1928 Royal Model 10

First off you find a nice machine in the rough - with workable decals, nickel, paint, etc. Now the real work starts.

Now you want to drop all the outer glass, plates, take off the platen, feed rolls, bail rolls and the key tops.

Now blow it out real well with a air compressor and place the machine in a cleaning tank. Some hand scrubbing with cleaning solution and a brush will be needed, especially on places like the type faces.

After you've scrubbed with a brush and removed all the old grease and grime, blow it out again with air and re-oil and re-grease the machine well.

This cleaning procedure is often done several times before the hand waxing begins, depending on the level of restoration needed.

Now wipe the machine down with a damp cloth and liquid dish washing detergent, then the hand polishing with paste wax begins.

The waxing itself is a true labor of love as it may take many hours before the true patina of the old paint begins to shine through.

Doing this with the all the plates off makes the job somewhat easier. You can always tell when someone tries to take a short cut and leave all the plates on, by the uneven way the machine shines.

Now we are ready to replace the key tops and rings with new ones. This is a minimum two hour job if you know what you're doing and have all the right tools to do it with.

Now you replace all the outer plates, and put new platen and feed rolls as they have hardened over the years and are no longer usable. (In fact - I've even seen feed rolls that have square edges from pressing up against the platen for years.)

You can't see in these pictures, but maybe a little better in the one below, that the feet on this banger were like pieces of black rock before I replaced them with new ones.

I now replace the ribbon and metal spools and begin testing it according to my "Ten Point check list" and make a final typing test to insure she meets my standard of "Fine Old Typewriter."

Bottom line is that she's now a work of art. Now I understand that not everyone has the money to invest in a work of art, but I really don't understand why someone would spend good money on a hunk of junk or a door stop that could never be returned to its former state of beauty.

IMPORTANT NOTE -

I have posted on my site guidelines for packaging and shipping old typewriters safely, and I know that many people on the net post similar guidelines, and yet I still receive and hear of machines being damaged in shipping.

I have seen many outrageous statements on Ebay that go something like this - "I can not, nor will not take responsibility for the damage of your item after payment is made and it is in the hands of the carrier." Ridiculous! Of the hundreds of typewriters I ship each year, I can guarantee you that 99.99% of any damages that occur to a machine during shipping is solely the fault of the shipper's packaging and not the carrier. (Please note that this not true of all Ebayers, but is true about some of them.)

You will never - NEVER - hear this from MrTypewriter. My fault or the shipper's fault - even God's fault - the buck stops with MrT.

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