Hermes 8 Standard
This machine has its history gone - I bought her from a person who, in turn, bought her on second-hand somewhere, not long ago.
Sad because the machine had traces of incompetent repair and it was being used by someone with long nails, judging from damage on key tops. A woman, I suppose.
Anyway, when she arrived (the machine) she was typing but carriage return was giving ugly rattling noise. Nothing Swiss-made machine shall do. Also ribbon selector was jammed in one position. What I also instantly noticed were several butchered screws in places where nobody really should try unscrew anything, if not for major rebuild.
Not good signs.
Removing body panels was easy - all screws butchered so I will replace them.
Platen and feed rollers removal was mostly obvious so I did not make pictures but I documented how it all goes together again so bear with me.
I was afraid that I will need to pull the carriage out - which is not obvious here as on Ambassador or Olympia SG machines. Luckily it was not needed: the rattling sound was from tabulator mechanism:
I carefully formed it to clear the tab sets. But how on earth did somebody manage to bend this? It is very heavy-duty piece of plate, with reinforcing weld!
Or maybe there is another story - maybe the carriage got knocked off? Or changed?
After forming this piece all started to work, butter-smooth. Alignment is perfect so it was only this tab-setter.
I can see that someone was trying to unscrew the carriage rails from the casting. Judging by the screw he/she luckily did not manage removing it, only mar it disgracefully.
Damage was quite fresh, metal has not oxidized yet so last 5 years is what I guess.
I could not let it sit there so I removed all these - one by one to not affect perfect alignment - and replaced with new screws. All these were sitting damn hard - presumably from the date the machine was assembled.
With machine out of its body I blow out most dust and chicken feathers and carry on with troubleshooting.
Ribbon selector. After playing with it the vibrator stopped moving altogether.
Let’s see, there is some structure there which does not exactly look Hermes-like, does it?
Not the most elegant repair but after seeing these screws I am not surprised by that either.
Not engaging vibrator was related to ribbon selector profile being too high in its position.
Why? Broken or bent linkage, I suppose?
Let’s see.
This does not look kosher to me:
Rather obvious, especially on Swiss-machine where all is so perfect and so beautifully engineered. No need for chicken-wire really.
After forming it back to shape - and by that adjusting ribbon lift height - the machine is again capable to type in duo-chrome and stencil mode.
What was left was to clean her thoroughly and assemble back.
There was some surface rust on type arms, only a few of them so I decided to clean them in situ, instead of pulling all out. The segment was clean, I blow it with compressed air and flush with mineral spirit anyway.
Getting rid of the rust.
Type rest is made of soft, silicone-like pipe. I remove it for cleaning, it was oily and sticky. Proceeding with deep cleaning of the whole mechanism: mineral spirit, IPA, compressed air - the usual stuff.
All clean and ready for assembly.
Bottom frame, horizontal members, are removable. Rubber feet sit on them, holding side-panels with their screws. I put them back before checking alignment - to have the frame stiff for any troubleshooting. Feet are in bad shape, I will need to fabricate new but for now they will do.
To put back the platen one just drops it in. It’s easiest with the carriage all the way to the left - contrary to most other machines.
The extrusion on left internal wall of the carriage forces you to start from right and then fiddle in the left part of the platen in place.
Left platen knob subassembly with line-freeing ratchet clutch:
Screw with friction-washer is to adjust how easy clutch disengage shall be. Hole in protective sleeve is to reach this screw when all is assembled.
The whole thing sits on the platen shaft and there is no need to disassemble it.
With platen in place we slide the shaft from left side of the carriage - until it emerges on the other side. Nothing strange. Just keep set screws unscrewed to not hinder it. They are on both sides of the platen cylinder - which is symmetric, by the way. One can rotate 180 degrees the platen and use it that way, for whatever reason.
Left side will look like that:
Now the bottom first part of the platen knob goes into its place. It is held be two long screws which are to be screwed into line advance ratchet:
Go slow not to damage these threads. Screw each screw a bit at a time and switch between them - the whole mechanism is nicely tight so it will not tolerate skewing, resulting in binding or damaged threads. Before finally tightening everything down - align your inspection opening:
Before going any further - put back carriage panel. Just three screws. Mine were marred so I replace all of them with brand new - easy on metric machine.
Once the panel is in place we can put back the platen knob. Mounting screws go into clutch-plate as below:
The other side is self explanatory - just a platen knob with one set-screw which shall grip on flat part of the platen shaft. Voila!
What was left were some small cosmetic issues.
Protection felt pads for paper support were gone. I cleaned the rests with IPA and glued silicon “bumps”. They look neat and do their job better than felt.
These marred screws… I cannot stand them.
I go over the machine and replace all the eye-sore butchered screws with new - or I repair these which are good enough to do it.
One case was challenging. Here my predecessor failed big-time and left me such mess:
These two screws are holding a panel protecting carriage release pivot points. Just for esthetics but they sit here probably from the dawn of time and they got properly seized in place. That’s why he/she failed, leaving such a mess.
I could not remove this wreckage either so I had to drill away the damn thing.
Left-thread tapping drill is the tool for this job:
Gotcha!
Threads undamaged so I can substitute this with a fresh screw:
Some battle-scars left but, well, better this than this catastrophe which was before.
New ribbon and we shall type!
The ribbon reverse mechanism relies on rivets near ribbon ends to function. Sure, one can tie a knot and call it a day but… this is Hermes. Let’s make it nice, shall we?
And off we go!
All back in place, waxed with Fulgentine. Typing! What a joy!
I am grateful to Adam for “enabling” me to buy this machine.
What took me, apart from its gracious form, was special way they hang the carriage.
Also that this standard machine is not so huge, a bit in-between a portable and a modern standard machine. Not a hefty beast like SG3 or Siemag!
I had an impression that this Hermes 8 is indeed not bigger than Hermes 3000. At least in footprint. Let’s see.
Higher - yes, but not bigger. Heavier, a bit, too.
That says a lot about how manageable it is, for a standard. Or: how big Hermes 3000 really is, compared to other portables.
I typed some more, on both machines, and I can say that they feel very similar.
At least my specimens.
If that is true then I would probably chose this Hermes 8 instead of Hermes 3000 for daily typing, given how expensive H3ks are today and how comfortable it is to have a space to put document we copy on the front panel of Hermes 8.
Simple but useful feature.
Yet one more feature - for someone who thinks about shipping this machine or loading it into car trunk for creative typing on the way: use factory-provided carriage locking infrastructure!
There are M5x10 threaded holes on both sides of carriage casting:
Short M5 bolt with generous washer on each side and we can lock the carriage in position in-between spaces - which makes the star wheel decoupled and protected for transport.
Since I shuffle my machines quite a lot I made me fancy knurled knobs with rubber washers so that I can put in / remove them easily without tools.
Once placed and tightened on the machine they lock the carriage. They are big enough to be obvious - should I ever forget that I put them there.
To avoid frustration.
It stopped snowing so I took the machine home, for a photo session.
Ribbon selector is an odd “pin” sticking unobtrusively out on the right side, just shy of carriage rail:
Some life-scars from long-gone brutal history on the back panels. I managed to bent most back but with side-light they still make themselves visible.
I will call it patina and just let them be.
Paper supports lifted:
Carriage is wide enough to put A4 paper in landscape mode.
Fantastic machine!