Platens, Writers, Readers, and Livers

I’ve been getting some questions about platen recovering recently. Last year, I recovered a Remington Portable #2 platen and an Underwood 5 platen that were in sorry shape. In their cracked condition, the bad platens made the typewriters unusable. I thought: well, what’s the worst I can do?

Since I am into typewriters for the journey, I decided to recover the platens myself with heat shrink tubing instead of sending them out. Keep in mind, Steve Dade and JJ Short will do a much more professional job on your bad platen than you or me. [Please note: sadly, Steve Dade passed away in January 2021. He was a skilled craftsman and a generous sage of the typewriter world and is greatly missed]. Regarding DIY platen recovering, there are a lot of naysayers and opinion-havers out there. However, if you are into typewriters for funzies and personal growth, heat shrink recovering is an entertaining project. I have found that I have accumulated many interesting tools (electronic calipers, heat gun, durometer) and materials during this journey of personal growth and self discovery.

I used about five layers of heat shrink polyolefin tubing for the platens—1.5″ for the Remington Portable and 2″ for the Underwood 5. A gentleman with whom that I have been corresponding used bicycle inner tube as layer under his heat shrink. It looks really good in the pictures he sent, but he still needs to reassemble. I am interested in his final results.

So my platen recovering was over a year ago: how did all that work out? The Remington Portable went back to its owner and then probably to a charity, so I don’t know its current status. However, my Underwood lives in my garage workshop, so I stepped out there to see how it’s doing 1+ years down the road.

The 2″ heat shrink produced a very hard platen on the Underwood, and I got a 96-98 reading by my cheapo durometer. It’s a little chilly in the workshop, so the platen may be harder in the cold.

The imprint is still good.

I think the heat shrink worked out fine. I don’t think I would recover an intact platen, only a cracked or broken one, since the polyolefin heat shrink that I used produces a very hard platen that may be too loud for some people.

Beyond platens, I have been keeping a low profile online and avoiding the internet for mental hygiene reasons and because I have a bunch of different projects that need my undistracted focus. One of those projects is to finally finish up my Great American Novel that has been years in the thinking. Folks, it’s a historical romance. Historical romance is my guilty pleasure, my secret shame, my sin, my soul. I want to write something that I want to read, and historical romance is that.

I am a hyper-recursive writer, writing bald and fast first. I then go back over and over and over again. My writing progresses in three stages:

Right now I am in stage 2 with a first draft completed. It is very unlikely that I will ever get to stage 3. Right now, it’s so bad, it’s embarrassing. I won’t even let my husband look at it, and he saw me give birth twice. There’s a lot of work to do here.

Last thing: if you are a writer or a reader or even just a life liver, check out the following book:

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life by George Saunders

This book is so sweet and humane. I cried in parts, it was that good. And don’t take my word for it, here’s a review:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jan/06/a-swim-in-a-pond-in-the-rain-by-george-saunders-review-rules-for-good-writing-and-more

That’s it for now. No new typewriter projects for the time being—well, unless some fascinating project typewriter crosses my path. I’ve got to get back to writing, reading, and living.

Don’t Fear the Junker

We interrupt this typewriter blog post for an important public service announcement:

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

These days! What a time to be alive. This pandemic has opened up a can of worms, and here we are teetering on that rusty, jagged can lid of history. Given that, I have been thinking a lot lately about the following video that I saw before Christmas.

Everything about this just kills me: the comic menace of DePiglio; George Benson’s On Broadway soundtrack; the kid assessing DePiglio’s trajectory – it all just kills me.

I tried to engage my children in a serious discussion of this: is DePiglio Death? Do the kid and other characters symbolize cosmic indifference—or a healthy attitude to the inevitable? My children brushed me off and told me I was over-thinking it—DePiglio is just funny.

I am at an age where George Benson’s On Broadway triggers great nostalgia. I’m at an age where Existential Dread is for real, and we run from our mortality and the fears of our less-than-perfectly-lived lives. Perhaps it is this dread that drives me to find meaning and joy in Junkers.

