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Sunday, 26 June 2011

The Portex Typewriter: Our Adventure Begins

My new "baby", the Portex No 5 portable, arrived safe and sound from the US on Friday. Given what I paid for it, I consider it a really good score.
Today was the first chance I had to start doing a bit of work on it. I knew that as soon as I applied a little elbow grease, a rag, some spray and a polish, it would start to look spiffing. And less than 10 minutes later, it was exactly that.
These are very early days yet, however. The mainspring needs fixing and the drawband reattached. Once that is done, this little beauty will be typecasting with the best of them ... I will keep you posted:
BEFORE
As it appeared on eBay, above, and what it looked like when it arrived, below
AFTER 10 MINUTES
Doesn't she look as if she's smiling?
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5 comments:

  1. Richard P26 June 2011 at 22:52

    She looks great!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Robert Messenger26 June 2011 at 23:09

    Thanks, Richard. Nowhere near as nice as your one, but it'll get a lot better with more polishing and a blow through etc. I'm dying to get it working. Shouldn't be too much of a problem, I don't think. BTW, still an On This Day (on electrics) to post yet, so the machine hasn't shut down just yet.

    ReplyDelete
  3. notagain27 June 2011 at 04:12

    Where do you get your elbow grease? Mine doesn't work half so well. Maybe you could send me a tin?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Robert Messenger27 June 2011 at 10:30

    Hi notagain ... I actually didn't use an awful lot of it, so there's certainly some spare.

    ReplyDelete
  5. shordzi22 October 2012 at 01:52

    I love the 10 minutes. I do the same.

    ReplyDelete

I do not accept anonymous comments.
I only allow comments under User IDs provided I know who that person is.
Do not ask me to evaluate typewriters.
Comments must be relevant to the post.
As the author of these posts, I make the decisions about what they contain - it is not open to discussion.