other one listed (it popped up the day after I bought this one and still hasn't sold...it's also only a few miles away, I had to drive 30 minutes out of the way for this one)...if they take the offer, it will be cheaper than I paid for the first one and I'll have the spare that I wanted.
For anyone curious, I ended up with a Smith-Corona Galaxie Twelve. My first was a Royal Safari.
