It's all about the typeface - Oliver 9

August 21, 2021 by Lukasz Kumanowski

Yes, there came another one. Another “batwing”, steampunk typewriter in my arsenal.

Why?
I already have Oliver 5, Oliver 9 is not that much different, is it?

Well, it is!
Apart from, otherwise interesting, mechanical differences no.9 has much smoother typing action and, most of all, it has Printype! This typeface for which Oliver is well known..

There is an interesting article on OZ Typewriter blog about Oliver’s “revolutionary type” claim and how non-unique this font was at that time - there were similar fonts offered by typewriter manufacturers. However, it became somehow “the Oliver thing”, especially now when most typewriters available in thrift stores or eBay are either Pica or Elite. These with special fonts (cursive, Imperial etc) tend to be sought after and reach very high prices. Oliver 9s, on the other side, all have this font. Sure, these machines are not super-common but still plenty of them are out there so one can find his machine and enjoy shaded, bold typeface which looks so great on the paper.

Fotostory of renovation of this machine, with some no.5 vs no.9 comparison photos, can be found here.

Crocodile typewriter: Oliver no.9

August 21, 2021 by Lukasz Kumanowski

It is almost impossible to find Oliver typewriter here, on local Swedish market. They are, however, quite common in US. Being under the spell of this machine I wanted to try this famous Printype typeface which was a standard on Oliver 9 machines.

I bit the bullet and imported such machine from US. It is a nerve-wrecking experience: tracking the package’s way through Covid-cripled World, with frequent stops in airports and no update on progress for many days. Eventually, after 7 weeks I got the machine home.

It was working out of the box although a bit stiff and very dirty. It was dripping with oil which would soon atract all the dust and block the mechanism. Armed with experience of working on its older brother Oliver 5 I jumped into the job of cleaning and adjusting it.

The first thing to fix was pencil holder which got crashed, apparently when someone inverted the machine without first taking this delicate feature out of the way.

This is made of brass so, being over 100 years old, tends to be very brittle. I started very gently straightening it and it snapped instantly.

I could have silver-soldered it but I decided to glue it with steel epoxy instead.

Left overnight for proper curing.

Another thing which was entirely missing was a drawband clip. This smart little fixture enables removing the carriage assembly without untying the drawband - it simply snaps into a hook on machines’ base and jumps back into place when one returns the carriage. I borrowed the original from Oliver 5 as a template and decided to make a brass version of it.

Oliver 9 has wider catch hook - apparently an improvement over no.5 which adds stability - so I manufactured a bit wider clip to take advantage of this feature.

It is skinnier than the original but test-mounting and running the machine prove that it works equally well.

Next I focused on the carriage. There were some issues to be addressed there.

As on most Olivers the nickel-plating was mostly gone and some surface corrosion appeared in many spots. Paint job on the whole machine is heavily bubbled and resembles crocodile skin. I got this machine from California so I suspect that it was standing somewhere on the window sill as a decoration, gathering sunlight throughout all these years. Iron-casted body could get very hot so paint got damaged.

That does not concern me though, bigger problem is the platen.

The rubber is cracked and hard as wood. I intend to use this machine so this needs to be fixed.

To remove the platen from Oliver one needs to disassemble half of the carriage. Good opportunity to clean it and degrease everything.

To my joy almost all screws on the machine are in pristine shape - no butchered heads! There are only a few and one of them was carriage knob locking plunger. However I tried I could not remove it - it’s narrow head was half-stripped. I decided to drill it out.

Thuis is, of course, ANSI thread so I don’t have a substitute plunger. Anyhow, it had to be removed to take out the knob. It’s M4-ish size so I picked the proper drill, tapped the screw properly and hand-drilled the damn plunger.

It went surprisingly well, I still have threads in the opening so once I get the correct plunger I can replace the old one without re-tapping the hole.

After this obstacle was dodged the rest went smoothly.

I noticed straight away subtle differences in mechanical construction between this machine and the older Oliver 5. For example line spacing shif mechanism has a spring built in - I shifted that carefully to keep it installed and not to break it.

In a few moments the whole assembly was in parts, dismantled enough for proper cleaning.

