Olympia Traveller de Luxe Servicing

German technology including mechanical and clockwork engineering has always led the world. I can appreciate the precision engineering that went into the manufacturing of this machine. The metal components were crafted by hand, and the whole machine assembled by rows of people in a factory.

There would have been engineers with experience of clockwork mechanisms, and draughtspersons drawing the technical engineering blueprints.

Service Manual

There is very little information about how to open one of these machines for repair. If you were a service craftsperson then you could probably figure it out, but for the rest of the mortals it would take a lifetime to figure out. With an infinite number of engineers, any problem may have a number of given solutions.

Chassis Inspection Windows

As you can see, the typewriter chassis is die-cast alloy, which makes it very robust. There are inspection windows on the base for servicing the various mechanical subsystems of the machine.

String Replacement

People do not realise that a string pulls the carriage along, and occasionally on an old machine, it breaks. This is the only part that I know of that might deteriorate over time. A broken string can be a pain to replace, because it is under the carriage and one has to detach it from its rails.

Spring Loaded Pulley

In this image, you can see the spring-loaded pulley. The spring is in the inner part of the pulley, and there is a string thread on the outer part. The string thread pulls the carriage along after a character is typed. The spring coil ensures that the string pulls the carriage with a uniform force.

Type Bar Linkages

Here you can see the linkages from the keys to the hammers. This bar is where the pivots are.

Cleaning Type Bars

Dust usually collects between the bars making them stick; hence, it is vital to remove it, if you are planning to type fast.

Cleaning the Pivot Bar

I normally clean the pivot bar, because if it is sticky, then the keys will not return back fast enough, thus influencing the typing speed.

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