Erika 2 foldable - platen removal, ribbon position adjustment

Always a joy to work on one of these little gems.

There was not much wrong with this specimen, mostly very dirty and with cracked platen. I don’t mention petrified paper-feed roller since this is always the case on machines as old as 114 years.

Removing the platen is easy: one plunger screw is holding platen knob.

Now, platen axis-rod has a key which needs to be aligned with a slot to come out.
So: no hammering if things don’t move!

Platen.
Removed the old, hardened and cracked rubber. Wooden core - beech wood.

I recovered the platen with heat-shrink tubing, back to original 32mm diameter.
Turning on a lathe is a must for such operation, heat-shrink tubes shrink too non-uniformly to rely on that to be concentric.

Line advance is a pinch-action on this machine. The ratchet did not come to home position, the spring was too tired. I changed to new, stronger spring and it works perfectly again.

It is a small and very light machine so good rubber feet are essential for comfortable typing. I made mine from Biltema components.

Key-tops were so dirty that I thought that they are damaged. Luckily these are made of real glass so it was possible to clean. I use Fulgentine - carefully to not flood the key. Just enough to soften the dirt and scrape from the glass with toothpick.

Lastly - new ribbon.
Nominally these machines use 16mm (5/8 in) ribbon. I was buying mine from Holland but right now I had none left.

Well, there is a way to use standard 12.5mm ribbon on these, too. As long as it is single-colour ribbon.
One just needs to adjust how high the ribbon vibrator rises upon key strike.

Shifting this latch left or right (red arrows) is causing height change for the vibrator (green arrow). Tighten the screw once done so it stays put in this position.