White spirit with engine oil - typewriter soup - worked perfectly cleaning all crud. Thin layer of oil - almost not visible - which is left after naphtha evaporates will protect exposed steel from rust.

Eroded nickel plating on many parts needs to be removed or polished.

Some elbow grease and abrasive pads do the job neatly.

Paper fingers - parts which I call machine’s jewellery - needed some attention, too.

These are a little mystery to me since all Oliver 9s I saw have these fingers shaped the same as on Oliver 5 while these are just plain straight.
Old nicker peeled off and the rest was buffed to shine on the first one.

Then came the platen. It was worn and cracked in many spots - a candidate for recoating for sure.

I sanded it, to remove oxidised rubber and hopefully some surface cracks.

A bit better but why not sleeve it into a bicycle tube? This will make it possibly too soft but it is easy to remove the tube in case it becomes a problem.

It was a tight fit but after cutting all to size and sanding the platen looks much better.

I reassembled all parts and lubricated these few spots which need oiling.

Very little oil is needed for typewriter to function properly. All excess should be wiped clean, to keep dust and dirt from sticking to parts.

Next came the main body. I removed the carriage assembly - the procedure is similar to Oliver 5 so that went easy but it was interesting to note differences in construction at this stage, too.

Pivoting points for Caps and Fig positions are moved down into the body, unlike in Oliver 5 where they reside on both towers. That may be the main reason that Oliver 9 is so much smoother in operation.

Cleaned assembly dries in the evening sun.

This machine is able to type in 2 colours - simple spring-loaded screw holds ribbon holder which has a grove to slide forward or back, thus offering different parts of the ribbon to type slugs hitting it. After bathing it in degreasing solution the mechanism started to work smoothly.

Next came the main body with the remaining mechanism.

Cleaning the internals from the remaining oil and dust took some time and patience but the effect is worth it.

Paintwork is really in bad shape. I considered stripping it entirely and keeping the machine in bare-metal version but in the end I decided to buff it a bit with Fulgentin and see if that can do the trick. Parts covered with patent plates show how nice the enamel was when the machine was new.

I started to put things back together.

I inspected the main spring - it is still in good shape, probably due to lacking knurled screw like in Oliver 5 which enabled easy tensioning of this spring. Folks tend to mess with that too much and often these springs just break prematurely. Oliver 9s have this possibility removed.

“Jewellery” screwed back onto the body.

Breaking mechanism for tabulator - one which slows down the main spring so that the carriage does not move too rapidly - is changed compared to Oliver 5. On Oliver 9 it was moved into the body and only short rod is sticking directly under the main spring, pressing against wide, steel spring which slows down the main spring cylinder. On my machine it needed adjustment - it was protruding too far up and was stalling the movement.

The easiest way to adjust it is to remove it from the machine and shift the blocking collar a tiny bit lower.

It is an iterative process as very minute adjustments result in drastic changes but after a few attempts I got it nailed down.

This machine had rubber feet in pretty good shape - they were present and mostly intact but the rubber, of course, was rock-hard. I manufactured new feet from fresh rubber.

I found that the quickest and easiest way to clean the key tops is to dope them in Ajax. Dirt, nicotine and oil just slide away in a few minutes. One just needs to make sure to not leave them for too long - after several hours the keys - especially black ones - became soft on the surface. They solidify after washing in fresh water anyway but better safe than sorry. Half an hour of soaking in Ajax is enough to clean everything.

Machine starts to look proper again.

I was lucky to get the machine with original spool covers. To have them covering the ribbon spools one needs to use Oliver spools, standard spools will be too high for the covers to fit. I have not yet manufactured Oliver-type spools so to keep going I fixed Oliver-lookalike spools from bits and pieces of generic spools.

It worked pretty well.

With all back in place I could perform firs type test.

This font is stunning! It appears that the platen covered with bicycle innertube works pretty well in this machine. Type slugs are not punching through the paper although they do leave deep imprint which makes double-sided writing rather impossible.

I noticed that capital letters are not synchronised with small letters. It is easily adjusted on the back of the machine.

Now all looks good!

I happily banged nonsense, just to fill the page with this beautiful typeface. In comparison to standard font, as on Oliver 5, the Printype font is much more pleasing to the eye.

