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Wednesday 4 June 2014

Pride of Place: Royal 10 Standard, the "Lazarus" Typewriter

Just two short days ago, this Royal 10 Standard typewriter was headed for the scrapheap. It was a busted rustbucket. Now look at it. In a pride of place as one enters the Typewriter Museum.
I had time early this morning to make the decals and put them on, before having to go out for a sports history lecture. The machine was already looking good enough to display, so on my way home I bought a "bar table" from the Salvos, especially for the Royal 10 and the Remington 16 I cleaned up earlier in the week. 
I finished polishing up the Royal when I got back and now here is it, proudly perched on its special stand.
No sooner had I put the stand up than in came a lovely email from my dear friend Peter Weil, with the subject "Royal Lazarus". "Robert, just fantastic and beautiful!! Great job!" wrote Peter. Gee, was I relieved to read that! I'm so glad someone else likes it. I was beginning to worry. Still, I shouldn't really care that much, as long as I like it. And I do, obviously ...  which might have some connection with the amount of work that went into it.

In answer to Richard Polt's earlier question about the restoration process: Yes, the foam degreaser I use is something I usually feel needs to be washed off almost immediately after I've applied it, especially from the paintwork. So I spray the machine with a light lubricant to get rid of all residue of the foam, then use an air compressor to blow all the liquid away. The photo below shows how the foam works in cleaning dirt off the paintwork. The foam evaporates quickly, so one needs to be equally quick in acting to protect the sheen:
Then begins the long, hard slog of rust removal:
I have to keep reminding myself this is what this typewriter looked like on Monday:

6 comments:

btvarner said...

Great job Robert!

I have been following this one. You have some clean-up similarities to the methods I just used on my Oliver No. 5. (http://dwabrenaissance.blogspot.com/).

I will be posting my complete process in the next few days. Glade we can all gain experience from each other.

Again, great job...............

Richard P said...

Fabulous results! And you work fast.

Thanks for the further info. on the foam.

Ryan Adney said...

Amazing restoration. It looks fantastic. Shiny Royal desktops are sights to behold.

Miguel Chávez said...

That Royal is a beauty! Congratulations, good thing you managed to bring it back to life.

Steve Snow said...

Ha haa! Spick and span and ready for the next 96 years of its life!

Anonymous said...

Outstanding work! I wish there was a guy like you near my house so I could learn to fix my own machines.