We are Phoenixtypewriter.com We have been repairing, servicing, restoring, typewriters for over 35 years ! We are Professionally Trained on IBM, Adler, Brother, Royal, Smith Corona & highly trained on most all other Brands. Our specialization is with Vintage, Mid Century & Antique typewriters, But we also repair Printers, Transcription units, fax machines & other office machines. Just call us directly for anything business machine related, especially old typewriters ! Leave comments, Subscribe, leave "likes" , Etc . . . . thanks, Duane Jensen ( owner/president ) Phoenixtypewriter.com is J.C. Business Machines ( since 1979 ), Phoenix, AZ.
Duane, A set of harness grommets is available at Harbor Freight for $4.99. The set had five 1" grommets which worked great as feet cushions on my Royal KMM. They are not as thick as your grommets but worked great. More affordable than reproduction cushions offered on line. No complaints on the quality of reproduction cushions and feet but a full set was $85 on line. 😲
How did you take apart the knob from the shaft? I'm trying to screw the green part off like you do at 0:45, but it seems to be stuck pretty good, and I'm afraid that I'm going to break the plastic if I start forcing it.
Duane, As an amateur clockmaker, I am familiar with refurbishing clock mainsprings.. To reform a new end on spring steel, the first step is to anneal the steel by heating it up for a couple of inches on the end. This softer steel is easy to drill and bend. I know it is too late for this project but maybe another project will benefit.
I purchased a S-C XL 2900 typewriter for $1 years ago at a nearby thrift shop & use it at our library. The correction tape never worked right on it either UNTIL I FINALLY took the time to search for a better way and came across your video! Hallelujah! It’s working wonderfully now! I never knew there was a ratchet that you could tighten!!! I agree with everyone else: YOU ARE THE MAN!!! Thanks so much for sharing your knowledge!
Oh, THAT'S what this is! I just got a free Selectric II from a factory that was liquidating, and there was something rattling around inside it. I took the cover off, and a double spring attached to a broken white plastic base fell out. (Plus there were some white plastic shards littering the bottom of the case.) One mystery solved, now to figure out why it's not turning on.
Did you happen to notice (yes I realize this was 7 years ago) if the motor got hot but just didn’t spin? Mine is getting warm/hot but not spinning at all. The lights still work and everything though, it just quit yesterday.. like you said in your other video these machines need a drop of grease in a hundred different places lol
That was cold when I started, never got hot, must been a bad thermal fuse or winding If motor does not spin free when off, bearing is fused to the armature shaft, old oil has turned to molasses Yes these motors will get hot quick if they are not spinning
@@phoenixtypewriter2136 alright thank u, I figured that It’s getting hot because of the resistance. It’s not been used in at least a decade or two, but while she was using it, my great aunt kept it in good condition. I’ll get the crud out of it and see if that helps
My center pivot is completely seized and won’t move back from the center aligned position for taking the ribbon out, it wont move with gentle to firm force. It feels almost as if it has another mechanism holding it stuck, I may be wrong though, I’ll try using a lacquer like you recommended to get it cleaned out though. What else would you recommend?
Never mind haha I got it unstuck literally a minute after watching the video and commenting, now I just have to follow the steps you did in the video, thx🙏🏻
Another excellent video that helped me understand the principle of operation of some mechanisms on my machine - namely, the carrier return. I was perplexed since mine had the CR clutch engaged all the time even when the carrier was all the way left. This video explained it very well - thanks!
I have one of these and the shift key is super stiff and will not fully depress. So I can only type in caps when I use the shift lock. Anyone got any ideas? It worked fine when I bought it, but while fixing some other issues this problem suddenly arose.
I have one of these and the shift key is super stiff and will not fully depress. So I can only type in caps when I use the shift lock. Anyone got any ideas? It worked fine when I bought it, but while fixing some other issues this problem suddenly arose.
I love mine, but the alignment is getting bad, and some letters just don't show up on the paper. I would love a tutorial video on how to fix that kind of thing yourself, provided it's not a hard fix ... The closest place to me that does typewriter repair is hours away.
Alignment ? alignment just doesn't go bad ? Must be describing something else. Some letters not showing up ? Are you sure you have this model, these do not get light. Search for tutorials, I have 800 videos and there are 1000 others, look for specific problems. Btw, people drive from states away for typewriter service
I’m missing one of my metal rings. Is there anything I can do? Is it possible to properly spool without it, as my model is supposed to have the auto reverse?
