I applaud all of you who venture into cleaning and repairing your machines. I always hope working on typewriters sparks greater interest.
When a customer comes to me confessing failure at working on their typewriter and brings it to me for service I empathize. Heck I fail all the time. You, my loyal customer, know I cannot repair everything.
So when this dismantled Royal Companion (Quiet DeLuxe) came to the shop I was glad they did not just quit and regard it as a parts machine. So the machine came here with . . . escapement assembly, carriage, rails, and ribbon feed either partially or fully disassembled. On the other hand the customer did a really nice job cleaning up the machine. Getting a machine such as this reminds me of my apprenticeship with Mr. Montgomery. I’d come waltzing into the shop and a disassembled machine would await. Always got my adrenaline running!
The really fun part of any Royal portable typewriter is the super fun task of installing carriage bearings! To make it tolerable, Royal has a specific tool to reinstall bearings. Our tool broke many years ago so I now use half the tool plus one I made. It is still a Royal pain!
Once everything was back together, this typewriter is oh so nice!