Super bummed that they’re closing at the end of the month. Not my fault, I’ve been eating there 2-3x a week for years! Pretty sad that you can’t run a business profitably here even when selling $13 salads.
The 1940’s KMM was a good warmup. This 1936 KHM was a *lot* more involved!
Missing linkages, broken springs, rusty carriage, rotten feet. I had to buy a junk donor (for more than I paid for this!) to cannibalize some parts.
But it now works fantastic… maybe even better than the KMM!
Princess Coldheart came up on my goth/industrial playlist while taking my tween to school. They looked at me and said “this doesn’t sound like the stuff you usually listen to”.
I found myself lamely defending LPD inclusion in the goth canon to my grunge-loving cottagecore baby swampwitch.
Sure, not the entire discography, but it totally feels right to me. CVA *is* a goth album. I can’t explain why.
I knew I was on shaky ground after my Skinny Puppy justification failed to land, and I had to end with “well, your *mom* would agree with me!” (Ex is eldergoth royalty from the 90s scene in SF with far more cred than I have.)
Kid freakin’ hit the skip button. Jerk.
I bought this KMM in 2019 for $15, intending to tackle it as my first typewriter project.. but it was so locked up and intimidating that my ADHD kept procrastinating, and it’s been sitting as non-functional decor / cat-hair-collector ever since.
I’ve been grinding in crunch mode at work, and just finally completed a milestone I’d planned to finish months ago. I desperately needed a break, and to get away from my desk and away from AI eating my brain. So, I took a day off to finally address the typewriter (with my newly prescribed Vyvanse Hyperfocus Powers!)
Holy crap, that was quite a day, about 12 hours.
All in all, it wasn’t too bad of a project. I watched a couple YouTube vids to get oriented, and the resources linked in the comments of my original post were really helpful.
Here are some random notes…
- I bought a cheapo 6gal 150psi air compressor, and it was much more effective than canned air. (I justified it because I do have some other uses for it.)
- the stencil-lock switch was a geometric puzzle to get on/off
- mineral spirits didn’t actually clean things as dramatically as I hoped
- Simple Green was taking off lots of yellow/brown from the outside; I was too nervous to spray it on the inner bits. It also turned gold labels silver.
- The screws for the under-carriage shoulder plate by the serial number were really hard to get off. Took some penetrating oil and patience. I discovered the holes were slightly misaligned based on the hidden shoulder screw, so the outer screws were forced in; I widened them with a dremel to allow easier removal in the future.
- My carriage worked pretty well, so I focused on just cleaning and lubricating moving parts.
- I used a gun oil needle to dispense in most places.
- the key tension springs are annoyingly fiddly to reseat, their hooks want to point anywhere but the correct location. And I had about 10 of them in a tangle.
- I didn’t want to remove key caps, so I focused on just light cleaning. Any amount of liquid wants to wick inside, so I used the barest amount of a plastic polish I use on my motorcycle, and hit them up with a very light buffing from my dremel.
- brass wire brush on the dremel worked wonders for getting rid of surface corrosion off the chrome and metal parts. All the edges of the keycaps, the arms and tabs, etc. It was kind of addictive.
- although I read admonishments about not over-lubricating, I did lube every magic margin finger as they were all crunchy. And I did a light drop on any sliding bar and rotating joint I could find (like each key), worked it in, and wiped up any excess. Hopefully it won’t attract too much crud.
- Aligning upper case and lower case SUCKS. And making it so that caps lock and shift are at the same level. Holy crap. That was a frustrating hour+ on its own. It’s like no movement, no movement, no movement, bam, now it’s an entire letter too high! I still have more work to do on this, I don’t have two 11mm wrenches that fit at the same time for the upper case adjustment so it’s kind of working now without being fully locked.
- anyone have a spare left side panel/window? Mine was missing. I might 3d print a cover.
- My platen is like plastic, so I need 3-4 pages loaded to avoid cutting the paper and ribbon with every keystroke. The rollers don’t do a great job advancing the paper as they’re pretty solidified as well, but those seem a lot more easily addressed.
- My automatic ribbon reversal seems to only work in one direction, it locks the keys when I trigger the left side reverser. But it doesn’t matter too much, only one of my spools has a functional spring tab. Manual reversal works fine.
Overall, def a fun project, but intense… I thought I’d immediately tackle the 1930s Royal I just picked up, but I think I need a minute. Hopefully it will go a bit faster now that I have a better idea what I’m doing!
The snoopy AI overlords monitoring my browsing made sure that I saw the ad for this 1930s Royal that was for sale a few blocks from my house. Rustier than the 1940s model I’m working on, but everything seems connected. Not quite as good a deal at $40 but I’m ok with it if I can get it working well. Seems like I’ll need to do a bit deeper of a disassembly to get at some of the rusted bits.
Question: what parts do I need to be careful about not getting soaked in mineral spirits? Rubber parts and paint? Draw band?
I was thinking about treating this task like a small-scale version of how one might polish old hazed headlights. I’d assume the underlying letter labels are actually in good shape since they’ve always been covered. But it occurs to me I don’t actually have any idea about the material properties of the key caps. Are they some old type of plastic? This is a mid-1940s KMM.
I bought this at a garage sale a couple years ago, and it’s been sitting here waiting to get some love for ages. The metal thing to the left (Rolodex holder, maybe?) was firmly wedged into the left side of the typewriter and nothing was moving, but I finally took a look and managed to unwedge it, and was then able to play with the typewriter enough that I’m pretty fired up to work on it. The “automatic margin” mechanics are so freaking cool!
From the serial number (hard to read, but in the 3M range) seems this is mid-1940s.
It’s pretty grotty with some surface rust and the ribbon is shredded. Doesn’t help that my cats also seem to have filled the basket with their fur.
I watched a couple YouTube tutorials and since I’m reasonably mechanically competent, I’m not too worried, although holy crap it has a lot of fussy little screws and springs…
I saw people immersing it in degreaser and a water based cleaner, and then using an air compressor to get water out; I don’t have one of those, so that approach seems like a quick path to rust. (Is evaporust an ok way to clean up typewriter parts, or should I plan on dremel/polishing only?)
The one mechanical problem I’m seeing beyond the keys sticking is that the carriage only advances about halfway on its own; I need to apply some pressure to have it advance beyond that point when hitting keys. Is that likely just a tired spring? What’s the deal with the “cloth-looking” belt I can see in the carriage mechanism? It looks pretty worn, and not like something that should get wet.
The ribbon reels seem pretty model-specific, I assume I will be getting a roll and spooling it on myself?
Any advice before I dive in? Thanks!