One of my customers just brought in a sweeeeet Hermes Baby (also known as a Rocket) that was made in 1944. He received it as a gift! He was pretty stoked about it.
This cute little typewriter came with a few problems; type bars sticking, slow space bar response and the cork type bar rest had dropped into the bottom of the machine. It is also missing a foot and the platen really needs to be replaced. We agreed to get this back quickly so the customer could take it traveling. Well, that platen will just have to wait for another day as it takes awhile to get it back from New York.
First things first, a good cleaning and re-oiling cured the slow response and got the ribbon feed working. Next, I made a new cork type bar rest, installed it then darkened it a bit so it is not so obvious. On these diminutive portables, the rest is quite visible.
There were three REALLY bent type bars; 1/4, Q and K. The Q was a bent link, and nudging it just a bit freed up the Q. The K type head was so contorted it interfered with the adjacent keys. You have to be very carful when reforming type heads so little by little until it too was free. The 1/4 type bar was twisted so it was not fitting into its segment slot. I don’t know what I’d do without my magnifiers, as that was the only way I could view the adjustments needed.
I found some NOS feet, so if they arrive in time I’ll add them to the list. More later!