Looks like it had lots and lots of gluebricant! I'm having the same problem with mine, to the point that I decided to take the carrier off completely and give it a little bath in an ultrasonic cleaner, then oil and reassemble.
I've got a 1930's Continental in a similar state, in Germany. I'll start working on it soon, but as a prudent amateur I'm afraid I won't be able to do too much restoring on it (I prefer too little intervention to an irreversible screw-up). Any tips, materials or resources that could be useful?
Duane, I have an 18" carriage Royal KMM typewriter which survived a house fire with only a bath towel covering it. It was my father's typewriter to do stencils for his A. B. Dick No. 77 Mimeograph Machine. His Royal KMM has always been in climate controlled environment and was serviced by me a couple of years prior to the fire. Dad's Royal KMM is covered in soot from the fire but has minimal corrosion compared to this Royal 10. This 10 was apparently in a moist environment for many years to cause this much corrosion. Attic, shed, basement, carport? You have inspired me to get Dad's KMM back in service. Your videos have been extremely helpful to me. I was looking for one of your videos which show how to disassemble and reassemble the carriage assembly on a KMM. If you have a video to guide me through this process, will you direct me to it? Thank you for your experience, expertise and time to produce these videos!!
The 1000 series are nice in that the keyboard cover is a separate piece, so you don't have to worry about the LCD segment. I got a cheap 1500 that had this issue. The stepper motor made that terrible squeal similar to this one, but louder. When I was cleaning it, noticed that if I spun the stepper motor fast enough I could recreate the squeal. It slowly went away after repeated application of lacquer thinner. After oiling and cleaning everything, it works great again. Great video as always. Thanks!
I have had some of that stuff 45 yrs, other stuff I salvaged along the way. Currently I'm out of all that stuff, seen complete empty cases go for top dollar
Lifesaver. Lifesaver! have time for a brief story? Since getting into typewriters a year or so ago, I've been sending a lot more letters, including letters to my brother, who lives in another state and who is a very offline person. I miss talking to him, and want to stay in touch, but even with the letters, he isn't good at writing back. He told me, though, that he and his wife had a typewriter in the house, which belonged to a loved one of hers who is no longer with us. Last time we visited them , he brought it down, and revealed: a Smith-Corona Cornet Electric 12. I told him I would happily take it to my typewriter guy for a cleaning and looking over, which I did, and my brother said he would use it to write me more once I returned it to him. That'll happen later this month. But I was envious of his typewriter being electric, since all mine are manual, and a Selectric which had been given to me turned out to be, for all intents and purposes, irreparable. Anyway, the Algorithm has picked up on what I'm about, and roughly 50% of my Facebook Marketplace suggestions are typewriters. For the sake of my wallet and my relationship, I pass nearly all of them over, but one caught my eye: a $30 Smith-Corona Coronet Super 12. Thinking it was the same as my brother's typewriter (which I now realize, it was not), I went and bought it, because the listing stated it worked well. I was excited to close the envy gap by getting an electric, and a comparable one at that, and I was also excited to have what, for a moment, I thought was the same typewriter my brother had, so that perhaps I could use that to write to him, and it might be our special little thing. And for $30, it could even turn out to be a piece of junk, and I wouldn't be out so much. The fiancee did not approve, though. In only the past week, I'd brought home a new Smith-Corona (my first!) Silent Super that my mother found me at an antiques outlet, and while that was free to me, the big issue is that every typewriter that comes across my threshold will need hundreds of dollars in repair work since, at this time, I do not have the skills to repair them myself. At a minimum, the older ones need new platens, new feet, and at that point, what, am I not also going to have them cleaned? And there goes several hundred dollars. To this point, I've got a growing handful of machines that were given to me, need servicing, but are on the back burner because I'm not a millionaire. And the fiancee knew that this $30 Smith-Corona Coronet was not going to be any different. So I made her a deal: I'll spend yet hundreds more to take some woodworking classes and build her some furniture she wants fabricated into existence. (It was really more of an 'ask for forgiveness, rather than permission' kind of scenario; there was really never a doubt I was buying that typewriter). So I met the woman a few days ago, and as a curosry maneuver at the foot of her apartment building stoop, I said, "and