The machine is ready for service!

I rolled in a sheet of fine paper and typed a letter. What a joy to type!

I hauled out my Oliver 5 to shoot some comparison pictures of both machines.

One can swap the carriages between machines - they differ in some details but are fully compatible.

Oliver 5 without the carriage. Tab breaking mechanism is visible on the left, running on the body surface.

Oliver 9 has it hidden in its guts.

Bottom view reveals some more differences. Manual ribbon reverse mechanism is simplified in Oliver 9.

Good dose of mechanical porn, ain’it?

That was fun and rewarding work. For now I’ll keep both machines but should I ever consider parting with one of them it would be Oliver 9 which will stay with me.

Triumph Tippa 1 - carriage rack frame repair

August 18, 2021 by Lukasz Kumanowski

I bought this small typewriter when I was searching for Olympia Splendid. Both share the same streamlined body and are very small and reliable typewriters. Now, when I own both, I know that they are, however, quite different mechanically.

This Triumph Tippa was my kid’s a favourite machine - because of its light colour, in contrast to my other machines which are mostly dark in colour and much bigger. However - she does not use it and I have too many machines so I consider giving it away or selling.

As to be sure that I trade a functional typewriter I cleaned it again and run extensive diagnostics - which is typing on it really fast. All seamed good until I noticed that it jumps a letter in one certain position along the carriage.

I took a closer look and discovered a problem. I describe how I handle it in more details here.

Triumph Tippa 1 - repairing damaged carriage rack frame

August 18, 2021 by Lukasz Kumanowski

This little fellow had a problem which I didn’t notice at first: when typing really fast it was jumping a letter. It happened always in the same position, with whichever letter and only once in the whole line which directly pointed me away from escapement gear itself but more towards rack frame.

I removed it from the carriage and upon closer inspection I found a suspected spot just about in the position where skipping occurs - in the middle of the line.

A tiny bit at the lower end of one tooth is missing. I suspect it happened when the machine was carried in its case and dropped or bumped hard into something. Probably the previous owner did not use locking mechanism which decouples the escapement and by that secures this fragile bit from damage. Tippa has this mechanism very well engineered but, of course, it serves no purpose if not used.

To be sure that this is indeed the cause of the problem I temporarily rebuilt the tooth tip with steel epoxy.

I dispensed excessive amount onto the damaged area, waited 12 hours for it to fully cure and then shaped it with needle files to become a tooth again.

Mounted back in the machine it proved to work - but for about half a page. Then it failed - but this was to be expected.

This part resides on the bottom of carriage assembly and interfaces escapement mechanism which controls movement of the carriage as one types. Schematic from US War Department typewriter manual shows more details (it shows other machine but the principle is the same).

Having nailed down the problem I employed heavy machinery to fix it. I routed out the damaged area and cut a piece of steel matching the thickness of the cavity.

Some shaping to match the cavity followed.

Once happy with the fit I pressed new steel into the cavity.

Recreating teeth with needle files concluded the repair.

Assembled machine was taken for some more tests. All works fine now and no skipping occurs regardless of how quickly or badly one types!

Now - one can argue that fixing such machine is not worth it. It would be easier to get another one and use this one as a spare parts donor.
The point is: I like this particular machine and I do not intend to get more of these. It types so well, has my favourite Elite font, is lightweight and has rubber parts still in good shape. It would feel bad to dump it just because 0.89mm of hardened steel cracked in one spot!

Besides - it was fun to fix it.

So now I feel confident to hand it to someone who wants to actually use it.

Maybe Marek’s son will like it?

Antares Parva

August 03, 2021 by Lukasz Kumanowski

Italians have a sense of humour giving such a name.

Antares (anti-Ares in Greek mythology), know also as anti-Mars or Scorpions'-Heart is a gigantic M1 red supergiant in Scorpion constellation, close to end of its life.

Parva, on the other side, means little in Latin (as opposed to magna).

So there we have it: skinny ultraportable typewriter, relatively unknown in Typosphere. Given it’s resemblance to Hermes Rocket/Baby which I have I was not sure if I want to get yet another one. But the price was a real bargain so I bit the bullet and got it.

