Preparing for painting

With the spare parts in, a set of body-panels chosen and ready to be sanded down and have a coat of primer applied. Having seen several Remington Portable #2 machines (or parts thereof), there is quite some variation on details also on the 'number 2'. For example a late 1927 machine e.g. has no protective plate at the back and a summer 1927 does. A 1928 machine does not and a 1929 machine does again have this. Was this an optional extra? Did they get lost when the machine was taken off the base. The British assembled machine's plate also has an extra hole added, no idea yet what that is for. (But there probably was a reason.)

Even on rusted and worn parts the paint is still strong and very firmly fixed. A couple of different methods of paint-removal were used - that is, the not too unhealthy kinds. Some hot and soapy water was mentioned to soften some paints - this makes it all pleasantly warm and clean, but does not soften the paint. Ammonia is said to remove some paints - this paint is not one of those paints. The most obvious aid and actually successful is acetone. Confirmed then that this is nitro-cellulose lacquer. With some sanding to 'open up' the outer layer, acetone softens and dissolves the lacquer and makes sanding down easier. In the end didn't take the time to soak the parts for hours in acetone. That would've probably removed all the old lacquer, but mostly did sanding with emery paper of various grit sizes only using acetone to soften the hard to get to parts.

With the parts smooth with most of the old lacquer and pretty much all of the corrosion removed, a coat of metal primer was applied.

Now what colours to choose for the machine! This typewriter definitely is not going to be black, but will be a two-tone finish. The encyclopedic page on these machines shows the fancy schemes originally available from the factory. (With equally fancy names.) Not going to try to match one of those schemes exactly, but will want to come up with a new one in the same style. How would Algarve Green with Ivory look, or Porto White with Rooftop Red?

Choices!

Very well packed, arrived all in bits

A short while ago a large box arrived, having made a purchase off of Ebay from the typewriters section. (Shipper DPD certainly does like barcodes.)

The inside of the box showed the extensive and very good buffering.

With all the individual bits also very well wrapped (thank you, Joe!).

This is a Remington Portable #2 typewriter, or rather; most of the bits of a Remington Portable taken off a machine that was really rusted solid to 'boat-anchor' status.  Parts will be used in the rebuilding of my Portuguese-keyboard Portable that is currently underway. One of that machine's bearing-cage sprockets was gone and the state of the case is probably beyond my repair abilities. To my surprise on Ebay I found a case was offered for sale. (Everything can be found on the internet, amazing.) Talking with the seller it turned out he had an old Portable that was beyond repair and was selling the salvageable bits-n-bobs. Spare parts then!

The carriage assembly does show a bit of the state the whole machine was in. From the serial number, this was a British assembled machine from 1929. Apart from the bodywork panels lots of screws and bits - including a carriage bearing cage and a case. These will be used with the 1927 machine and who knows what next project - these Remington Portable machines I find good for tinkering with :-)

Eraser on a leash

(Popular Science, October '26)

At first glance a neat idea. On second thought perhaps, let it go and it could wind itself around the mechanism in all sorts of interesting ways :-)

Also shows that the archetype of the disk typewriter-eraser goes back some time.

More sleeve designs

Another set of 78rpm shellac record sleeves. As the earlier set of images, record labels sleeve designs from mid thirties to early forties. German labels, except for the British HMV sleeve, very business-like compared to e.g. the Electrola. Electrola was the German label of HMV, or rather of EMI by that time. The Electrola name was founded in '25 by The Gramophone Company after their German unit was seized during WW1. Because the German unit (Deutsche Grammophon) could not use its label outside of Germany, they created Polydor as their export name. Already then, complex arrangements of companies and labels.
(Click on images to magnify. Both sides same design if only one image.)

The final crash of civilization and Mozart

"It is natural enough that when the final crash of our civilization is being constantly and confidently predicted on all hands as imminent, or already begun, people who have a regard for the arts should turn to those amongst the great who can most effectively provide an anodyne."

Now that's a sentence you don't see too often, especially not on the booklet in a music album. After the introduction there follows analysis and musical comment on the piece itself.

It is the opening paragraph of the accompanying analytical notes to a classical album with a Mozart piano concerto. Leaflet neatly tucked in the album inside, record sleeves with handy rivets preventing the disks from sliding into the album back.

His Master's Voice album number 301, Mozart concerto in C minor performed by Edwin Fisher and the London Philharmonic Orchestra and recorded on eight sides, four 12" records, in 1937.

(Still very good to listen to, with or without the surrounding crash of civilization...)

Thirties' sleeves

Some record label sleeves from the thirties.

Remington Portable bodywork

First step towards a repaint; get all the parts to be painted off the machine. 

It really helps that this is not the first Remington Portable #2 typewriter I've tried to take apart. It means that by now I know what screws to undo and when (having explored all possible wrong options on the other machines first). When you know what to unscrew, it comes apart quite easily.

Important preparation is to put drops of oil on all the bodywork screws and especially on the platen-knob screw. Leaving this to creep in for a couple of days helps to loosen. On this machine it then all came apart without any mishaps. Platen came off readily. Removing the stop-screw from the carriage base of the machine allows the carriage to slide off easily. The one item that had me stumped on the previous attempts jumped out clearly now; remove two pins (nails) at the bottom of the removed carriage and the paper tray drops off.

This leaves the core of the machine exposed for a good cleaning. The mechanism is already surprisingly clean and rust-free, considering the general state the machine was in.

Now to explore how to remove the old paint, almost certainly to be nitro-cellulose lacquer. Will be giving this a try with some acetone...