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Archive | April, 2017

Olivetti repair, part 2…

By on April 21, 2017 in beauty, John D.C. Masters, John Masters, Olivetti Lettera 22

From Padova to Firenze I came…my lovingly repaired Olivetti in my baggage.  Now I am in Florence visiting with my sister and my niece and some friends–which has been super.  We have seen some beautiful sights but most of all we have eaten well and have had a great visit with each other.  We depart this city in a couple of days–they to America; me onto Venice.   I feel like I am in a variation of a Cole Porter musical…

To sum up the typewriter repair…after disassembly, Alessio removed all the rubber pieces and then bathed the ornate and beautiful chassis in a gentle flow of aeronautic petrol mixed with a very fine lubricant.  This removed all the dust, ink, paper and grime that had built up over the years.  The high octane solution evaporated in the outside air, leaving behind the machine oil.  Then he cleaned up the paper roller by attaching it to a lathe and sanding it gently with fine-grit sand paper.  He cleaned and wiped down the external casing.  After reassembly and insuring mechanical perfection, he adjusted the letter ‘a’ (it wasn’t striking well), attached a new ribbon, typed a test piece of paper, and gave the machine a final swipe with the cleaning cloth.  Presto! Fini!  There was more to it obviously.   The whole repair process took about four hours.  Grazie Alessio!

I will leave for Venice on Sunday, my bag filled with cheese….but that’s another story.

–JDCM

Buona Pasqua da Padova…!

By on April 16, 2017 in Polly Jo Masters, Uncategorized

Padova is a lovely place to visit.  It is not a touristic town—all the tourists are in Venice, just north of here.  The current groups are mostly Italian, here for the Easter weekend.  There are lovely basilica (Basilica Pontificia di Sant’Antonio di Padova, etc…), some outstanding frescos (Cappella degli Scrovegni housing the most important…).  The restaurants are good to excellent.  My lodging is fine–the Hotel Donatello–a clean and neat family-run place right on the piazza opposite ‘Il Santo’….It has that thing that all 3-star Italian hotels seem to have–a sense of slightly frayed and rundown charm.  I’ll write a more comprehensive review of food, lodging and sights later.

The real reason I came here was to have my mother’s Olivetti Lettera 22 repaired and refurbished by Alessio Vescovo.   When the Olivetti was stripped down it was revealed to be more complex and more interesting than a modern computer.  He disassembled, cleaned and the reassembled it,  making the necessary needed repairs along the way.  He did all of this with a great sense of confidence and care. Today’s post only has photos of the disassembly.  Later will come photos of the cleaning and reassembly.  We found out some things.  It was built sometime between 1952 and 1954 and had been repainted a slightly darker shade if green before my mother bought it used in the mid-60s.  Interesting, no?

So Happy Easter, Kalo Pascha, etc…It’s all about renewal.

–JDCM