I restore old Teletype machines as a hobby. Only WWII and earlier machines, ones that are much older than I am. The oldest machine I have is from 1926, and it's fully restored. It's currently in my living room, hooked to a Reuters RSS feed via a USB to Teletype converter I built and an old EeePC subnotebook hidden away in a cabinet. Push the button and the current news prints on a long paper tape.
There's a hobbyist community restoring these machines, and full maintenance documentation is available. Restoring them isn't too tough. They were designed to be maintainable. The guys who try to restore minicomputer Teletypes from the 1970s have more trouble than those of us restoriong the 1920s and 1930s designs.
Wish I were so advanced, I play around mostly with electric fans from the 10s and 20s (19xx). My favorite is an Emerson six bladed wonder I found off ebay; a great source of restored and those needing restoration. Daily searches of ebay nets me parts and fans merely needing cleaning though I have one in the garage that makes me want to scream at times.
A completed project: http://www.aetherltd.com/refurbishing15.html
A project in progress: http://brassgoggles.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,43672.0.html
There's a hobbyist community restoring these machines, and full maintenance documentation is available. Restoring them isn't too tough. They were designed to be maintainable. The guys who try to restore minicomputer Teletypes from the 1970s have more trouble than those of us restoriong the 1920s and 1930s designs.