My business card

We have a lot of Junkers kicking around the house. Last fall, my beloved 1990s Toyota was rear-ended, and it is looking slightly more crappy than usual. The insurance company deemed it not worth repairing. It is still excellent for Junker typewriter hauling. A couple weeks ago, a random guy spotted the derelict hulk in the driveway and stopped by to see if it was for sale. I told him no, we’re keeping it. His inquiry spurred a sudden burst of tenderness for the old Junker, and I went out and lovingly washed the algae off it.

Sometime after Christmas, my dryer gave up the ghost, screaming as it met its end.

It’s a Junker, probably close to 20 years old, with chipped paint and degraded gaskets. However, it’s old-school and no motherboard — factors that are definitely in its favor. I was able to find a replacement drum bearing for it online and swapped the new one in. I have now developed an almost unaccountable affection for this Junker washer/dryer set. I think it’s the Ikea Effect.

I no sooner fixed my dryer than my husband broke and I had to take him in for repairs. 29 years of my companionship done wore him out, but he’s all better now. Missing one or two parts, he’ll wobble along just fine, but make no mistake: he is now a Junker.

My son is a Junker Enthusiast as well. He recently scored a bunch of very dirty vintage Knoll handkerchief chairs that were being thrown out. That’s my boy!

My neighbor is also a Junker Lover. She was riding her bike in the neighborhood and spotted a familiar case sitting on the curb next to a garbage bin. She opened it and found a SCM Sterling almost identical to the typewriter of her childhood. She remembers her mother coming home from work and typing her father’s doctoral dissertation after dinner on that typewriter. I cleaned it up, re-attached a detached clevis spring, and threw in a new ribbon. It types like the proverbial champ.

Typewriter Junkers are so appealing to me. Many collectors avoid these dirty, broken hunks of metal in decline. Me, I like them. They’re cheap (people will give them to me for FREE sometimes), and they provide me with hours of entertainment. If a typewriter doesn’t work and looks terrible when it comes to me, how can I make the situation worse?

I spent a lot of time working on the DePiglio of junker typewriters this past holiday season. Dear Mr. E. sold me this one for next to nothing.

I pealed the crusty platen like a banana and applied several layers of polyolefin heat shrink tubing. The crumbly feed rollers got the same treatment.

It’s typing really well right now – the polyolefin heat shrink produces a very hard platen, but the imprint is very good.

I know probably shouldn’t drag home any more Junkers, but I have eBay email alerts set up for “typewriter parts repair” and recently saw a listing I could not resist. It was for an Olivetti Praxis 48 – a typewriter with which I am familiar. I’m not a huge fan of electric typewriters, but boy do I love the Praxis 48. It is the coolest electric typewriter ever born. I dare you to prove me wrong.

This particular Olivetti Praxis 48 on eBay had four things going for it:

Low price
A power cord (an oddball connector that’s often missing from Praxis 48s)
Being sold by a typewriter collector who wrote “I collect typewriters and am familiar with how to ship them. Please do not send me packing directions.”
Of course what sealed the deal was this in the description:

Maybe, just maybe, I would be able to get this thing to power on. If not, I would just look at it and appreciate its modern coolness.

The package arrived quickly and I was dismayed at how small it was. I opened the box and found a mashed Praxis 48. Too small a box and too little padding for a heavy plastic typewriter. Lesson learned: I will not buy heavy, delicate typewriters on eBay again.

The seller was great and quickly issued a refund – though I didn’t really want one; maybe I just wanted to lecture him on proper packing.

I was able to get it to power on after working the gummy on/off switch from the inside. It wasn’t typing, just buzzing at me, so I took it out to the garage and removed the bottom and front piece.

After a blast of air from the air compressor and a wipe down of the internal mechanics with mineral spirits, it was still buzzing and not moving. I then moved up to lacquer thinner which is very smelly and corrosive, hell on paint and plastic. I draped carefully and cleaned the interior with lacquer thinner and paint brush, and the carriage return began to function. Then a key and then another. And then it was typing.

Time for a deep clean.

I took out the platen and paper tray for cleaning.

