It’s really an over-asked question: What do you use your typewriter for?. (tl;dr: writing). To make things more interesting and entertaining in the middle of the week, let’s turn it on its ear and ask only for the wrong answers today.
Whether it’s use in food preparation:
- Throw a slab of steak into the segment and pound away for a bit until well tenderized. Then insert into oven at 400 degrees F until it’s medium rare and you’ve got some excellent typebar grill marks.
Environmental reasons:
- Creation of new coral reefs for the fishes (aka 1930s Norwegian Typewriter Olympics: Shot put competition)
Or attempting to cleverly camouflage your 57th machine acquisition from your partner:
- When you’ve got too many and you need them to be useful in other ways, you turn a Royal KMM into a decorative door stop.
Send us your favorite personal uses for typewriters… Wrong answers only.
The machine(s) that aren’t in daily use are (strictly speaking) boat anchors. To prevent undue attention these are kept in different places. Can’t be too careful.
Decorative paper weight.
I write my social media posts on a typewriter, photograph the page with a minox spy film camera, develop the film, scan the film, post the image … notice that I made a typo, delete the post.
I have two in the kitchen. One with sharpened type arms. I use that one to chop herbs for cooking. The other one is a holder for my coffee filter. The black gold comes pouring out beneath. And one is in my bike panniers. It serves as a training weight.
I’ve sharpened the carriage return lever on my SM9 to double as a my shaving razor. A quick strop and I’m soft as a baby’s bottom. The rest of the machine serves as an excellent “razor cup” to dry it when I’m done.
@chrisaldrich To interview people!
Add a Hitachi Magic Wand and use it to break up concrete slabs
I attach the drawband of my typewriter to a horse and sit on it, so it becomes a carriage. Better than driving a car
Well you see I sit in the lid of my Sears Scout ultra-portable, attach it to some huskies, and sled all the way across Alaska. I did it twice yesterday afternoon.
I decided it was time for my Oliver to spread its bat wings and fly, so I took it to the rooftop and gave it a good toss.
I address envelopes to politicians, put suspicious looking oily stains on them, then mail them with too much postage and no return address.
I wrote an app that uses my iPhone mic to detect the unique sound of each key striking the platen and translates it to text. I do all my internet browsing with my 1958 Smith Corona Silent.
Actually, that sounds pretty sweet…
My 1950 Smith-Corona Silent is the control for my inter-dimensional Time Machine. I have to be careful that I do not go back to any time before 1950 because if I do my typewriter will cease to exist, disappear and I will be stuck in that parallel timeline forever. Needless to say that would be a really big hassle, best avoid that situation.
Ballast for my houseboat. WWII eras are best.
I use the bell on my typewriter to let my family know when dinners ready