Notes, Photos, Likes, Listens

Short content: a microblog of status updates or short notes
Posts with an embedded image/photo as the primary focus
Compliments to the original post/poster of external content
Playlist of posts listened to, or scrobbled
On Wednesday the 6th, I finished up most of the rest of the clean/oil/adjust of my new (to me) 1971 Olympia SG-3 standard typewriter. The carriage was probably more involved than the main body, though the main body seems to have made the most difference to have been cleaned out. 

Surely there will be a few subtle adjustments I’ll continue to make as I use it over the coming days and put it thought its paces, but it’s definitely ready for prime time use now. 

While it functions much better now, its action isn’t nearly as fast as some of my other standards. Somehow it manages to be more ponderous, though some of it may be the tremendous size of the 6 CPI typeface. Maybe increasing the tension on the mainspring will help out here, particularly with the oversized platen.

While I love having a larger face typewriter, I can already tell that I’m likely not going to be using this one as frequently as I do my elite and pica machines with more traditional typeface sizes. It sure is fun using it though. I can tell it’ll be a hit at the next local type-in.

I’m including some revised photos of it to compare with the previous “before” photos.

Vintage office scene featuring a large white 1971 Olympia SG-3 standard typewriter sits on a vintage steel desk with a glass top. Next to it is a drawer from a wooden card catalog. In the background is a barrister bookcase and several card indexes.

Frontal view of a 1971 Olympia SG-3 standard typewriter on a vintage green steel desk. The main body is in white while the plastic keys are in slate gray with white lettering and the carriage is also in slate gray painted metal.

Oblique angle from the left of a 1971 Olympia SG-3 standard typewriter

Desk level view of the left side of a 1971 Olympia SG-3 standard typewriter with a white top cover and a slate gray bottom.

Angle down on the left side of a 1971 Olympia SG-3 standard typewriter featuring the oversized carriage and a dull metal carriage return lever

Oblique view of the left rear corner of the carriage on a 1971 Olympia SG-3 standard typewriter

Table level view of the rear of a 1971 Olympia SG-3 standard typewriter. We see a white placard with the Olympia logo on it.

Oblique view of the rear right side of a 1971 Olympia SG-3 standard typewriter featuring the carriage.

Desk level view of the right side of a 1971 Olympia SG-3 standard typewriter. On the end of the carriage we see (from left to right) the platen knob, the carriage release button, and an all tab clear lever

Oblique angle onto the front right corner of a 1971 Olympia SG-3 standard typewriter which has a small orange plastic logo on the right side of the satellite white machine cover.

Close up of the left side of the paper table ruler and the paper bail ruler of a 1971 Olympia SG-3 standard typewriter which features the number 42.

A view into the basket of a 1971 Olympia SG-3 standard typewriter featuring an uncommonly large custom typeface on the typeslugs.

View from behind a 1971 Olympia SG-3 standard typewriter into the typebasket with the body cover removed and then onto the gray plastic keyed keyboard.

Close up of a san serifed typeface on the slugs of a 1971 Olympia SG-3 standard typewriter
The custom 6 CPI Basic Writing No. 67 typeface.

Full frontal view of a topless 1971 Olympia SG-3 standard typewriter

Close up of a topless 1971 Olympia SG-3 standard typewriter featuring a mottled metal bar under the clear and tab buttons. We also see some rehabilitated rusty metal links inside the machine.

View of the gray plastic keys from the right side of a topless 1971 Olympia SG-3 standard typewriter. We get to see some of the intricate mechanisms of the typebars and keylevers inside the machine.

Tonight I spent about three hours disassembling and cleaning the carriage portion of my 1971 Olympia SG-3. I really love the fact that flipping two levers inside the shell allows the entire carriage to lift up and off for easier servicing. 

