Blickensderfer 5 - Restoration project begin

This is the base-casting of a Blickensderfer 5 typewriter.

This is also the start of a slow, full restoration project. Restoring some machines is a 'hunt and peck' process, finding individual faults to tackle one at a time. For this typewriter, restoration will be a complete disassembly and then full re-build from the frame up.

The machine as found seemed decent project-material; the case is structurally sound, but of course had signs of wear and tear. (It looks better in the picture than in reality - the sides had water/mold damage.)

The typewriter inside was in a bit of a state.  Dusty, rusty and obviously with missing/broken bits, it all seemed recoverable. Plus that Blickensderfer 5's are not too rare, this seemed good project material to have fun with.

It must have recieved a few knocks in its time, some keybars are bent. More visibly, there's a splattering of paint all-over.

The carriage lacks the wire paper-tray (almost always gone) and there's no carriage-release bar. No ruler either. Oh, and only half a carriage-knob :)

The bottom protection-plate was still in place and -as hoped- so were almost all springs. The severe rust on the left-end of the carriage-casting was by the way the reason it got blocked when sliding it over to the right. (That rust matches the water-damage to the left side of the case - decades spent under a leaky roof, probably.)

The below view with the carriage taken off the machine of the indexing mechanism confirms that the brown color of the brightwork is mostly dirt, rather than rust. That's good, makes it recoverable - it is however quite stubborn dirt (the usual patina/oil/nicotine/dust coating).

This view also shows the serial number 107935; that makes this a 1905 or 1906 machine I think.

The original plan was to have fun with it and do a re-paint - make it e.g an ivory machine or some other fancy finish. They're not too rare and Blickensderfers of this type have all text on metal plates that can be removed, so that would've been doable. On this particular specimen however, unexpectedly the patent-list on the side of the frame is a decal: 

Because this decal is still in fairly good condition, the option of doing a custom re-paint was scratched - the original finish will be kept and this Blickensderfer will be restored/repaired to original condition. The original black lacquer finish will be cleaned and touched-up as far as possible. 

For the coming months, this will be a slow restoration project to explore and figure out the mechanism of the Blickensderfer typewriter - from the base-casting up :)