Underwood Electric: crafting new legends

Welcome to the blog formerly known as Writing Ball.

When we last saw my Underwood Electric, I was engaged in an alarming-looking process of swapping its drab plastic keys for metal-ringed ones from a circa-1930 Underwood portable parts machine. 

I've made some progress. Here we see most of the new keys installed, along with a good-looking spacebar from a '30s Remington Streamliner parts machine and two large "RETURN" keys found in my stash of Royal parts. It's a blend of parts and styles from various decades, but I think it looks good.

Some keys had to be disassembled (which is a bit challenging, since the metal ring is a very tight fit).

Why did they have to be disassembled? Because these four key legends don't match the keyboard layout on the Underwood Electric.

I scanned the key legends and used some simple photoshopping to create four new legends that match the Electric:

But five more key legends had to be created in a more elaborate way.

I found a font that was to my liking, akaPosse, on dafont.com.

Then, with considerable trial and error, I managed to create these key legends using inDesign:

Then I took screen shots of the key legends and incorporated them into my Photoshop document:

I tried printing the document on ivory paper on an inkjet printer.

The printing, predictably, was a bit less than crisp, so I reprinted on a laser printer.

To be continued ...

A new year, a new blog title

Getting a sneak peek

This is central San Anselmo, in Marin County, California, north of San Francisco.

 

I came here this morning to visit Doug Nichol, who is finishing a film about many dimensions of typewriters. As currently planned, it will culminate with the typewriter insurgency manifesto and the rise of the typewritten revolution.

I took my father's Smith-Corona Clipper to this coffeeshop where Doug filmed me doing some work on my book.

We also filmed some of the correspondence I've received from insurgents. On top is the latest communiqué, received just before I left Cincinnati. Thank you, Agent R.! Be steadfast!

In Doug Nichol's office, I was  impressed by this video-editing keyboard, as well as other great software and hardware ...

... especially this hardware.

 

Doug has become a true typewriter lover, user, and collector since he began the film. Here's a Standard Folding and a Lambert that he found in Paris.

The complexities of the film are laid out on this bulletin board. I got a peek at many scenes. There's a lot of good material, from the historical to the personal, from the hilarious to the sad to the mysterious. This is going to be one fantastic movie.