The grinding/sticking I was originally getting mid-carriage was due to a piece of the right carriage cover being bent back and over itself. Removing it and forming it back remedied the situation fairly quickly. I cleaned and treated the rear body panels which show signs of rust developing underneath the paint. (Rust on other portions of the machine indicate it was kept in a less-than-ideal location for years.)

Just as I was nearing completion, the draw band managed to slip off its mount and the mainspring’s unwinding broke the draw band at the metal attachment to the carriage. It took a while to remove the old material, form the cleat open, reseat the draw band and then close it back up. Fortunately re-tensioning the mainspring was pretty simple and straightforward.

The platen action is now so smooth that with the variable lever in the open position, the entire platen will spin freely in a way I’ve never seen a typewriter manage before. Sadly it shows that the right platen knob has a small eccentricity, though it’s so minor I think I’ll leave it alone for now.

In cleaning it, I also noticed that the carriage return arm apparently used to be chromed, but it was done so badly it’s all been peeled off at this point. As a result, the return arm has a galvanized appearance which isn’t ideal. I’ll have to consider some options to improve it in the future.

The toughest part of the operation was the insane amount of degreaser (acetone tonight) it took to clean off the margin rail to get the margin sets to work properly. I have a feeling that someone managed to get Scotch tape stuck up underneath the left margin set, and it took 20 minutes to flush it all out. Now they’re as smooth as butter. I really appreciate the easy-to-use form factor of these margin sets.

Black greasy sludge on the margin rail of a 1971 Olympia SG-3 typewriter. The margin set, whose cap is made of plastic, is covered in blue masking tape to prevent the degreaser from damaging it.

The hardest part about typewriter restoration is that you’ve got the machine taken apart and in pieces and you’re three-quarters of the way through cleaning it when you’re instantaneously struck with the irresistible desire to quit cleaning so you can rush it back together so you can type on it right now.

A 1950 Royal KMG typewriter stripped down for servicing and cleaning. Parts and tools are arranged all over a large wooden table.

A copy of The Notebook sits on a desk in front of a Royal KMG typewriter, a drawer from a card catalog full of index cards, some blank index cards, a fountain pen and a Negroni cocktail off to one side.

The next book for the Dan Allosso Book Club is Roland Allen‘s The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper (United Kingdom: Profile Books, 2023).

For those interested in intellectual history, here’s a chance to join a long standing book club full of inveterate note takers/zettelkasten-ers, educators, and lifelong learners. Those interested in the topic are encouraged to join us.

To join, reach out to Dan Allosso for access to the book club’s shared Obsidian Vault and/or ping me for the Zoom link for the discussions to be held on Saturday mornings at 8:00 – 10:00 AM Pacific over the coming month.

How do you keep track of your typewriter collection?

What data do you keep on them? 

How big was your collection before you decided you needed to do something?

My commute patterns changed dramatically last year and the Eaton Fire catastrophe has decimated the first half of 2025 for me, so I’m trying to get back to my old Huffduffer habits for more focused content consumption versus doomscrolling. Sadly, it seems the tagging system has been disabled/disappeared? It was one of my favorite discovery features…
In season 4, episode 3 “Scallop” of The Bear (FX, 2025), the inimitable Rob Reiner shows up as a business consultant by the name of Albert Schnurr. In his introduction, he’s wearing a black baseball cap featuring a typewriter. A line drawing/outline, it looks a bit like a Corona 3 to me. It’s definitely not the Royal KMG his father was famous for using.

Longer shot of Rob Reiner with a black suite jacket and matching black baseball hat and a blue outline of a typewriter. In the foreground he's talking to Ebraheim whose back is to us.

Medium shot of Rob Reiner wearing a black baseball cap with a blue outline of a typewriter

Close up of Rob Reiner at 78 with a gray beard and moustache and wearing a black hat featuring an outline of a typewriter

Happy International Typewriter Day!  Today commemorates the date in 1868 when Christopher Latham Sholes was granted a patent for the first commercially successful typewriter.

What are you doing to celebrate? I’m writing about the typewriter market to help out beginning collectors.