It's a small portable typewriter. One of the smallest ones, in fact. Hermes has an excellent reputation, so when this one showed up at a reasonable price and supposedly in good shape, I leapt at it.
Showed up and it didn't shift. Shift keys didn't feel like they were even connected to anything, just moved loosely from one position to the other.
In a larger typewriter, this is a long linkage and I figured it might have broken or fallen out. I decided to open it up and see:
Every key lever has an interesting scissors-looking linkage, just behind that flat shiny part with five screws in it. I think this arrangement gets them more leverage in the very short space available. The two pieces for the shift keys had popped out of alignment, perhaps due to jolting in shipment. I was able to work them back into place. The fractions key had a similar problem and stuck when I tried it; getting it back took several minutes of careful effort.
After that, I cleaned and lubricated where I could, and it's working pretty well. Needs a new ribbon and it seems to not want to double-space, but still, I'm not unhappy so far.
2 comments:
There are still a few typewriter repair facilities in the US. Goohoo is your friend. But this site can get you manuals for your typewriter: https://typewriterdatabase.com/Hermes.Rocket.82.bmys
R Brown
Are you familiar with the movie "California Typewritter"? Highly recommended.
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