Typewriter Drop Test #1: The Cursed JP4

Well, I suppose it eventually happens to some of us, and now it’s happened to me. I dropped a typewriter. ): Admittedly, it was a cursed typewriter, one that’s had just about every misfortune an electric typebar machine can have other than a busted belt since I obtained the poor thing. It did work well at first, and I liked it quite a lot. The touch and sound were nice, and the look and feel had a high-quality tone to it, a much more Cadillac sort of machine than the Apollo 10 that I had traded it for, but the keys had gummed up solid and the power shift had gone wonky since I used it last, and it’s been on the back burner for at least a year. I pulled it out last night and diagnosed the issues today (very frustrating), and had them all fixed except the gummed up keys, and so I took it out to the garage for a solvent soak and blowout. And then, disaster. I had it on a chair on it’s tail, leaned back so I could blow out the underneath. It was leaned back on the backrest, but the chair was padded, and while I turned away to turn off the compressor, I heard a *crash*. Dammit. The thing had sunk enough into the chair’s seat pad that the weight shifted forward and it flipped off the chair right onto the pavement. *sigh*. Well, I guess the Typewriter Gods were telling me something – near every time I wanted to type on it, something was wrong, and now I’d just spent a couple hours fixing the power shift, figuring out new feet for it finally, and cleaning it *again*, and now it’s broken bits on the floor. Message received, Typewriter Gods. The JP-4 is now a parts machine.

It’s not the machine’s fault, though. The JP-4 is a pretty nice machine and I gained a lot of respect for the build quality and design while I had it. I wouldn’t mind having another, but maybe without the Power Return. Sometimes it’s just not meant to happen, and one must accept the will of the Typewriter Gods. Selah.

Currently in the earholes: