Typewriters | Chris Aldrich

A Stopgap Repair Solution for Impatient New Olympia SM3 Typewriter Owners

You just picked up a dusty, but somewhat functional Olympia SM3 and you know that you need to replace the rubber body bushings to prevent your carriage from hitting the body panels and scratching the paint job. The problem is that you’ve got a lovely new-to-you typewriter in front of you, and you don’t have the patience to not type on it until you’ve done this easy repair.

I’ve never seen it mentioned anywhere, but I’ve got a quick, temporary solution that’ll get you typing in just a few minutes. (Incidentally squished, old rubber bushings is the number one issue with vintage Olympia SM3s, and if you’ve not come across it, I’ve written out the details for a permanent repair/replacement solution.)

One can remove the two front smashed bushings near the space bar on either side and pair/stack them up with the two smashed bushings in the rear. It may take a bit of removing some of the “proud” protrusions to smooth the bushing pairings, but it’ll work. In my case, I used an X-acto knife (though a pair of scissors might also suffice) to slim down portions of the bushings that were sticking out. This also helped to keep the bushing combination from being too tall and not allowing me to get the shoulder bolt back into the machine.

The one issue you may encounter with this solution is potentially while typing with the shift lock engaged. This is because the front bushings help provide the proper clearance for the space bar while the shift lock is enabled. Typically one doesn’t type in all caps, so you might not notice this subtle issue at all.

Another possible solution depending on your particular machine is to swap the front bushings with the back ones as the rear ones typically carry more weight and are more squished than those in the front. Your mileage may vary based on your particular machine.

If nothing else, hopefully either the swap or the stack hack will help get you typing right away while you wait to pick up some replacement bushings from the local hardware store.

Good luck and happy typing.

Acquired 1971 Sears Newport Portable Typewriter (Messa Typewriter )

Serial number: 5124993
Sears Model No. 405-5295 (Pica)
carriage shift; bichrome; 3 touch select settings; tabulator; 13" wide carriage; key de-jammer; carriage lock; 44 keys & 88 characters
Manufactured in Portugal

How could I not pick up his avocado beauty at Acts Thrift for $17.36?! A day’s worth of cleaning ought to bring this bad boy up to snuff. I’m most shocked at the fantastic design of its case.

This is a re-branded Messa typewriter manufactured in Portugal with other known re-badgings as the ABC 3001 and the Brother XL-1016. These were made/advertised from 1971 to 1974, but based on the serial numbers in the Typewriter Database, I would suspect mine is from the early side of 1971. (It’s entirely possible they made the entire run in a year and sold them through 1974.) Including this one there are currently only seven exemplars in the database, but many of them are owned by some of the most prolific collectors.

With my 52nd birthday coming up this may be one of the youngest machines I own, though it’s still a few years older than me.

And how could you possibly not love the green typebar jam release key? The only thing that could be cooler would be to have versions in harvest yellow, burnt orange, and coppertone brown. I’ll have to get my old Tupperware set out to properly show this off.

Manual available on Richard Polt’s site.

I’ve already fixed/adjusted most of the primary issues and done a little bit of the work to clean this out. I should be able to finish up the rest of it over the long weekend with the exception of one or two screws that I can tell are missing and need replacements. Portions of the case are going to require some attention as well.

Clack! Analog Attitude for the Digital Age – Vol. 1 – Summer 2026

Yesterday at the QWERTY Typewriter Festival in Carson, CA, Bryan Mahoney of The Typin’ Pint released Issue 01 of his new zine Clack!

I’ve just finished reading it this morning (from cover to cover, though I admit I haven’t finished the crossword yet) and it is truly fantastic! There’s so much to love inside its pages. My favorite parts were the poem (who doesn’t love a good clown story?!), numbers 9 and 11 of Tom Hanks’ “Eleven Reasons to Use a Typewriter” and Sarah Everett‘s essay about Barbie typewriters which has the cleverest of titles.

It’s so jam-packed with typewriter-y and analog goodness that the editor didn’t have the space to include a table of contents, so for those who need one, I’ve typewritten one which I’m including below.

The limited zine release has 500 numbered copies. Brian got the first two copies, Tom Hanks snagged numbers 3, 4, and 5. First in line, I managed to get issue number 6. I saw Michael Hanttula swipe number 7, and Lyn, who had just purchased a lovely duo-toned gray Royal Royalite typewriter moments before, got number 8. Which number(s) will you collect?

Because there really ought to be an issue number 2 and 3, I’m already brainstorming things that I might type up for them. And if somehow that doesn’t happen, then they’ll just have to go into my own zine…

Acquired Early 1900s Wooden Woodstock Standard Typewriter Shipping Crate (Woodstock Typewriter Company, Woodstock, ILL, U.S.A.)

I acquired this Woodstock Typewriter crate earlier this month to pair with my 1938 Woodstock No. 5 standard typewriter.

Usually it’s only portable typewriters that come with cases. But often unseen and unsaved are the “cases” that came with the larger standard typewriters. These are usually unseen because they were heavy wooden crates that standard typewriters were originally shipped in, but which the dealer discarded or recycled once a customer bought their typewriter.

The crate has the company logo and some advertising as well as a typewriter stamped/embossed with ink into the larger front and back sides as well as some unpacking instructions and a handle with care admonishment on the top. The two short sides of the crate have “handles” carved into the wood to make it easier to carry. But “easy” is a tough word to use as unloaded, the crate itself weighs in at 15.9 pounds which is roughly what a portable typewriter might weigh by itself. If you add the 34.2 pounds of my Woodstock No. 5 typewriter to it, you’re looking at an overall weight of just over 50 pounds.

Of interest, the top of the crate indicates that although it should be shipped “This side up”, to remove the typewriter, one should flip the crate over and remove the 12 wood screws holding the bottom of the crate on. This allows access to four cross braces that are locked into the crate by the bottom. The braces have four large screws in them which would have held the typewriter physically bolted into the case upside down. Presumably, one would have removed the typewriter and the cross braces as a unit and then removed the four bolts to allow the typewriter to be either placed onto or bolted into a desk depending on the desk type.

I’m unsure of the age of the crate and don’t have much in terms of provenance. The typewriter pictured on the case seems to be an early version of the Woodstock No. 5 between 1916 and 1931 when the typewriter had openings on the side of the machine. After 1931 these openings were supplied with covers and after 1936 they had removable hoods which covered the typebasket, a feature that isn’t depicted on this crate.

My 1938 Woodstock only has two bolt holes on the bottom which presumably would have been used to bolt it into a desk (or in shipping). Looking at earlier models of Woodstock machines might help to narrow down the age range of this crate by finding machines which would have used all four bolts/screws in this crate to dovetail with the bottoms of those machines.

Condition

The crate isn’t in bad shape given that it’s likely an antique at this point. There is some obvious wear to the wood as well as patina, but the writing and images are fairly clear. The shipping label on the top is nearly worn off and only partially legible. The edges of some of the wood are worn and the top is missing most of its original nails, but this allows one to easily open up the crate and use a portion of the top as a “lid”. Only four of the original wood screws are present to hold the bottom of the crate on and the cross-braces locked into place.

Display in the collection

I’m not yet sure how I’ll use or display this crate with the rest of my typewriter collection. It has been sitting on the floor next to one of my reading chairs and it’s actually tall enough that it functions pretty well as a side table to hold a book, some notes, and the occasional glass of whisky. Once I’ve blown out the dirt and dust inside it and removed the four inconvenient packing screws, I might use the crate to store some books. It could probably also hold two or three 1970s era portable typewriters in their cases too…

Do you have any crates in your collection? How do you display them? What alternate use cases do you employ them in?