What goes into a complete refurb?

That's one of the questions I get often.  So I decided to film one, from beginning to end.  Now this one was admitedly easy, compared to some of the projects I've undertaken.  But keep watching my channel... I'm working on a LC Smith right now that started off as just a hunk of rust. 

If you’re in the typewriter business, you don’t have a lot of competition. You have some—but not much. And for that reason, those of us who have dug in, are allowed to make some of our own rules. We don’t have to play all the corporate games because some people have no other choice than to deal with us. Well, almost no other choice. What I’m getting at is this: a typewriter seller or technician gets to set the tone, and even bad decisions won’t destroy his businesses.

Obviously, I'm not going to spell out my entire process.  I don't have time to write it, and very few would have the time (or interest) in reading it.  But I do want to share just a few of the processes that I go through to get a machine from old and junky to shiny and working.  I'll do it in a series of blog posts, and try to show as clear pics as I can.  Perhaps it would be a better video series, but... well... it takes more time to do that and time is something I'm short on.

I'll start with the moving parts.

As many typewriters as I refurbish, I find it kind of odd that I NEVER take 'before pictures.'  Now if I was in the habit of only buying well-preserved typewriters and simply cleaning them and reselling them, then that would make sense.  But that's not how I operate.  I don't flip.  Every typewriter I touch gets completely stripped down, and every part is cleaned, tested, oiled, etc.,.  So I tend to pick up the ones that look crappy, but have solid parts in them.  And to be honest, I kind of enjoy seeing the fact that my work is noticeable.

On Royal desktop models (not so much on the portable units), the typewriter ribbons have to be rewound.  You have to use the spools that the typewriter came with.  It's not too big of a job, but prepare for some black finger tips, as you have to touch the ribbon a lot.

I generally only demo machines that I myself have for sale.  But a customer dropped this off and had me work on it--I couldn't resist making a quick demo video.

The escapement gears on any typewriter are generally very small, yet very reliable.  Now the escapement mechanisms that surround it aren't so much--but the gear that meshes against the carriage rack almost never has problems.  But if you ship something UPS, no matter how carefully you pack it, there's a possibility that it'll break.

This question comes up again and again. But the question itself can be answered in different ways. What’s more, the answer all depends on the motives of the person asking the question.

For instance, what a lot of people REALLY want to know is, “How much money could I get out of this typewriter, if I wanted to sell it?” In this particular case, the answer might seem easy. Simply go to ebay, and see what the other models are selling for, right? Wrong.

When I refurbish a typewriter, and decide the color is too boring, I have a particular method of choosing the colors I want to introduce.  Some of it's based on my own preference (generally, I like bright colors).  Some of it is based on current events (like the red, white, and blue colors or the Bengal Tiger paintjob I recently finished).  And some of it is just based on what kinds of paint I have in stock at the time.

Look closely at the keyboard here.  You'll notice several things missing:

1 - No Enter/Return button.  Jumping down to the next line and returning the carriage back to the beginning was done manually, via the Type Bar.  Even the first electric typewriters didn't include one.  When they finally did come up with one, it was a 'Return' button, because it returned the carriage back to the beginning of the line.