Sourcing rare parts, evaluating aftermarket ribbons, restoring hard rubber platens, and keeping the small consumables that separate a writer from a paperweight.
Before the photocopier, every carbon-copied letter passed through a sheet of pigmented paper thinner than a magazine page. It is still manufactured, still useful, and worth learning to use well.
Hardened feet turn a quiet portable into a jackhammer. Replacing them is a one-hour job that changes how the machine sounds and how it walks on the desk.
There are at least a dozen incompatible spool designs in common circulation. Buying the wrong size means a ribbon that will not feed. Here is how to identify what your machine actually takes.
The label just says 'universal typewriter ribbon'. In practice, the material — cotton, nylon, silk — changes the impression, the lifespan, and whether you can re-ink at home.
New parts for a 1955 Olympia SM3 do not exist. Old parts do, and the cheapest way to acquire them is to buy an incomplete machine of the same model and quietly harvest what you need.
You cannot re-vulcanise a platen in your kitchen. You can, however, buy meaningful improvement in feel and print quality with three simple treatments — and avoid the three internet remedies that will destroy the rubber outright.