Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Underwood 5 Restoration: Escapement

In my opinion, nothing shouts "Typewriter" so much as an Underwood 5. Its strong cast iron frame and exposed mechanics have a strong beauty all its own that shows the transition from the 1800's to the 1900's.It is also interesting to note the design choices made by Underwood in building its famous desktop machine, which prove that it was in essence "Unrefined" so to speak. Case in point is the escapement. Of all the machines I've had the fortune to delve into, the Underwood 5's escapement is the most bearish, brutish, and beastly of them all. I could only think as much as I took it off the framework, and stared at it contemplating how long it would take to clean the entire thing. Well, 4 days after starting and roughly 6 or 7 hours (Maybe more. Alas that I don't have a time-punch to tell me just how many ticks of the clock I've devoted to my repair bench in a day), I am quite pleased with the results and happy that the most intricate part of the entire machine is done.

I took the entire thing apart, down to every screw. I then cleaned and painted the appropriate pieces (Mind you most of the metal is actually supposed to be blued I believe. I used black lacquer to restore it all, though.). I would caution anyone who wants to take these apart of the geared wheel; I, foolishly in my haste, did not anticipate ball-bearings. Not only are there ball bearings, there are 16 of them. Very teeny, tiny ball bearings. And they are not fun to put back into their correct spots. Other than that, the rest is easy.

 Old:
 Restored:

Old:
 Restored

Old:
 Restored:

Restored:

1 comment:

  1. Wow. I am seriously impressed. Both with your fine work and with the details of this mechanism that I've never removed from an Underwood!

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