Flatbed - Royal no.5
I drove to Knivsta to pick this machine. A few hundreds kilometers trip on early winter Saturday, misty and foggy. The owner had the machine after his grandfather and, himself getting old, was getting rid of junk accumulated over the years. He was not willing to send the machine and I was not asking for it - it would probably got damaged during shipment.
It is a heavy beast, cast iron body, old style but with 4-bank keyboard and all features one would expect from a proper, no-nonsense machine. After all - it is a standard typewriter, not portable so no compromises were made.
No-nonsense means no “magic margins” or TAB stops steered from the keyboard. No such things - instead plain, robust solutions which ALWAYS work and are dead simple to understand, fix & adjust. A machine for those who put on their trousers one leg at a time.
It is by no means a rare machine. Plenty of them were made and for many years so it is rather easy to find one if you live in US. Not so often in Europe thou. Especially in so nice shape and with decals in pristine condition.
Signs of age and use are visible, of course. Honest patina which adds charm to artifacts of the past.
The machine had some usual problems but it was typing. A bit reluctantly but all was moving and key levers were not “sticky”. The biggest problem was dirt, dust and solidified oil but luckily no traces of WD40 or simillar “wonder” oil.
I started by finding the cause of carriage stopping at some points. It happened to be a lose line pointer which was getting in the way - a tiny, thin piece of metal which could be easily cut should someone tried force the carriage to move. Fixed that and moved on to general de-dusting.
Most of the mechanism is exposed and easily accessible so most dirt could be brushed out and blown with the compressor but there remained a lot of junk trapped below the keyboard which in this machine is covered with “steps”.
To get there one needs to remove all keys, to be able to lift steel plates forming “the steps”. Easy job if not a bit boring - unhooking all these links one by one.
Tabulator arm and shift keys are spring-loaded, I found it best to unhook the springs and remove them before chemical bath, otherwise they may get lost when the mechanism gets compressed-air blasts.
All of the holding links - these which hold vertical key levers - are of exactly same length and form so no need to keep track of them. I unhooked them all and placed in “typewriter soup” for cleaning.
Most keys can be just lifted out after detaching pulling links, some of them are crooked so they need to wait until covering plates are unscrewed.
Once free from keys the plates can be lifted, uncovering a bit more dirt. Intriguing off-center nut which hold TAB arm is, at the same time, an adjustment for CAPS LOCK lever.
Return coil-spring for space bar dirty but in perfect condition.
Stripped to bare minimum and ready for chemical bath.
At some point the carriage draw string got broken and someone replaced it with a piece of string. Of course that it works! Maybe not looking the best but for those who agonize on “what to use to replace a draw band/spring on my typewriter” - well, whatever will work as long as it is strong!
Judging from the width of the spring drum there was a proper, wide draw band originally. I don’t have one to replace it but the string looks awful so I fashioned a thinner but even stronger string instead.
All hooks unhook, nothing hangs loose so we move out for wet-cleaning.
Back on the bench I address padding under the space bar. Felt cushion is deformed and no longer stops the space bar from hitting the frame. I add rubber strip between layers of felt, to increase its thickness to original size.
Similar repair on the upper side - where the space bar hits the “steps” plate. Here pads were gone so I glue thin pieces of rubber as a padding.
Some key legends were turned, not causing any problems but making the keyboard look untidy. Fixed that.
Key tops are made of real glass, not celluloid like on many later machines.
All cleaned and waxed. Time to put it all back together.
Margin release pulling rod was bent - either by accident or by someone who tried to fix non-functional margin release. It was bent on the threaded part and when I tried to straighten it it snapped…
Well, that was unfortunate but I managed to remove rests of the thread from adjustment nut so I could mount it back.
Adjusting the length by this nut fixed problem with not working margin release.
Next in line was ribbon advance mechanism. It was working when the machine was standing on its back but was not working when back on feet. Gravity at work? Turns out there was too much play between the gear and small dog which should engage it - the very bottom of internal gear wheel is chamfered, causing the dog to skip
Adjusting position of the driving rod eliminated the play and ribbon advance became reliable again.
Last but not least: platen and paper feed rollers.
The platen is very hard, as on all these old machines. It was also dented due to years of use.
I sanded it smooth which does not help with hardened rubber but makes the imprint a bit better, especially when typed on double or triple paper sheets. Same procedure for paper feed rollers which, to my surprise, had no flat spots.
Assembly completed, oiled carriage rollers and the machine sings again!
Raw beauty of exposed mechanics, decals and step-like keyboard. And it is very comfortable and enjoyable to type, even at very fast pace!
Ribbon reverse lever. How classy is that?
Very good typer and a joy to work on.