Wednesday, June 1, 2016

The National No. 5: Scrubbing away the grime


Work on the nickel-plated National No. 5 has so far gone swimmingly, with a major improvement cosmetically. As I am terrible with before/after pictures, it may be hard to tell that most of everything was covered in grease, dirt, sludge and corrosion before I got to work. This machine was ridiculously filthy. Taking it apart down to each individual piece for cleaning remedied that, of course.

 Before:



The typebars were completely covered in tar or something, and were all black. Hard to see here, but you can kind of notice it on the far right typebar.




After:

This machine has been quite nice to deal with. 90% of all screws are the same size, which must have saved a tonne of money in regards to production costs. Alongside such, its a very simple yet efficient design. I think it'll work well when its all said and done.

The key tops, as always, cleaned up quite nicely.






And sitting on the workbench now is the carriage, torn asunder.


7 comments:

  1. It's so nice to see this old beauty get cleaned up - she will truly gleam when you are finished. What a great find.

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    Replies
    1. It makes me want to go find a nickel plated Rex. So much blinding shininess.

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  2. Same-size screws ... a simple and rational production idea. Why isn't it more common?

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    1. While I understand the engineering reasons behind needing different size screws for certain aspects of a machine, this National proves you can do same size screws if you design for it.

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  3. Superbly shiny! Lucky machine (:

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  4. What a difference elbow grease makes!

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  5. You are going to have one spiffy typewriter when your project is complete. Nice work.

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