Here's the right-hand carriage knob. I stuck a washer in there for strength, and as a base for any future blinging that may need to be done.The chocolatey-looking glop in the center is the puddle of JB Weld that is filling up the inside of the knob.
This was the scary part: mucking around with a "live" mainspring. It's much nicer to replace drawbands when you don't need to look at the spring at all, but just slip it through a little hole in the drum. Not so here: the cord had to be wound through a little hole, knotted, and then wedged back in. Tricky.
Here's the view afterwards. Success!
Back in typing shape:
6 comments:
Wanna fix mine? ( :
I have the utmost respect for people who can fix things like this. Well done!
well done! I use old flax twine from an upholsterer myself
I agree the styling on those is gorgeous; one of my top picks of the era.
I've had to mess with drawstrings 3 times, but never anything as intensive as your project!
Mike, this beauty is still performing like the champion it is! I notice that the ribbon carriage tends to stick in the up position from time to time, and I suspect it might just need a bit of cleaning....but I wonder, do you have any tips regarding this?
Additionally, I took "Marilyn", the big old robin's egg blue Underwood, out for a stroll today at a typing get-together. She rode in style in a plastic bin and had many admirers. I really think she's more of a Jayne Mansfield, though.
Sticking eh? Cleaning would always be my first approach, since that's fairly hard for even me to screw up. :-) I don't remember offhand, but there's probably a pair of posts that the whole basket slides up and down along when you shift -- maybe there's Unexpected Gunk on them, or something obstructing? Maybe also check the slots that the shift key(s) go through, to make sure nothing is getting caught up in there.
I've got a Smith Corona that jammed in shifting now and then, which appears to be due to a part that's too long (a replacement?) The simplest fix was to wedge a tiny scrap of the rubber non-slip material in the shift key slot so the too-long part doesn't catch the others. It's an ugly fix, but it works, and did not require the fear of taking anything apart.
If it's really bad, it might be worth a trip back to California Typewriter. They can tsk tsk over my homebrew knob repair.
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