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| To my surprise I found this at the workbench as I went to go out the side door. |
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Not only is this a Behemoth it has a wide carriage
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| Nicely packed, and it comes with a cover, instruction books, and cleaning kit. | . |
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| This is one strong carriage rail. solid machined aluminum and steel rails, and a paper injector. |
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| Runs the length of the typewriter and then some |
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| The knobs beside the spools move the card guide away from the platen. The slider is the touch tension adjustment. From very super light to quite heavy. |
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| This was a joy to use. I wrote a few letters before the 2 page typecast. I have not had this much fun since I got my first office size Underwood. |
This is a fun typewriter to use, but it needs 4 feet of lateral space to use. The carriage is 24 inches long from tip of the return lever to the end of the right platen knob. Of course the carriage will not generally be used for its entirety, but it does require extra space for the wide carriage. At least I finally have a typewriter that I can feed file folders through to type the tabs.
I chose the letterheads because both are Michigan companies from the past. There is quite a bit of information on the Duplex Phonograph Company on the Kalamazoo library web site. Included is a video of the photograph in use. The audio is quite good.
Fox letterhead courtesy of Richard Polt and his
blog.
Ha! You got one of those boxed Ambassadors, eh? Nice! I might have been tempted except someone gave me one once (a short-carriage one, even) and I realized I had no table space large enough to keep it (lordy, that footprint!) and passed it on to someone else days later. :D
ReplyDeleteWow that is a big beauty Bill! I'm glad you got it sorted and didn't have to send it back! Yes the Holocaust was a indeed a shocking time in history hopefully never to be repeated.
ReplyDeleteBig beast of a machine. Glad it's working well for you though! It's a rare thing to come by a "basically new" machine.
ReplyDeleteWhat a fun machine. As always with Hermes, the alignment is impeccable! Thanks for the typecast, and I'm glad you are using and enjoying that letterhead.
ReplyDeleteNo abalone for me Bill, not a fan of seafood ☺
ReplyDeleteI love these machines. I really do. They are huge but so, so well made. I'd love one, but I simply don't have the space.
ReplyDeleteHappy belated Valentine's Day to you both too Bill ✨
ReplyDeleteHappy Easter to you both Bill, have a good weekend ✨
ReplyDeleteHi, just found this post. I have one of these machines too, from the same source, and am also having issues with the tab. Any advice about how to tighten the mainspring? Or a source you could direct me to? I can get along fine without tabs, but if it’s not a terribly difficult fix I’d attempt it.
ReplyDeleteSorry for the delay responding. I worked mostly 12 hours days and blogging fell by the way side. I've not looked at mine yet, Like most old typewriters that have not been used I suspect dirt and maybe carriage rail lubrication. I hope to post on mine when I work on it as I know of no source of help on the workings of the Ambassador.
DeleteThe TAB was quite easy to adjust. To see the mechanism and linkages I opened the back. On the Ambassador it is easy -- it just unlatches by pulling out on the top sides. I also removed the cover from the back of the carriage rail. This cover does not need removed. I first tried a few clicks more on the mainspring; no good. Rather than getting the mainspring too tight I decided to see why the TAB would not work without pressing the carriage release or pushing the carriage to the left. I looked under the carriage and could see how the carriage was released from the escapement, but I could not see why the same bar that moved for CR and TAB did not let the carriage move when TAB was pressed. In order to see what happens I removed the platen and paper guide tray. Both are quite easy to do. I could see the TAB clutch and it was loose, but not allowing the carriage to move. There is no open area to adjust this; it must be done from the back looking in through the frame to the centrifugal clutch of the tabulator. On the ears of the clutch are 4 spring mounting slots. The springs on mine (there are 2 halves to the centrifugal weights of the clutch) were both in the middle slot. I used a spring hook fed through the open frame to reset the springs each in on slot closer to the clutch pad (from the back of the typewriter from where I was working would be moving each one one space to the right). I tested the tab. It worked. The full length movement is a bit slow. I left it slow as I do not like slamming tab actions. Moving the spring 2 spaces to the right most slot would make the TAB even faster, but also it kind of slams.
DeleteIf you never worked on a typewriter before you may not want to make this adjustment. If your tabulator does not work you have nothing to loose unless you loose the springs. The typewriter looks like having to replace either of these springs or the clutch is a major operation.