And a couple random pieces of metal fell out:

Now where do those go? Fortunately I had TWDB Operation: OOPRAP’s Praxis repair manual in PDF to refer to and deep in the manual I spotted this diagram and was able to re-insert the intact spring:

I am still trying to figure out where the other broken spring goes. The platen ratchet does not engage when turning the platen by hand, so it may be part of the ratchet pawl spring. Fortunately line spacing works fine on carriage return.

I ordered a ribbon for the Praxis, and have been wandering out to the garage intermittently to play with the machine. It has gummed up repeatedly despite thorough cleaning. I’ll get it running smoothly, and then overnight it will return to its immobile, buzzing state.

I will make this Junker sing again, I love it so much. Electrics are not really my bag, but the Olivetti Praxis 48 is worth it. If I can get it to run reliably, I’ll see if anyone has a parts Praxis so I can replace the smashed spacebar and front plate.

In conclusion, Junkers are surprising, satisfying, and entertaining. They’re mysterious! Junkers are full of stories. Junkers are beautiful. My motto is “Better living through Junkers”. I encourage you to embrace Junkers. Live with them and learn from them. They have certainly made me a happier person.

I leave you with this song by Nico from 1967 (written by a 16 year old Jackson Browne). The Praxis 48 probably listened to it. The song makes me cry a little—her voice is so moving and relatable, sort of like when I try to sing a song that’s way out of my range, but I power through on sheer emotion.

The Underwood Five

Sonny Boy was home briefly from college.

While home, he ran around town capturing the sere angst of our suburbia with my point-and-shoot.

In addition to creating great art, he generated lots of laundry and drank all the milk. The comedy in the household was a little more lowbrow than usual. It was into this environment that I brought home this stately Underwood No. 5, and it became the Underwear 5. This dignified old machine doesn’t deserve us, but that’s the current state of the world right now.

I have been out of town a lot this summer and playing catch-up at work when I am home, so the typewriters have been neglected. I got back from the road last week and stopped by Moe’s shop – she always has something new and exciting to clean up. I was not disappointed.

1917 Underwood 5
Serial # 995567-5

This one needed some cleaning – some sticky keys and sticky functions (bell, line indexing, line lock) as well as the gummy, sliding crawl along the rails that I have come to associate with dirty Underwood 5s.

The decals are in superb condition despite the orange peel texture of the paint. I don’t know what happened here. I don’t think this is a purposeful texture, but it seems very hard and resilient like an alligator’s skin.

The service label is from the General Typewriter Company – I should call them:

I just love these old Underwoods. I know they are common as all get out, but they are just so noble, so durable. I’m looking for a really bad one to bring home, one similar to the Underwood from Modesto.

I cleaned up this Underwood 5, strategically applying PB B’laster in the sticky spots, flushing the segment with mineral spirits, scrubbing the slugs and giving the whole machine a good wipe down and coating of Renaissance wax.

While I was cleaning the typewriter outside one evening, a thin gray stray arrived to watch me.

I haven’t met this cat before. I gave it a little food, as we have a soft spot for strays. It turned out to be one of my neighbor’s cats – one with a taste for the adventure to be found in other people’s yards.

Back to the Underwood.

It has elite size text. My poor old eyes prefer large, readable pica. It’s also easier to clean the slugs on a pica typewriter. The ribbon I threw in was very inky and seemed rather smudgy out of the box.

It occurred to me that The Underwood Five would be a good band name. We take band names pretty seriously in our family. When we come up with a good band name, we add it to the running list next to the grocery list.

This is the track listing for the Underwood Five’s debut album, In for Repairs:

All track titles found in a 1920 Underwood repair manual.

I brought the Underwood 5 to our neighborhood block party last Saturday night for some much-needed socialization. The Underwood had a beer or two with the neighbors and impressed the hell out of everybody. Of course I found my mark: Good Neighbor Brian. The guy already has an 1913 Oliver 5, and (as I knew he would) he fell in love with this Underwood. I feel a mix of guilt and odd satisfaction in luring Brian to the Dark Side.

