Please allow me to explain what I intend to do with these blog posts. Most of them will feature a piece of equipment from my collection. I will explain its intended use, the mechanisms used to realize this, common faults encountered during its use or at some point in the life of the machine, and (hopefully) effective repairs to correct these issues. On the topic of timing machines specifically, I hope to discuss the conversion of machines, which originally used a carbon or ink ribbon to make marks upon paper to create the timing record, to use the commonly available sizes of impact sensitive paper.  Both the carbon and ink ribbons for these types of machines are nearly impossible to find, at least in my experience, and are disappointingly high priced when they can be found.

From time to time I will also discuss machines which are not in my collection so that if anyone happens to encounter or winds up with one in their possession, they may find some useful information about it. I cannot relay the amount of time I have spend trawling the internet for scraps of information about some or other piece of equipment or machinery that I acquired online or at an NAWCC event. Most of the time my searches yield only a couple of vague references to the machine, and they are usually in a language other than English. I took French in High School and I can figure out some things written in German, but even that only helps if I can find a manual or forum post about the item in question in the first place.

I’m not 100% sure of the legality of posting PDF copies of the manuals I do have, but I’m not going to take them down until I’m told to do so. You can find these resources on the “Links, Manuals, and Downloads” page.

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