Tuesday, July 17, 2012

21st Century Typewriter Repairs Made Easy

Just reading Scott's latest update on The Filthy Platen about getting a replacement part 3-D printed for a Remington. Folks, the future's here, no doubt about it. And I think there's a certain poetic beauty to using modern printing techniques to repair a classic printing machine.

Now, let's get Shapeways hooked up with the guys behind this video and we'll all be printing our own Remettes*


* Some assembly required

8 comments:

Mike Speegle said...

DEVIL MAGIC.

It is a pretty cool idea though. Better than 3D printing handcuff keys, amirite?

Richard P said...

It is very cool indeed, and I'm sure this is going to become a great boon to those who love old equipment. One thing that now becomes possible is creating a new shell for an old typewriter -- design a fantastic 21st century body to screw onto a 20th century mechanism.

maschinengeschrieben said...

The future is here! I never expected 3D printing to come such a long way so soon. It's awesome!

Mike Speegle said...

Also, unrelated, read "Printcrime" by C. Doctorow.

As you were.

teeritz said...

I have a Remette, but it would look pretty cool with polished stainless steel spools.
And I never get tired of seeing that video, either. Makes my eyes well up, but I think that's more to do with the choice of music score. I think it's from a movie, but I can't quite place it.

michaeliany said...

damn typewriters are freakin beautiful!

notagain said...

This is exactly what I meant when I brought up the Fallow Fields Manufacturing Co. on oz.typewriter comments some time ago. My dream is to build a Bennett clone this way.

Anonymous said...

As if disassembling and reassembling a real typewriter were not difficult enough, someone went to all the trouble to either CAD design or laser scan all of those parts and create this video.

What really intrigued me was the possibility of doing this with all sorts of mechanisms to move "instructions" from the cruddy, incomprehensible diagrams and drawings of the past into videos which can demonstrate the assembly of every little piece of a machine in fine detail. My own hesitancy in attacking mechanical jobs is in fearing that I won't remember how everything goes back together. A video like this could be a lifesaver in many instances. It also gives a greater understanding in just how those parts work together. Videos like this could become a valuable resource, and the cost of creating these videos for new machinery, much of such machinery being already created with CAD, could be a leap forward in instructional aids.
I'm not sure how cost effective it would be, however, for someone to try to create this for older machinery. After all, I suspect this video required gobs of time to create, but it was probably a student project of some sort.

3D printing is probably going to be a real game changer as the hardware and material becomes accessible to the average person, much the same way desktop publishing has changed media. It's exciting to think of the possibilities. We'd all better begin to learn CAD now...

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