Oh dear, and I’m not disappointed! Oh no, indeed.

More about the machine can be found here.

Tiny red-supergiant: Antares Parva

August 03, 2021 by Lukasz Kumanowski

It resembles Hermes Baby in a way the outer shell is covering the machine. But that is all regarding similarities.

This machine is a different and I dare to say much better than any other ultra-portable typewriter I have or tried.

It came to me at the price of peanuts and the only problem it had, apart from being dusty, was dried-out ribbon and deteriorated feet. Otherwise all was working fine - and once I test typed on it I got so impressed by the feel and smoothness that I rushed to open it, to see the guts and give it a good clean.

The whole frame and panels are made of aluminium. Very lightweight and sturdy. Sound-isolation on bottom and side panels is accomplished with thick paper-like cloth. Apparently to save space, it is an ultraportable after all.

Panels have cleaned very well, as a last touch I treated them with Fulgentin - it makes colours more vivid and stand out nicely.

Bare-bone machine started to reveal its features.

Interestingly, the crown is made as a separate piece, standing away from the basket. I recon it makes the machine more silent while performing its function of stopping type bars and causing them to “snap” onto paper.

I brushed and blew out all dust. No chemical cleaning was needed (thanks goodness nobody sprayed it with WD-40), only for ribbon vibrator’s arm I had to use a bit of my typewriter’s soup.

Quick job!

Before assembling back the machine I had to fabricate new feet as old ones were far gone.

Same with space-bar cushions. Luckily, typewriter repairmen has an easy life in Sweden - spare parts can even be bought in Biltema!
Well, they call it gummigenomföringar but don’t be fooled by that.

In this case I build each feet from three parts.

No glue needed - they sit just with friction. Final product fits the bill.

The machine is assembled in no time, the only fiddling was needed when mounting side panels - one needs to simultaneously mount spring-loaded side pins, used by the outer shell.

Unlike Hermes Baby the outer shell in Parva is made of bakelite. I’m tempted to entirely remove this paint - this amber gold material beneath can look intriguing when entirely revealed.

I leave it for now and search for new ribbon for this jewel.

Although the machine came with nice, metal spools I wanted to try carbon tape I got from Charles. My trial to use it on Urania failed miserably, I was hoping that Antares - being much more modern construction - can handle such thin ribbon.

Yes it can! As seen on used part of the tape: the mechanism spaces characters apart enough to not cause overlapping.
I was cocky enough to put Olivetti-type spools (with carbon tape already on them) into Parva. They seemed to fit although are a tad wider.

Type quality did not impress me thou. I was expecting dark, sharp print. Instead the characters are sharp, yes, but not that dark as I want.

To have a benchmark regarding how carbon text will look like - to rule out that the tape is deteriorated - I put carbon paper sheet and type through it, in Stencil mode.
This is how it must had felt before “visible” typewriters appeared on the market - typing blindly, not seeing the result directly.

Comparing both methods shows - apart from smudges caused by carbon sheet - that the print is marginally better using the sheet than with this NOS-grade ribbon.

Well, seems that Parva and Columbia tape do not like each other. I was not satisfied - such fine machine needs to have proper ink ribbon to show its full potential.

Moreover - after a while I managed to jam the machine. It turned out that Olivetti spools, being too lose on ribbon-advance shaft, were wiggling around and occasionally going too far on the side and jamming the machine.

Disappointed, I removed carbon-tape spools and winded fresh, Pelikan ribbon onto original spools. The result was stunning! How light typing became and how much darker the print is!

Now we are talking! Fresh ribbon and “Bob is yer uncle”!

Out of curiosity I took out my other ultra-portables: Groma Kollibri and Hermes Baby, to size-compare them with Parva.

Although bigger than other two - and not as sexy as Kollibri - Antares has the best typing feel of them all. It also shares carriage-tilt idea with Groma, shifting is so light that feels like basket-shift mechanism.

While Kollibri is still the smallest and thinnest of all - mechanical MacBook Air of that time - it is also very heavy, compared to Hermes Baby and Antares Parva.

Parva has nicely marked line spacing options - with free wheel setting marked as “0” position.

