It is not often that Mr. Montgomery will fill out a customer’s service ticket with “NEEDS EVERYTHING”. When I pulled the typewriter from the repair queue, I immediately understood what he meant as this family’s typewriter had so many issues he could not fit it all on the ticket.
I’m pretty sure I’ve intimated that storing precision machines, such as typewriters, in dusty cold and moist places is a death nell. You know; NO garage storage! To start, this specimen was corroded, had a fine layer of scum and had so much dust I had to vacuum it out before I could start a heavy cleaning.
Typical of typewriters of this vintage it had been painted a few times and in this case the paint was covering many important, and now not so moveable parts. The corrosion had seized many parts that included the manual tab stops and both margin stops. The back space mechanism also would not move. With the magic of penetrating oil, paint remover and 15oo grit paper, components started to come to life. I don’t normally paint typewriters, mostly because I’m not that good at it, yet the customer wanted at least some of the front cleaned up. You see the result in the photo.
