Friday, January 21, 2011

travellers aid






“I've been havin' some hard travelin', I thought you knowed
I've been havin' some hard travelin', way down the road
I've been havin' some hard travelin', hard ramblin', hard gamblin'
I've been havin' some hard travelin', Lord.”


~ Woody Guthrie, Hard Travelin’





























Above: A careful oiling of the carriage bearings and typebars
Below: Loosening the carriage along the outside "track."




Below: Cleaning out the keys, the Traveller De Luxe appears to be in a spiritual renewal.









All shined up for more journeys.
____________________________________________




Boston Athenaeum












On Casco Bay. It was 4°F on the mainland.









(for further reading, here's my essay, the light traveller.)

7 comments:

Adwoa said...

Your posts are always so soothing. Thanks for the great pictures of the repairman at work; great to steal a few oiling tips I shall be sure to put into practice!

deek said...

He does have such a soothing style of writing, doesn't he?

deek said...

Oh, and I have to ask, since you do feature your traveller deluxe a lot, how you like the "feel" when typing?

I had one for a few months and found typing on it to be a bit hard and tiring. The typer was really clean and I oiled it a bit to fix any sluggish keys. The tension control worked, but even at the lowest setting, it still didn't feel good to type on for more than a page.

Just curious to how it compares in your experience. I may have just had a bad one...

speculator said...

Thanks very much.
Glad to know people are reading the words in between all the photos I post.

Deek, the Traveller de Luxe I have is very smooth. I think it's great- and very portable. It's been well broken-in by the previous owner in England (Tom at Cambridge Typewriter thinks it was made there, too), as well as extremely well-serviced by Tom.

Cappuccinoandartjournal.blogspot.com said...

Lovely post (as usual). Looks like an interesting trip too. I just love the way you tote your typewriter all over.

Richard P said...

What a fine story. Evidently you're the right person for that big job, if you have the knowledge and eye to recognize streetcorners in old negatives -- and the patience to do it.

I like the pace at which you seem to live. We tend to rush through our experiences so we can get more of them, without realizing that we're diminishing them all.

Strikethru said...

Great post! Indeed Tom is a rare and cherished traveler's aid for typists, how lucky we are that there are a few people like him to help us on our way.