Explanations

From a 1963 Remington Monarch on an adding-machine tape TAROP*



* tiny-ass roll of paper

The Mighty Monarch

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:

More Monarch

Some up-close shots of the Monarch I picked up from the online auction, and which may have a future in front of the business end of a can of spray paint.

It's a problem child for sure, but beneath the cosmetic flaws, it's got good bones. The above was typed with the machine held up at an angle -- a gravity-assist carriage.



That unexpected bit of fishing line is the drawband. No, it's not supposed to look like that. But I'm digging the light green color. "Celery" if you're interior-design inclined.



This is the part of the repair job that concerns me the most: I need to remove the silver plate from the back of the drum, seen here from the top. The drawband is fastened inside somehow. There is no convenient knot-hole in which to slip a replacement cord. I am hoping the experience is not like opening one of those trick cans of peanut brittle with the toy snakes inside.



The ribbon is hopelessly twisted and bunched on the spools, with ragged, torn portions. A loss, sadly, but it had enough life near the end to type just a bit.



The king of typewriters? That might be stretching it a bit, but my experience with 1960s Remingtons is that they're snappy, crisp machines.