Thursday 11 July 2013

Lexikology


Olivetti Lexikon 80 fully clothed
Remove ribbon/segment cover
Remove l/h slotted carriage screw (the one with the washer)
Remove l/h front bodywork screw
Remove r/h front bodywork screw
...and the second carriage screw
Centre the carriage and lift straight up...
...and away
Remove the newly uncovered l/h rear bodywork screw...
...and the one on the right
Lift straight up
To reassemble, reverse the order

22 comments:

  1. It remains beautiful every step of dismantlation.

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  2. Indeed, Nick!
    And just stunning accessibility design too. (:
    Ahh, Olivettis - if only I didn't have such bad luck with those Italian minxes :D

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  3. Many thanks for documenting the surgery, Rob. This is a great resource for us.

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  4. Those are some interesting photos.

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  5. After your first post I promptly took the cover off mine just for the hell of it. Incredibly easy indeed. Found some well preserved insects I never knew were in there. I love the criss-cross design of the inner frame.

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  6. Your machine cleaned up nicely. It's fun working on something designed for easy maintenance.

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  7. Well! That's quite well done. You know, I still haven't seen one of these in the flesh yet. I might have to have a poke at mr Snows!

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  8. I have to say that I never knew about the removing of the carriage on the Lexikon 80. However thanks to your blog I have a much cleaner machine today. The carriage use to stop at 47 and I had to push it to 50. Now the machine is working like new! Thank You for sharing and saving my machine.

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  9. Great post, don't know how I missed this one until now!

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  10. Hey Rob, every few months, i come back to this post because every few months, convince myself that it is time to clean up my own Lex80. Simultaneously, i also flirt with the idea of repainting it to resemble the Graphika, like how Dwayne of Vintage Technology Obsessions did. One of these days for sure...
    Thanks for documenting the steps for carriage and cover removal and give the boost of confidence to perform some surgery.

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    1. That an interesting process - it really does look like a Graphika but with a one-piece space bar and just the single lever coming out of the ribbon selector hole... and the badge of course. I haven't removed the paper table from the carriage - it looks fiddly but not impossible. The sculptural shape of these typewriters will really lend itself to a new paint job!

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  11. Thank you! You just helped me out a bunch!

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    1. Things are only obvious when you know how :-)

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  12. Wow, is it that easy? NOW I WANT ONE EVEN MORE!! (I already have a Lettera 22 and a Studio 44, and while their disassembly is not terribly hard, I couldn't get them as clean as I would like for lazyness and fear of braking things...)

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  13. Thank you thank you Thank you thank you Thank you thank you !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  14. HELP ME, amigo! My lexicon has an enormous carriage and its so heavy! I was very dumb and clumsily removed it without centering it. :( Now I JUST CAN'T make the carriage work again. Sometimes I'm able to place it in the correct position again, but one of this things (or both of them) always happens: 1 - The Keys don't work properly. 2 - The carriage doesn't move back to place.
    I'm actually very frustrated and I cant make it work. I've spent FOUR hours trying to figure it out today and I failed. Can you help me? What can I do? :(

    The carriage doesn't move at all. Attached to the machine or not

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  15. You don't really need to centre the carriage before removing it - but it helps. I can't really help. If the cariage moves freely on the rails when OFF the machine, then you may possibly have a stuck universal bar. That's the bar that sits below the type bars, concealed by the ribbon cover. This must be free to swing back towards the back of the machine. Sometimes, worn rubber feet on the front of machine can cause it to remain in the forward position - thus locking the carriage and type bars. I hope this helps!

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  16. Thank you for this article! I just got a 1959 Olivetti 82 Diaspron and I able to do the same procedure as with yours. There was a problem with the ribbon vibrator that gets stuck when using the red part of the ribbon and sometimes the black. Your instructions helped me get right into the bowels of the machine to put in a drop of light oil and sort it out.

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    1. Hi Greg, I think the 80 and the 82 are the same under the carapace and that the Diaspron was the last to use that cast 'fire basket' design before Olivetti standards went sheet steel construction.

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