Overall Antares Parva beats them all, at least for my taste. Typing action is soo light and smooth that touch-typing is no problem at all.

Lightweight machine with small Elite-like font and nice design makes it a go-to typewriter to take with me on a hiking trip.

Cherry-red Urania, one of its kind

July 31, 2021 by Lukasz Kumanowski

I remember that to acquire this machine I had to stand rather unusually hard fight on the auction. Not that there was big money involved but most other machines I own had no more willing buyers than me.

This Urania was different: there were folks willing to get her. I’m glad that in the end I won and here she is.
Machine came with - quite rare these days - original instruction and a small bag with spare screws!

As most old machines she had standard problems to address:

dusty & dirty mechanism
hardened platen
deformed paper-feed rollers

What was saved to her was WD-40 and thanks for that!

I removed the panels for cleaning and to remove the platen. That caused me a bit of trouble as the construction is not quite standard. That is exciting but sometimes frustrating to the point that hammer comes into hand if things don’t move the way they are expected.

Luckily I inhibited the impulse of hammering and finally lifted the platen. The trick was that most things in this assembly are the other way round, compared to standard machines.

No, this is not a machine for left-handers, rather opposite. It is just the way herr Clemens Muller thought is the best regarding functionality. And I admit that it works very well - with line & row advance on the right side I just use my stronger hand instead of left hand to make the move. Like most people on the planet.
It just takes a while to switch from the standard.

Unlike other machines the paper-feed rollers don’t just pop-out free after removing the paper deflector. They form a small subassembly, with springy connector in between. Smart - this way the system is prepared to any irregularities in fed material.

Flat spots, of course, disable the mechanism so I needed to address that.

The platen on this machine is so hard that it feels like plastic. Luckily it is not cracked - with wooden core inside that would be a catastrophe.

Surprisingly, the bigger rollers were still spongy and grippy. If not for the flat spots I would be happy with them. Smaller, front rollers were totally gone.

As with most non-standard machines one faces incompatibility problems. My stock of rubber hoses does not cover dimensions needed to replicate these rollers. However, given that I want to cover the platen with bicycle inner-tube - thus increasing its diameter - it will not harm if I reduce the diameter of paper rollers a bit. After all they are spring-loaded and will anyway (to some extend) get into the platen. The only concern would be line spacing - with platen increased too much single-line space would become too tight. However - the inner tube I mount is circa 0,5mm thick after sanding. That should not affect anything too badly.

Smaller rollers were far too gone so I replaced them with silicone tubing. Not epoch-correct but works like a charm.
Bigger rollers, still grippy, were turned into smaller diameter, almost entirely removing the flat spots.

Left roller assembly after turning, the right one is yet to be reworked.

Standard cleaning followed - but no chemical treatment was needed. Keys were cleaned and I straightened some inverted key-legends.

Unfortunately the trick with gripping the glass with a sharp compass and turning it to correct the direction did not work here. It is a real glass, not celluloid, it just didn’t want to move. I had to disassembly these keys to get things straight. Risky operation with these soft-metal tabs underneath - easy to break them.
I wish I had key-punching tool like repairmen had in the old days.

As this machines has ribbon-spools exposed I wanted to substitute ugly, plastic spools with something more classy. Luckily Olivetti spools which I traded with Charles fit the bill!

First I tried using carbon tape which was on these spools. The result was not impressive - it seems that the ribbon advance is too slow on this machine to take advantage of so thin ribbon. Characters were crowded on the tape, yielding bad quality text.

A bit disappointed I decided to keep the spools but rewind the precious carbon tape onto other spools. There are many meters of this tape winded onto the spool so doing it by hand was too boring. Drill machine with simple silicone adapter solved the problem in 2 minutes.

Rewinded with fresh, 2-colour ribbon the machine types perfectly.

Inner-tube covered platen works fine and looks quite OK. Good enough for me at least - I can now use the machine without waking up my neighbours.

Carriage locking and escapement release, for transporting the machine, is on the right side. Nice and sturdy although not as robust as on machines from later era. It can be easily tripped if the carriage is pushed to the right so I would not rely on it when shipping the machine in a package.

