L.C.Smith & Corona #8

Manufactured about 1929

Purchase

I had not bought an old typewriter in years, mostly because I collect too many things already and the basement was getting full, but when I saw this nearly-intact Smith-Corona sitting on the counter at a Saint Vincent de Paul’s thrift shop yesterday I couldn’t leave it to be pecked to pieces by every passing boy that was roaming the aisles, bored out of his mind and looking for something to occupy his time while his mom combed through the tea saucers for antiques that might have been overlooked by the dealers, as if that ever happens.

I appeared to be a little run-down, but a closer inspection revealed that it was almost entirely intact. I found just one linkage missing between a tab key and the actuator. The carriage wouldn’t advance when I struck a key, the result of a broken web belt. And a triangular piece was missing from the right rear corner of the iron frame, probably the result of being dropped by whoever brought the typewriter to Saint Vincent’s; it was a very recent-looking break. Too bad, because it was in otherwise very good condition.

They were asking thirty-five dollars for it, probably a steal for such a well-preserved typewriter but I felt a little self-conscious about spending so much money on something I didn’t need. I knew if I walked away from it, though, I’d kick myself for weeks, so when My Darling B arrived I mustered up all my courage to whisper sheepisly in her ear, “They have an old typewriter I’d like to buy.”

“Really? Where is it?” she asked, so I took her to see it. She didn’t Oooo and Ahhh over it the way I had, but she did allow as to how it was in pretty good shape before giving it the nod and saying, “Sure, go ahead. You deserve it.” That’s why I love this woman; I’ve got a half-dozen old typewriters in the basement, and she encourages me to buy more.

I wouldn’t presume to call this a restoration. It's something more like a respectable cleaning. Maybe if I get into collecting typewriters to the point that I not only clean up every one of them, I also replace all the missing pieces with authentic parts recovered from junked typewriters I find after haunting e-bay for months, and I paint, polish and nickle-plate all the pieces, and maybe after I’ve been doing that for about twenty years, then I’ll start calling it restoration. For right now, all I’m hoping to do is clean it up enough to make it somewhat presentable.

I have never cleaned a typewriter before, beyond simply blasting the dust out of it by foofing as hard as I could through my puckered lips into the mechanism, eyes shut as tightly as possible to keep flying dust and dirt and dried-out little spider carcasses from blinding me. Taking any part off a typewriter for a thorough cleaning and polishing was never a consideration. Just thinking about unscrewing hundreds of tiny parts made me break out in a cold sweat.

This old Smith-Corona, though, cried out for me to make the attempt, for a start because it could be such a good-looking typewriter if I applied even the tiniest bit of effort to cleaning out the dirt and shining it up a bit. And, even more significantly, I’m not sentimentally attached to it yet. I’ve had my old Underwood since high school; I used to type term papers on it for college classes. If I took it apart and couldn’t get it back together, I’d be devistated. But I wouldn’t mind if I couldn’t figure out how to put all the parts back where they belonged on this old Smith-Corona right away. It’s a learning opportunity waiting for me to take advantage of it.

I started by unscrewing the very simplest parts: the side panels. No self-respecting gadget guy could have resisted the urge to undo them and have a look inside. There's just too much going on in there to ignore, and with the panels off, the machine has an airiness that almost makes these old machines appear delicate.

As I took the side panel off, I found this: A small piece of metal taped to the inside. There was a second piece, about six inches long and three-quarters of an inch wide, and with a shallow V about an inch wide cut into the top, taped to the inside of the front panel. What could it have been meant for? The first thing that popped into my head, and the last thing, too, come to that, is that it may be a bit of raw material left there to give a technician something to make spare parts from.

Deep inside the guts of the machine, the mechanism was thickly grimed with a layer of dirt and bug parts, much of it cemented in place by dried oil. I didn't dare pucker my lips and blow into that mess. Instead, I used a vacuum cleaner attachment that My Darling B bought several years ago so she could clean the insides of her sewing machine. It had a thin, flexible hose and a set of miniature brushes and nozzles that made it particularly good at getting dirt out of all but the tightest corners of the typewriter's interior.

There's a shine under all that grunge!

Most of the parts painted black had a dull look that at first glance seemed as if they were meant to have a matte finish, but when I took the back panels off I found that the black paint that had been protected all those years still had a glossy finish after I brushed the dust and dirt away.

To see if any of the other painted parts were hiding a secret shine, I fetched a bottle of 409 cleaner from the kitchen, sprayed it on a corner of a soft cotton rag, and rubbed at the back corner of the frame. The cotton cloth came away with a dark brown stain, so I started over with a clean spot and kept on doing that until it didn't stain any longer. Then I wiped the typewriter dry with a fresh cloth and Hey! Glossy paint!

I tried again, this time cleaning off a part of the frame on the front of the machine, and it shined up just fine, too. And somewhere in there I discovered that a rag dampened with nothing more than water will work just as well as kitchen cleaner, so I switched to that and cleaned up most of the frame with nothing more than water, soft cotton cloth and good old elbow grease.

I don't know how to get the carriage off a typewriter. I've been poking around for a quick release, unscrewing the most likely screws, but mostly just staring at them real hard, yet I've never been able to figure it out, which is too bad because that's usually where every typewriter needs a really good cleaning with a brush and lots of soap and water. A typewriter repair guy could probably pop one off in two shakes, but I've never seen it done. I've give my left testicle to see that.

Since this typewriter has sort of become my experimental guinea pig, I removed a lot of hooks and catches that seemed to be holding the carriage back, stopping it before it got to the end of its run, but no matter how many I undid I still couldn't slide the carriage out. The damned thing just rolled a little bit further, then stopped and I couldn't see why.

I don't think there is a quick release at all. I think once it's on, it's on for good. But don't take my word for it. Bang your head against the problem yourself for a couple weeks.

So after popping the platen I started poking around in the front of the carriage to find out how many of those parts I could safely remove for cleaning.

The screws holding this hinge in place wouldn't come undone but no problem, I was able to slip the pieces apart.

Detail showing how the spring goes in the hinge. This is the worst spot of corrosion on any part of the typewriter. If there was any finish at all on the graduated rule before, it's completely gone here. I'm not sure how I should even start cleaning that up.

The mechanism that holds the pressure rollers against the platen is not as complicated or daunting as I first thought. I had to undo a pair of screws in an adjustable catch that held the rear rollers down and slide the control bar out, then undo two big screws that fixed the mechanism to the carriage body.

Here's an exploded view of the pressure roller mechanism. The roller bars are held at either end on simple pins sticking out of the brackets. The shiny pan has a pair of ears in the front for the pins to catch. The pressure rollers fit into the gaps in the shiny pan, but it's made to tip forward (as in the photo above) to afford access to the mechanism.

The only thing still in the way was the key target and ribbon guide. I tried cleaning around it, but it got in the way no matter what I did and it was so dirty I really wanted to strip it down and give it a thorough cleaning with some solvent and a brush. I had to undo the two big screws in the body of the typewriter and the four small screws in the face of the target / guide.

It comes apart in three pieces. The two pieces to the left are the easy ones to get out. The one to the right, the ribbon guide, is linked to an actuator in the guts of the machine and takes a bit of fiddling to get it to come undone.

With all that stuff out of the way, there's lots of room to work!

© 2009 Dave Okonski

Clean-up
  – Remove Panels
  – Remove Grime
  – Remove Carriage
  – Carriage Breakdown

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