Brian wanted to buy it, so he gave Moe the money for the typewriter and couldn’t resist another oddity at her shop: an old timey hand crank razor blade sharpener that flips the blade during sharpening:

The sad, sweet days of summer’s end are here, and my son packed to go back to school. He wanted a typewriter to take back with him for college papers. My son set his sights on my 1952 Smith Corona Skyriter, little Camper Van Pancake:

I will miss this one and her metal roasting pan lid, but I know she’s going to a good home, packed carefully into my son’s carry-on suitcase.

I took my son to the airport Monday. Buh-bye, Skyriter. Buh-bye, Son. Make good choices. See you at Christmas.

Home is where the wigs are.

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Recalled to Life

As I prepared Quin’s Underwood 5 for its return to Modesto, I finished the last items on my to do list. I used a lot of penetrating oil on this typewriter, so I needed to flush out the sticky oil before it started attracting dirt. I flushed everything with liberal amounts of mineral spirits and then gave the typewriter a final blast of air to clear out the steel wool fragments and rusty grit.

I decided to re-do the feet. I worried that the rubber of the new feet would slowly sink down in height preventing free movement of the back space mechanism under the machine – it hangs low. I didn’t have any more test tube stoppers, so I added two rubber washers to each foot. I cut new bolts that go through the rubber feet, sealing the ends with a blob of Sugru. Not great looking, but the resulting feet are about 1″ tall. Next time I won’t cut my rubber stoppers down in height.

The last details: a final cleaning of the slugs, padding the spacebar with a little felt so that it doesn’t clatter so much, and giving the typewriter body a good wax with Renaissance wax. This Underwood 5 is pretty much ready to go back to Quin.

I tested Quin’s Underwood with a sweet little ditty from Tom Waits. I understand that he’s an Underwood 5 user:

Nobody does lost old-timey sentiment like Tom Waits. That sweet, plaintive matter-of-factness of the last line always kills me.

I may need to do additional shift slide bracket adjustment – I see a little color bleed on my “L”.

I can’t believe that I am doing this, but I am sending the Underwood back to Modesto with plastic ribbon spools. I know. It’s a perversion of the form. Quin’s Underwood came with old plastic spools that I discarded – had it really been functional in times recent enough for plastic spools? I wish that a large lot of old metal spools would show up on eBay, but I am not holding my breath.

Here are a few pictures taken before the return to Modesto.

I printed out the 1929 Underwood 3,4,5 user manual from Richard Polt’s typewriter manuals archive.

I wanted Quin to have an optimal typing experience, and that meant she needed a good typewriter pad. I would have ordered a very nice Jackalope pad from Richard Polt’s site, but he is not shipping until August because he is traveling. So: I went to the carpet store where they gave me an old carpet sample for free. It was large enough for two typewriter pads, so I cut it in half and sealed the edge with duct tape. I backed my pads with non-skid material and ta-da: I had two typewriter pads. One for me and one for Quin.

I made a vinyl typewriter cover out of a yard of 54″ wide translucent vinyl.

I did a rough fit on the machine and then straightened up my lines.

A haiku for you / pulled out my sewing machine / four seams and we’re done.

I am really glad I made a vinyl cover for the typewriter because I found out after the fact that Quin has three or four cats.

The Revenant: Return to Modesto

Sunday morning I bundled up the Underwood 5 and all its accessories: care and feeding sheet, user manual, vinyl cover, typewriter pad, and the old feet in a baggie. I drove out to Modesto where I met Quin in the same parking lot where it all began.

She was overcome with giddy happiness. She has never used a manual typewriter before, so I gave her a few tips and encouraged her to watch Richard Polt’s short video for typewriter beginners. Quin is a real natural:

Look at Quin go!

Quin, her poster, and her Underwood 5

Quin made me a beautiful poster – she’s an art and biology double major. It says “Fairy Cogmother”. What a sweet thing! I will have to frame this and put it above my typewriters.

This may sound pushy after receiving such a nice gift, but I suggested to Quin that she include me as a character in her science fiction writing since I am full of PERSONALITY and CHARACTER. I gave Quin this idea for a character based on me: a space witch who has a mechanical crow as a familiar. Caw! Quin laughed and said of course.

As I drove westward home, I thought a lot about the old Underwood. What a wonderful experience. I may need to get one of my own, but it would have to be in ridiculously bad condition like Quin’s.

There was a hole in my heart, but a new little Underwood flew in from Idaho last week to my home for unwed Underwoods. Apparently there is an excess of Underwood 3 banks in the woods up north, and I happily brought this one into the fold and hope to rehabilitate it.

The Underwood three bank came with a bag of interesting pieces. A puzzle!

And then there is this crazy thing that I dragged home on Saturday, the haunted SCM Electra 210 from Moe’s shop:

View this post on Instagram

A haunted Smith-Corona Electra 210 with mysteriously repeating "5" key. Another #typewriterrepair

A post shared by Mary E (@myoldtypewriter) on Jun 26, 2016 at 5:43pm PDT

The whole family enjoys watching this thing. I will give it a good blow-out and a degreasing and see where we’re at. It is very entertaining as it is though.

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Underwood 5: Bit by Bit

I have been spending many happy days outside by the garage working on the Underwood 5 for the young writer, Quin. When I first got it, I had doused the machine in Liquid Wrench penetrating oil to loosen the rust. That horrible burning smell persisted for days and days – working in the fresh air was necessary. Fortunately the weather was warm and pleasant, and I cleaned and tinkered and listened to the neighborhood children play and the neighborhood dogs bark.

In a recent blog post at Typerwriter Heaven, “Yost 10 – Dremelisation” Rob Bowker reflected on how rust and corrosion on typewriter surfaces affect his enjoyment of a machine. I completely agree. Typewriters, especially the levers, knobs and keys need to feel smooth and clean when operating the typewriter. There is nothing worse than getting oily rust and plating flakes on your hands from an old machine.

One of the first things I did was remove rusty parts a few at a time and throw them into an Evapo-Rust bath. Many of the plated parts were in bad shape with flaking plate (nickel? chrome?) and severe rust. I did the best I could to preserve as much of the plating as possible, following up rust removal with Flitz polish. Some pieces were down to bare metal, so I polished them with the dremel.

There is nothing like seeing a previously frozen chunk of rust become an elegant and freely moving mechanism. These little wheels that fit into the “rising cylinder scale” now spin lightly.

I removed the paper table and front panel from the typewriter and began to work on the scaly varnish with Soft Scrub. It was very slow going. It took several days of softly scrubbing to remove the old varnish and see smooth paint beneath. I used cotton swabs and tooth picks to work around the delicate decals. Soon the soft, buttery feel of clean paint began to emerge as the crusty scales of varnish were removed.

There was so much to be done on this machine, so I typed up a list and added as I thought of things:

The typewriter was missing one back foot when I got it, so one of the first things I did was make a temporary cork foot so that the typewriter didn’t lurch from side to side while I worked on it. The three remaining feet had disintegrated into varying heights so it was still a bit wobbly.

I ordered #4 black rubber test tube stoppers with holes and crafted four new feet. I cut the test tube stoppers to 5/8″ height. In hindsight, I would make the feet a bit taller (eg 3/4″+) so that there is plenty of clearance for the backspace mechanism under the machine which rides pretty low.

I had a diverse collection of bolts (where did I get all these bolts?) that fit the Underwood frame. I cut the heads off the bolts and screwed the bolts into the test tube stoppers and then onto the typewriter. In the picture below you can see one of the original crumbling feet and the foot I made from a test tube stopper.

I am keeping the original feet in a baggie for Quin, but I think the new feet are going to work great. They feel solid and supple and of uniform height – no more wobble.

This Underwood had two serial numbers, both from 1930. One on main body: #3643485-5

and a serial number stamped on the carriage under a cover plate and handwritten behind the paper table: #3633852

I scrubbed the type slugs. Most letters were printing very nicely despite the fact that the slugs had significant rust and peeling of chrome. I have a hand-held USB magnifier (very good for removing glass and splinters from feet) that I ran over the slugs. Despite looking very bad in magnification, the asterisk prints very well. Capital “M” and lowercase “w” are the only letters that look marginal when printing and even that isn’t too bad.

Type alignment

I really wanted Quin to have an optimal typing experience, and one of the things that drives me bananas is when the capital letters don’t line up with lowercase letters.

Fortunately, there is a 1920 service manual for the Underwood 3, 4 and 5 and on page 39, the manual describes adjusting the position of the “motion blocks” to align text. I found the blocks on either side of the carriage, set at an incline.

I removed the screws and blocks and threw them into an Evapo-Rust bath. After they were clean, I experimented with adjusting their position. I could get the capital letters to print much higher, but not lower to align with the lowercase letters.

I was stumped. What other adjustments could I make to bring those caps down? Fortunately I had recently re-read Words Are Winged’s posts on his amazing Underwood No. 5 overhaul. One post, “Tuning an Underwood 5” would provide me with an answer. The author observed that while putting his machine back together that his key lever comb was a bit too low and causing shifting to stay too high.

When I first got the machine, I had partially removed the key lever comb to sand rust off it, and now I wondered whether I had seated the comb too low when I replaced it. I loosened the screws, moved it up a bit and – voila! Perfect alignment:

Now the typewriter can answer this age-old question properly:

One of the last items on my to-do list was to adjust the ribbon throw. I found that while the typewriter printed just fine in black, several of the letters were printing half red and half black when I had it in red setting. I believe the official name of the problem is “bichrome mixing colors”.

I cleaned and cleaned the ribbon guide mechanism, but it didn’t seem to make a difference. I went to the Underwood service manual:

from 1920 Underwood service manual by H. G. Pearce (from John E. Simmons), page 53

I think I need to take the carriage off and see if it’s very dirty back there or if I can adjust G Plate 7 and C Plate 7.

In retrospect, I should have taken the carriage off the typewriter as a very first measure when the typewriter arrived in its rusty and frozen state. I found out after the fact that it’s a fairly easy thing to do on an Underwood 5. Richard Polt removed the carriage on his and dismantled it in about seven minutes.

Anyhow, at this point, I am hesitant. This Underwood is typing so well right now, and I worry that I might not get it completely back together properly. There are subtle adjustments and parts positioning that I might overlook.

Should I take the carriage off and see if I can fix the ribbon throw?

Ames Typewriter Mechanical Training Manual, 1945, vol. 1; courtesy of The Classic Typewriter Page typewriter manuals archive

Ok then, let’s see. The first step is to disengage the draw band from the carriage stud and secure it to the draw band stud on the main frame. I used a hook to do this.

The next step is to remove the front scale plate and slide it off to the left. That’s the right carriage frame stop in my hand.

Then you lift the front of the carriage slightly…

…and slide the carriage off to the right.

Ta-da! The carriage is off:

It was rusty and dirty behind the segment, so I flushed the ribbon guide mechanism with lots of mineral spirits and got a lot of grit out. I put the carriage back on for testing, but unfortunately the deep cleaning did nothing for my “bichrome mixing colors” problem.

I took the carriage off again and loosened the two “shift slide bracket screws”.

I moved the shift slide bracket backward, tightened the screws, put the carriage back on, tested, and saw that I had made some progress. I took the carriage back off again and adjusted the shift slide bracket a little more, and it was so much better:

It probably could be tweaked a bit more. How did this thing get out of adjustment? I’ll never know.

I put the carriage back on, replaced the front cover and the paper table and took a glamour shot:

This old girl is going back to Quin next Sunday. I am still doing detail work. I really think I need to get another terrible Underwood 5 of my very own to work on.

Here’s where we started:

One last thing: I am trying to replaced the faded red insert on the color switcher button. I don’t want to change the other key tops though several are in bad shape. I love the old timey font, and it’s important to me to keep this as real as possible. However, this faded red top really bugs me. I carefully loosened the tabs around the key ring, but that ring is clinging to the key like a nickel limpet. I cannot get it the ring off. Any tips or tricks?

I was lurking on Facebook the other day and saw someone using key top pliers with a popper and crimper attachment to remove and replace key rings. I was green with envy. If you have one to sell, I will buy it.

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