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: