[GreenKeys] Wanted to buy a working Teletype Model 33

[Jones, Douglas W]

From:  Chuck Rehor <chuck at rehor.com> -- Thursday, September 7, 2023 7:12:19 PM

> The last one I "won" from an auction in Indiana was in complete shambles with cracked plastics everywhere.

Cracked plastic is reparable!  Testors liquid plastic cement (available in hobby shops) works on the ABS plastic used on Teletypes.  It's a solvent.  You drip it on the crack and let capillary action suck the solvent in, then press the sides together and perhaps drip on a little more.  It does not fill voids.  For large pieces like TTY housings, you need to get creative with how you prop the pieces to press the moistened edges of the crack together and hold them rigid for a day to let the solvent evaporate.

> there wasn't even any electronics in it at all, and not even the power switch had wires on it

That is bad.  But the mechanism is a collection of spare parts.  The 33 I've restored had a mechanism that was completely frozen.  I had to disassemble it almost all the way, using lots of WD-40, GooGone and Alcohol to free things up and then re-lube from scratch.

> I was hoping to use parts from all my Model 33's to finally make a working one, but I can see that is not possible at all.

It might be possible.  You've evidently got lots of parts, and only a small fraction of Model 33 parts changed much from early to late production machines.  Given your day job, what you need to do is get more people from Nokia to volunteer some of their time to this project.

           Doug Jones