Rheinmetall - serviceman friendly machine

This is Rheinmetall portable typewriter, very similar to Richard Polt’s machine - serial no. 299178 so very close. It was made in East Germany in 1951 or 1952.

And it is not my machine!
Ha!

I found an advertisement and I went to pick the machine. So far I had not any Rheinmetall in my hands and I wanted to try one. The person selling it was very nice so we had a rather long conversation (tea & biscuits included!). And so I found that the seller did not really want to sell her but was desperate because the machine was not functioning properly and no one could be found to look into these problems.

Perfect!
Here I am!

For me such situations are really win-win! I can get my hands on the machine, look into her mechanics and solutions, play with her and possibly fix while I don’t need to keep her! Or find her new home!
That comes with all other by-effects: my wife is happy that I don’t bring YET ANOTHER MACHINE home, I don’t need to find space for it but mostly, MOSTLY: I know that once I fix the problem I am returning the machine to someone who will really use her and enjoy it.
Ain’t that a win-win?

The machine landed on my bench and I started investigations. First things first: cleaning. There was dust & dirt inside but luckily no one approached it with WD 40. Thanks for that!

Brushed off and blown out most of the dirt.
Next thing was segment flush - many keys were sticking, not returning to rest position after typing. Many were slow and stubborn in movement. Flush with thinner, followed with “typewriter soup” and air blasts solved the issue within half an hour.

I got curious on the function of these two latches on the back panel. They looked like asking for undoing…

Of course I opened them but nothing happened. I then recalled reading about this Rheinmetall solution for easy carriage assembly removal. OK, so what else do I need to unscrew to get it out? Yep, these two wide-head screws, on both sides of the carriage rails. No need to remove them, just undo a few turns - the assembly is held in place by small metal tabs underneath.

And the whole thing just glides out in no time!

Why, oh why is it not a standard on all other machines? Oliver, Adler and Blickensderfer being the only other I know to have such easy carriage removal but this Rheinmetall beats them all - entire escapement is right in front of you!
How cool is that?

That gave me access to deeper layers of the mechanical wonder, to further clean it. It also gave me direct clue why the ribbon vibrator was hanging occasionally during typing.

That’s correct - the pin should be inside of the arm below, not above. Fixed that!

I then checked if the ribbon is lifted enough for proper alignment with type slugs. Nope! It was too low now.

I corrected lift height with adjustment screw on actuator arm, close to the ribbon vibrator.

Another issue was that the draw string was too long. Upon closer inspection I found that someone repaired apparently broken string by tying an extension. Good job but the extension was too long, resulting in too low spring tension thus causing the carriage to slow down when closer right margin. Fast enough typist would then overrun the machine, piling letters at the end of the line.

I fixed that by cutting excess string and burning/melting new string end. Easy on removed carriage assembly!

I attempted cleaning key tops but did not manage to whiten out key legends: thick paint in engraved letters got cracks which took dirt in between. These machines are known for peeling key legends, resulting in empty engravings. I didn’t want to risk damaging otherwise complete legends so I just cleaned the obvious dirt and decided to call the remaining dirt a patina.

What was left was to install fresh ribbon. This machine has colour selector so I installed black-red, hardcore traditional ribbon.
Knots at the spool ends instead of rivets - they work equally well in tripping ribbon riverse mechanism.

Last but not least - waxing with Fulgentin. I took care not to wipe decals - even mild solvent like in Fulgentin will turn gold into silver-gray colour.
The enamel on this machine has many cracks. Apparently she spent some part of her life in bad conditions. Wax fills a bit these cracks and masks them, hopefully preventing further development.

Happy with the result I sat down to test type a few words.

What a joy! The machine is fast and snappy, very responsive. I would compare her to Triumph Perfekt or Torpedo. It is not as light as on Erika, rather leaning towards Olympias. Very good typer!

Before returning to her owner I took her home for photo session.