And so is Urania ready for use!

Hey handsome! Underwood no.5 standard typewriter

July 19, 2021 by Lukasz Kumanowski

Handsome.
This is a word which comes to my mind when I look onto this machine. Its form is very classic and very balanced.

It is an archetypical typewriter, one which comes to mind when thinking about old, classic, desk machines: standard typewriter. Open, skeleton frame made of cast iron, no covers except on the front.
Mechanism proudly presented to bystanders and the user.

This particular machine was in generally good shape. Just very dirty and with all rubber components decayed. All decals are original.
It bears “honest patina” - places where hands of people before me rubbed the frame, wearing out the paint and decals. I like it and keep it intact as a part of machine’s history.

No butchered screw heads. She was either serviced by a proper mechanic or not serviced at all.

Most of all - it types like a dream.
I put it hand-in-hand with Royal KMM or even Erica machines. Even though there are decades between them the experience of typing with these machines is similar. Pure joy.

Below is a gallery of restored machine.

For those interested in “screws & dust” here is more detailed story of restoration.

Underwood Standard No.5

July 18, 2021 by Lukasz Kumanowski

I fell in love with lines of this machine.

Yes, it is a very common machine in US - but not in Sweden. It is a real classic - skeleton machine as I think of these.

It came to me via Tradera from Swedish North. To protect her from improper handling we agreed with the Seller that I wait a week so his relative will be going from North to Uppsala where I can pick her up. It worked out very well.

The machine had all problems common to most old typewriters:

dusty and sprayed with WD-40 (or similar) which hardened into yellow goo, stalling the mechanism almost completely
rubber parts got very hard or disintegrated

Other than that all seemed to be in place and in proper order.

As always I started renovation with manufacturing new rubber feet. Old ones were gone, luckily original screws were in place.

Carefully to keep the structure I peeled off rubber remainings to see how the original feet were formed. They were in fact simply hollow on the inside - the hole slightly smaller than the screw head. Upon compression the rubber was filling the slot between rectangular sections of the screw, keeping the foot in place and enabling unscrewing them without tools. Neat!

I used the same rubber-like mooring dampers, cut them to size with guillotine (sailor’s knife and rubber mallet).

Sanding took care of cutting marks. I punched out the centre holes for mounting screws.

Due to rubber compression the centre hole is not even in diameter - middle part is smaller than the top and bottom sections. That helps to fill the slot in these screws.

With new feet in place I could move to more exciting parts - internals!

Paper table, platen and paper feed rollers with paper deflector came out easily - pretty standard way of removing them as on most other machines. Unlike Olympia Splendid and her clones where one needs to force the platen out!

Usually this is enough to clean the machine but this Underwood, due to its “rail-type” carriage (my naming, I don’t know how this construction is really called) did not allow me to get everywhere with the carriage on. Besides - the escapement and carriage mechanism was so dirty with yellow goo that I decided to remove it for proper cleaning. And, most of all, to closely inspect how it is built!

Not as straightforward as in Oliver or Adler mod.7 but still pretty easy procedure.

Back rail is connected to the frame with two screws, with positive positioning in rectangular grooves.

The other point of contact is up front: pointer which runs on the front scale has guiding pin sliding on the underside of the scale. Two more screws to remove and the carriage assembly was free to lift up!

I noticed with joy that the machine managed to avoid hands of non-skilled mechanics: almost all screw heads are intact, no butchered slots due to improper screwdrivers! Either it was serviced by a proper mechanic or not serviced at all. Perfect! I keep it this way - no screw I removed bears any mark on its head!

Now I gained access to the escapement and all internals. Brushed them a bit from dust, to be able to see anything.

Before removing old spools I take note on how the ribbon is guided towards the vibrator. Spool holders move around on springs, to ease access to ribbon slots on the back.

Standard ribbon guide at the vibrator.

I turned my attention to the platen. It was, of course, rock-hard and dirty but luckily not cracked. Smooth as baby’s bum which certainly would cause paper to slip.

It would be enough to just clean it and sand, maybe with rubber reconditioner, but I felt adventurous that day so I decided to re-cover it with a layer of fresh rubber. Well, to do that really well I would send it somewhere for re-covering (JJ Short being one such company in US). I wanted to try home DIY method and put bicycle inner tube onto the platen.

