Marchant Pony B calculator coming together

Now that the main functional blocks of the calculator, i.e. the carriage, the setting-drum and the carriage-shifting are all re-built, the whole machine was put together again. A 'test fitting' , with all the covers on too.

The carriage cover had the 18th position blocked off, an old 'fix-up' of a severely damaged machine:

This blocking-off had been very neatly done with a soldered-on bit of brass. Now de-soldered and the hole cleaned-up:

The covers of Marchant machine 70049 are all stamped with '49', i.e. the last two digits of the serial number. For now, only the carriage back-cover was swapped-out with the part from the donor-machine (serial number unknown). The original of machine '49 was really very mangled - oddly so.

Several bits were also tackled or transplanted - the decimal-pointers and bars were taken from the donor-machine -and of course the wooden baseplate.

When putting the cover on the carriage, the counter register did not align properly with the openings - the left digits drop below the viewing holes.

Some checking found that this was not due to a wrong assembly or the carriage itself being bent, but simply because the holes in the cover are misaligned! The cover part is manufactured over many separate stamping steps, so there is a risk of the plate not being fully seated against the alignment pegs on one of these steps. A small misalignment in the tool this time (i.e. back in 1920) resulted in a slight misalignment in the counter-holes. Not major, but still unexpected that this got past final-inspection - these were very expensive machines! A Pony B Special sold new for well over 300 dollar in 1920.

For the whole 'typical look' of the Marchant, a quick-fix reproduction nameplate was mounted on the top-cover and a bit of felt was cut to size to put between baseboard and machine. The long-lost factory original felt probably was black or dark purple/blue, but green is nice too.

To try make the calculator work smoother and as a test, the right sidewall here swapped out with the donor-machine's sidewall (that does not have the brass weld repair) - it really is a luxury to have so many spare parts to choose from! :-)

There still remain many small items to be worked out, but this Marchant Pony B Special calculator basically works again. It does not work very well yet, but it's a start :)