Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Nearly there; The Underwood Restoration Continues

The Underwood nears completion. The body of the machine is for the most part done, requiring only a few spots of paint touch up, and a bit of tweaking of the key springs and escapement. As I deal with painting the carriage, having already cleaned all the carriage parts, I worked on edging the old dilapidated scale out of its casing.

The thing was flaking off at the touch when I first got the machine two or so years ago, so I hit it with a layer of gloss enamel. That only made the flakes that were coming off shinier. So here I am, trying to replace it.
On that note, if you have an Underwood 5 with a 9 inch length scale (From metal to metal) with markings for 10cpi typeface that is in good condition, I would appreciate a detailed scan of that so I can print out a replica.


I hear that every time a typewriter bell rings, a machine gets a fresh coat of paint. 


The body of the machine is basically done and ready for action!


I have the feeling this thing will be much fun to use 


Also of note, a peculiar parcel arrived, containing an odd arrangement of paper pages with ink upon them.
I would like to mention that, so far as I have read, The Typewriter Revolution is well worth the very affordable cost, and I highly recommend it. The only oddities include the Fox not being named the typewriter every person needs, regardless of anything else, and the fact that under the Underwood description, it is mentioned that one should AVOID those standard machines which have only a shift-lock key on their right. I told my Underwood (which has said "feature"), and it was mortified that someone would avoid it due to such a "wonderful" quirk!

(In all reality, though I will enjoy typing on this machine, I must concur with Mr. Polt in that it is preferable not to have the shift lock when you try to use your right hand to shift. I can forsee myself having a lot of half-capital words in the future.)


7 comments:

  1. It's looking good. ;)

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  2. It looks *excellent*, and you've reminded me that I have a post about restoring paper scales on Selectrics that I need to put up soonish. (:

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    1. Just saw your post on restoring Selectric scales, and it gave me hope and an idea for how to deal with my own scale issue!

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    2. excellent! such wonderful synchronicity in the Typosphere :D

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  3. Thanks for the plug. And your Underwood is looking like it's going to be tons of fun!

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  4. here's a scan of the paper scale from my 1920 U5. Hopefully you need Pica:
    http://munk.org/typecast/2015/10/27/drago-and-a-nice-scan-of-an-underwood-5-pica-paper-scale/

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  5. Curious...what did you end up printing the scan of the paper scale onto? Did you print onto paper, then laminate it... print onto some kind of plastic/film? I may very well need to do the same, as the paper scale is by far the worst damage our ol' #5 has sustained. Thanks!

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