I do a lot of rubber replacement on the older machines. Show me a machine from the 1930’s and earlier, and I’ll almost always need to replace rubber feet, washers, paper rollers and platens.
Lately I’ve been thinking (as I’m scraping off the rubber from yet another roller core). Most days in the shop is tinkering with the machines and lot of replacing rollers.
I noticed that many of the manufacturers, over time, began to re-think paper rollers too. The Underwood 5 is a good example. The early models had traditional brass core and rubber roller, then a fiber re-enforced roller, then Underwood went to hard plastic without a core. Royal evolved to aluminum for the rear roller.
Short story gone long; I’m making my own Underwood rollers rather than putting back on rubber.
This way it is a permanent repair, and works much better than the old style. Thank you Ellen for selling me those lathes, they have come in right handy!