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Tuesday 27 May 2014

McTaggart to the Rescue - Ugly Duckling Typewriter Complete

Yet again the Typosphere has come good for a collector in need. John Lavery in Queensland ("McTaggart's Typewriter Workshop") saw my blog post last week about the "Ugly Duckling" Hermes 2000 and immediately offered to help.
Even with rather urgent family matters to attend to, John still found time to come to my aid.
My plea was for a set of front section joints to complete the restoration of this badly battered Hebrew language typewriter. Both John and I had had Hermes 2000s damaged in transit in exactly the same way - dropped on the front, breaking both the two joints and in the process buckling the two side sections where the joints slide in. 
Somehow I had mislaid the two joining parts from my Hermes - I've yet the find them, but they still needed to be glued back together again, I think.
Anyway, John very kindly sent me the two joints from his machine, which arrived in a small parcel in the post this morning.
Two hours later the job was done, and I am delighted with it. I had just enough of the matching paint left to cover the replacement parts.
Because of the damage done to the side sections (and one of the joints from John's machine also had a largish chip out of it), the fit isn't perfect. The openings on the ends of each side section had been so badly buckled it was difficult to get them dead straight again - even without such damage, slotting these joints in is always going to be a tight fit. But with a dab of Vaseline, I squeezed them into place and even managed to attach a couple of screws underneath. All done!
A big thank you to John for once more underlining the true nature and shared joy of the Typosphere - the cooperation and the generosity seem to know no bounds!

3 comments:

John said...

Hello Rob,
I am delighted that we managed to pull Victory from the jaws of Defeat

TonysVision said...

John has come to my aid in the past, too - truly the saint of the Typosphere!

shordzi said...

NICE!