you said it works, right?" She said, "oh, um, yeah, I think so, it was my son's, and he says it works." Okay. Again, I'm only in this for $30. Let's go. I got it home, and fired it up, and found that besides being a different model than I had expected (boo, cartridge ribbon, boo!), I also found...it just made this awful, repetive noise. I was now potentially going to have to eat crow before my fiancee. This super sucked. But otherwise, the machine did seem to function fine. (Dense as hell characters, though. Ironically, this is no match for casual letter writing!) So I popped the cover off, and had a look (as if I knew what I was looking for), and saw the (uh...wheels? I'm going to embarrass myself if I guess at the names of the parts involved) bits that the pulleys wrap around, bouncing up and down. Good god, how would I ever fix that? But I couldn't admit to the fiancee this had happened. So I thought, "let's see what PT has to say." And in, I think, not this specific video, but a similar one, you mentioned by name the model of O-rings you bought (Culligan OR-150), and I figured, at $13.09 for a 3-pack, what was the harm in trying to do this myself? If it turned out not to be the fix, this typewriter had still only sunk me $45. Wellsir, tonight I got the case off (first time I've done that...lost track of where some screws belonged at the end, but eventually got that straight), and I made the swap. With anxiety, I turned the typewriter on, and it whirred to life...*whisper silent*. I felt SO good about it! I mean, the actual action of the typewriter is the loudest thing in this house, but still, I made my first typewriter repair, and, but for the fact that it dearly needs a bath (and probably some fresher ribbon, if such a thing can be said to exist among disposable cartridges for 50-year-old machines), it's functionally perfect. So, thank you again, my lifesaver! You have not only saved my first* electric typewriter, but you've saved me from having to admit to my fiancee that the machine was a bad investment (although I guess I'm still on the hook for those woodworking classes). Kind regards from Ohio!
Thank You for this video, Duane. The information regarding the 'poor printinjg" gave me the thought to clean the 'ring' on my Olivetti Praxis 48's segment.When I acquired it in June, I noticed that Its lower case a, d, & e type slugs were printing much lighter than the other lower case characters. They were also hitting the paper with more of a 'thud' than the crisp 'slap' that they other lower case characters make when typing. After cleaning the segment numerous times with a segment pick, I cleaned the 'ring' on the segment and also the contact faces of those a, d, & e type bar 'stops' . The steel 'ring' on the Praxis 48 appears to be securely riveted in place on the segment, so I don't think that it would be wise for me to remove it... I will "let that sleeping dog lie".
Good question ? It was just scrap, so I don't really know, looks like automotive fine grit Not critical for what I was doing, I have even used a Dremel tool on typebars
Duane, great video, I was able to take the shift clutch assembly apart, scrubbed everything and reapplied grease but I'm still getting that rattling sound, and slow shift action. It looks like the metal wheel that activates the shift pulley movement is rattling and jumping around. Have you seen that also be the cause of the noise?
I think I got it, I reapplied grease, and added a drop of oil to the spring after assembled and let it run for a minute, all the noise seems to have disappeared and the shift activates fairly fast now. I think the spring might have just not settled into an ideal position the last couple times I did it. Not sure, but I have a working shift key again! I live in OKC where we don't really have any selectric repairmen nearby. The only one that did exist went out of business a couple years ago, but I wasn't into typewriters back then unfortunately. When my selectric dies, if I can't fix it myself, or drive hours away to another state, that will be it, so I'd like to thank you again for the videos. I went ahead and sent a tip. I'm glad there's at least some businesses out there that still work on these cool machines.
That's an Antares, so *owned* by Olivetti anyway. Ribbon selector on the right side next to the platen is a dead giveaway. Antares basically made the same machine from 1954 onwards, on newer ones they moved the carriage lock and the key release button, and later hey had a rudimentary tab system. Not the best for lengthy typing, but interesting mechanically and very charming little machines! I like them a lot, :)
I have a Smith Corona Electra 220 with that feature. It drove the carriage across with such violence it actually moved the typewriter on my desk. My typing is so slow, the added feature of a faster carriage become redundant so I disabled it. I loosened the two screws on microswitch and pivoted the the switch out of the way of the actuator. Now the carriage moves less violently, but is far more workable.
