![friden calculator ad friden calculator ad](http://www.vintagecalculators.com/assets/images/FridenEC130_1.jpg)
There are probably much more qualified people than me to answer these questions, but here is my answer to one of the viewers:
![friden calculator ad friden calculator ad](https://www.oldcalculatormuseum.com/al1kad.jpg)
Friden calculator ad how to#
I am often asked for tips on how to restore a Friden. If you want to make one yourself, know that the thread at the end of the crank is 1/4-28.
Friden calculator ad manual#
I follow the examples in this manual in my demonstration video. It is a very nice users' manual, and teaches you how to operate the machine. The Friden STW Instruction Manual is the only original manual I own which is not a copy. But with some persistence and close machine observation, I was able to figure out most of it. You have no idea where they are located in the machine, and the cryptic naming is often the only clue you have about what they do. I t only shows small portions of the mechanisms on over 100 pages, mostly out of context. It assumes that you are a trained technician, already very familiar with the machine. Next is the Service Manual, which is the ultimate guide to adjustments and mechanisms, but very hard to follow. T he Disassembly Manual shows you how to take the major assemblies apart, including the backplate, which is not obvious at all. This document tries to explain how everything works, and would have been invaluable if I had it at the start of the restoration. One of the most interesting document is the Friden W Line Mechanical Operations. So I have taken the liberty to scan whatever I had, and posted it below. Unfortunately he since passed away, so you can't even "buy" the copies anymore. The copies were expensive, incomplete and of limited quality, but the that's the best I have found. Fortunately, after the restoration, I found an old fellow that still sold some copies of the manuals.
![friden calculator ad friden calculator ad](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/GUMj-Q-SRTU/maxresdefault.jpg)
There was just about nothing available on the net when I started repairing my Friden. That I did not have documentation did not help either, but I have still found some, scanned it and also made it available below. But I revived it bit by bit progressively. Then some adjustments were completely off. The restoration was very arduous: most of my machine was frozen solid, necessitating finding the faults one by one and unlocking things manually using a combination of cunning and forceful persuasion (read: hammer and pliers). Although it was in good shape cosmetically, it was in horrible shape mechanically. I bought my Friden STW 10 on eBay and it arrived intact (a rare thing for such heavy items packed from eBay). Unfortunately, after a long successful and inventive stretch under its visionary founder, it all went downhill fast when it was purchased in 1965 by the German company Singer, which was unable to capitalize on Friden's early lead in electronic calculators. The Friden company was founded in 1934 during the great depression by Swedish immigrant Carl Friden, and operated near San Francisco in San Leandro, California. The last mechanical model, the SRW 10, had a square root function! Finally, in 1962, Friden introduced one of the earliest transistorized electronic calculators, the EC-130, and then in 1964 the EC-132 which added a square root function.
![friden calculator ad friden calculator ad](https://www.oldcalculatormuseum.com/f1117.jpg)
The later ones, like my 1956 STW 10, were electrically driven and featured multiplication and division. The early ones like the 1941 Friden H8 (see video below) featured only additions and subtraction and were manually actuated. They were impressively large and fast, and built like tanks.
Friden calculator ad professional#
The Friden calculators were very popular professional calculators in the US in the 1940's and 1950's.