I acquired this at thrift for $21.95 on 2026-10-10 for Mother's Day in immaculate condition! It's as if someone used it to type up a few essays then put it in the case for 49 years. Other than some minor wear, this may be the singularly cleanest typewriter I've ever purchased. As my first typebar electric Olympia, I was so looking forward to taking it apart and giving it a full clean, oil, and adjust, but beyond wiping off some exterior dust, this machine really needs no work. I'm both disappointed and elated at the same time.
"Now listen to this. The gentle and soothing lullaby of a piece of machinery so perfect --" —Frank Navasky, YOU'VE GOT MAIL (Warner Bros., 1998)
For dinner, I reverse-seared a whole beef tenderloin, served with a brandy peppercorn sauce, roasted fingerling potatoes, and some veg. Dessert was supposed to be my grandmother’s Hershey Cake, but I am a terrible baker and ended up having to improvise, but it was still tasty.
Whew, what a weekend. My daughter had four theater performances, my son had D&D club, my mother in law is visiting, and I cooked a huge meal for Mother’s Day. I’m zonked!
Quick initial work
- Naturally it needs a new ribbon, but it's got enough ink left for a quick typesample.
- A fast dusting and a preliminary scrub of the carriage rails and a few other parts with isopropyl alcohol and it's ready for some basic work. Primarily the return lever and the margin sets were very gummy, while the keylevers had some pretty good action without any attention. (Someone really loved this machine.)
- The carriage return lever needed some forming so that it no longer scrapes on the typebar hood.
- A quick cleaning of the slugs which were in reasonable shape. List of work to be done:
- The tabulator needs some adjustment to work properly as the tab mechanism is sitting a bit high and causes the carriage to scrape.
- It's going to need a ring and cylinder adjustment so that it's not damaging the platen anymore, though the platen is so hard that it needs replacement anyway.
- The rubber feet are usable, but need replacement.
- The space key also may need some timing attention, but perhaps the slow symptoms will disappear with a full cleaning?
- The rulers (5!) are slightly out of adjustment.
- Full clean, oil, and adjust A day's worth of cleaning and some modest adjustments and this should be a fantastic little machine.
Interesting features
- I love the fact that this has some interesting paper fingers. They don't seem to be well-suited to index card work however.
- The unique ribbon reverse mechanism (a small metal button) is adjustable on either side.
- It doesn't have an individual tab clear button, but, in lieu, has a clear all tabs lever.
- I love the design of the ribbon color selector which requires pulling a spring-loaded button out to switch colors---no accidental color changes here.
- Rather than a traditional "margin release" button it has a "line lock release", but like the Olympia SG series, it only locks when typing characters, but will blow past the margins if using the spacebar.
- Rather than a more common line space selector, this has a knurled knob that needs to be pulled out and set with a pin-type mechanism. This also means that the selector can't accidentally change its setting for any reason.
- The Woodstock No. 5 is an early carriage shift standard
- The typebar hood is made of some sort of early plastic and slides onto the top of the machine. While it's borne the brunt of most of the machine's cosmetic damage, it is easy to remove for typing "naked". It goes on quickly to help protect the internals from ambient dust.
Historic Users of the Woodstock
Users of Woodstock typewriters included:- Robert Bloch
- Howard Fast
- Alger Hiss (1929 standard #230099)
- Sir Patrick Moore
- J.C. Oldfield (editor of the Associated Press's London bureau, 1930s)
- Gordon Parks ("Can you dig it?")
Woodstock manuals
Richard Polt has manuals for the Woodstock available on his site at:
Oh cool, the next season of Silo comes out in July. This season will be heavily based on Shift, and I am curious to see how viewers respond. It’s… very very different.
- I've got writing projects sitting in two different machines.
- I use one on my primary desk and another on the table behind it for typing up notes on index cards, recipes, my commonplace "book", letters, and other personal correspondence.
- I use a few of my portables on the porch in the mornings/evenings for journaling.
- One machine in the hallway is for burning ideas, jokes, poetry and an occasional bit of typewriter art.
- I often have one in the trunk of the car for typing on the go or the impromptu busking session.
- One machine near the kitchen is always gamed up for adding to the ever-growing shopping list.
- I'll often get one out for scoring baseball games. (See also other baseball scoring experiments.)
- Participating in One Typed Page and One Typed Quote
- Typing up notes in zoom calls. I've got a camera mount over a Royal KMG that has its own Zoom account so people can watch the notes typed in real time.
- Labels for folders, index card dividers, and sticky labels.
- Addressing envelopes.
- Writing out checks.
- Typecasting
- Hiding a flask or two of bourbon (large standards, and especially the Fold-A-Matic Remingtons are great for this)
- Supplementing the nose of my bourbon and whisky collection.
Looking for other ideas? I've indexed a number of times people have asked this question and some of the answers I've run across.
Looking for the opposite of this list? Try: How do you use your typewriter? [Wrong Answers Only Edition] This is where you'll find the quirky off-label use cases like "boat anchor", "doorstop", "paper weight", etc. that the non-typewriter afficionados will be sure to appreciate throwing about.
Want to watch: Holy Rollers: The True Story of Card Counting Christians
via “Blackjack”, episode #466 of This American Life podcast
kottke.org
Rogue One: The Andor Cut
David Kaylor is re-editing Rogue One into what he calls “The Andor Cut”; the trailer seems pretty compelling and...
A Rogue One fan edit by David Kaylor is on the way. It tells the story from Cassian Andor’s perspective, better aligning it with the Disney+ series. Andor is, IMO, the best Star Wars content since The Empire Strikes back.
Kaylor has plenty of experience creating successful fan edits:
The remixed Rogue One will be out on May 25, available in 4K with 5.1 surround sound. Kaylor has previously produced cuts of all three original trilogy Star Wars movies, Star Wars: Episode III - The Siege of Mandalore & Revenge of the Sith (a combo of the third prequel and part of the 7th season of Clone Wars).
Optimistic about this one!
My son is doing a project on the history of programming languages and I’ve never felt more like a “well, actually” guy in my life. My brain is permanently broken because of being a programmer. Every little detail that’s slightly inaccurate makes me twinge. 😂
Daredevil finale was so so good. Heavy-handed, but it’s a superhero show on Disney+. I’ll give them credit, they managed to land the whole duality of good and evil thing. The cameos, new heroes and villains, dramatic reveals, all of it — worked!
Last week I learned that you can buy 1:14.5 scale RC models of KOMATSU heavy machinery. They weigh about 40 lbs and cost about five grand. I used to think the most Dad shit ever was model trains, but now I want a tiny construction site in my front yard. I mean look at these things!