How to use Corona

Part of the quest to make the machines complete is to get the user manual with them again. Especially for the little Corona that is nice, as it so clearly has the metal strip to hold the booklet in the lid of the case.

As mentioned, I found a late copy at a bookseller (via abebooks.com) and arranged to buy this and have it mailed to me. After getting the booklet in the mail (very well packed), the first thing to do was to make a scan of it. The second thing was to upload this scan. So for reading, the booklet can be downloaded here at archive.org. (Feel free to mirror; copies are good to have; on the internet things come and go...)

The copy I got was pretty good and didn't need a lot of editing or cleaning to create a nice printing version. This layout allows for printing double sided on an A3-size printer. I've put it online and it can be downloaded both in high resolution (~40Mb) and in a more reasonable printing resolution (~10Mb).

One of the things that I noticed when cleaning up the scans, is that Corona probably used 1922-ish pictures of the product for this 1937 printing. E.g. in figure 4 it's visible that the company name on the front bar is erased-out, my guess that is to make the old photograph also usable for printing after the merger with LC Smith.

With this cleaned printing-layout a new copy was printed to keep in the box (keeping the original in an envelope on the shelf). The A3 printer was good in doing double-sided printing, turning over on the short side and keeping good alignment of back and front.

The sheets were then made into a new booklet by folding the stack (in the right order) over the folding lines, then staple and cut to size. Because I didn't have a large stapler that can take a booklet, the staples were applied by hand. Using a 1mm drill-bit to make the holes for the staples and using needle-nose pliers to bend these in place. The stapled booklet could then be cut to size with a sharp knife, metal ruler (and a cutting mat!) using the cutting guides on the outer pages.

Even though the paper is probably a bit too white, the little Corona now has a 'new' manual in the box again. (Am wondering what made Corona call their little stalwart No. 3 "Automatic" all of a sudden.)

Now to scout for a small Pigeon brand ribbon tin for that clip in the lid...  

:)