I had bad experience when doing it for the first time on Continental Silenta: worn out, old innertube broke after a few hours. It might have also been due to oil I used to slip it onto place.

This time I used brand new innertube (yes, I invested all this money!) and used a dry process, with talc, to protect the rubber.

That went pretty smooth but unlike the wet process, when the soap or oil dries out, talc keeps the tube still movable and gliding after placement. To mitigate that it needs to be removed.

I rolled ends of the tube back, exposing again the platen, and wiped the talc with rag wetted with denaturated spirit. Isopropanol would be better but I happened to run out of it.

I did that couple of times, on both ends, until unrolled rubber was no longer moving on the platen. Then came sanding session on “poor man’s lathe”.

I used 120 and 180 grid paper. The aim is to remove bumps caused by rubber seems on the innertube. Also - due to heat while sanding the rubber gets more sticky, attaching itself better to the platen.

The result is uniform surface with still visible seams but now they are levelled, no bumps. Maybe not a quality for a museum or fussy collector but it works very well for someone who wants to use the machine to type!

Besides - this is 100% reversible process - just by cutting the innertube one gets back the original platen with no marks or damages. Can be handy if I happen to be in US with this Underwood in a car trunk, close to JJ Short company.

Before taking all for cleaning I admire “patina” and tons of dirt in the mechanism. I notice very cool mechanism enabling manual winding of ribbon - for re-spooling etc.

Another cool thing is type-bars resting arc: unlike modern machines where this is made from glued rubber here it is made of fabric, screwed to the arc. Handy if replacement is needed.

I remove the whole subassembly for proper cleaning and inspection.

Ribbon colour selector lever rides in this opening.

Surprisingly the typebar rest bears a date of its manufacturing (I think):

We move outside for chemical cleaning. I use my standard “typewriter soup”: mineral spirit with a bit of engine oil.

Bar rest pillow dry-cleaned with nylon brush. Fabric is in perfect shape. The pillow is very heavy - as if it was filled with lead. Or sand?

Anyone reading this - please comment if you happen to know what is inside this pillow?

For safety (if it is lead) I wash hands before moving further.

Before putting things together I oil the carriage assembly. Just a few spots: rollers mostly.

Another cool feature: leather tabulator brake. If it was not replaced at some point this piece of leather has more than 100 years! I oiled it with camellia oil.

Carriage assembly back in place, draw cord connected. Initial type and space-bar tests show that the machine works smoothly and all moves fast and instantly.

Serial numbers on the carriage and the frame do not match. Maybe they do not need to? Anyway, worthwhile to notice that - Adler had these matching.

Paper deflector had only two rubber bands still in place. Upon touching they turned to dust.

I substituted them with silicone tubing: it will last much longer. The function of these is to support paper table from the back - eliminating any possible rattling sound and keeping paper path undisturbed under the platen.

Last but not least are paper-feed rollers. They became flat in many places, rubber is hard as stone and brittle. In such state the machine will not function properly.

Old rubber removed with sharp blade.

Brass core exposed.

Fresh, spongy rubber rollers, sanded for better grip, mounted in place.

Front rollers, smaller in diameter, were only partially disassembled. I was afraid that I will not be able to press fit back the constraint rings so only external rollers were taken out from the shaft. Here I will use transparent, silicone tubing so I polish brass cores as they will be visible.

Back in the carriage, ready for mounting the platen.

I put back the platen and remaining covers. Mounting a new ribbon is an adventure in this machine but after a while I figured how to do it.

The machine is back in shape, time for a test type. All works smoothly and sound of type slugs hitting the paper on soft-rubber platen is very pleasing: silent “thumb” instead of plastic “clack”.

I can type very fast on this machine. Carriage shift, thanks to properly adjusted support spring, is very light - almost like in basket-shift machines. It is a pure joy to use this machine!

Adler mod.7 rescued

July 11, 2021 by Lukasz Kumanowski

Here is a gallery of quite unusual, horizontal-strike machine Adler mod.7 which I renovated recently.

More details from overhaul can be found here.