Photo | Chris Aldrich

A dark wooden table with a thin cardboard and taped package on it. Sitting on top of it is a pair of blue handled scissors. Nearby in the background is a lazy susan with a plate and several small decorative pumpkins on it.

Typewriter ribbon unboxing! I bought a full reel of 660 yards of blue/green bichrome 1/2″ nylon typewriter ribbon from Fine Line Ribbon in Ennis, TX. It arrived yesterday, just in time for some use over the weekend. I’ve now got enough for more than 41 universal 2″ diameter (16 yard) spools, so I should be able to ribbon up my entire collection and have some left over.

A heavily ink smudged paper towel sitting on the keyboard of a green Olympia typewriter. Spooling a full reel of ribbon was obviously a very messy business as seen by the black, red, blue, and green smudging. — Latex gloves and a good rag are necessary when spooling up from a 660 yard reel of nylon ribbon.

THE HELPERS Today as I was working at my Royal KMG typewriter, the same model used by Mr. Rogers, I was heartened by remembering an old quote of his: "When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping."

Typewritten page sitting in the carriage of a 1952 Royal Quiet De Luxe. In black ink with an art deco-looking Vogue typeface we see the on the page the lyrics of the Madonna song Vogue.

I started the process of cleaning my green 1958 Olympia SM3 to bring it back up to speed. Things are generally moving apace although the mixture of eraser shavings and old oil has tarnished the carriage rails. Spent some time with some metal polish trying to bring them back to their old glory. Should be able to finish flushing out tomorrow and getting it back together and properly adjusted.

Here’s a bit of a time lapse of the work:

An empty wooden table with some wooden chairs on the far side.

A light colored hand towel now sits in the middle of the table.

The silver wooden case of an Olympia SM3 now sits on the towel on the table.

The typewriter case is now open and we see the green dusty typewriter inside it.

The typewriter has been removed from the case and sat on the right side.

A small Dyson vacuum and brush have appeared on the table next to the cleaned out case.

A black leather tool case has appeared on the table above the typewriter which now sits on the hand towel next to some index cards and a pen. The case and vacuum/brush have been pushed off to the right side of the table.

The leather toolcase has been emptied and now sits in the chair opposite the typewriter. Several tool pouches full of tools have appeared between the typewriter and the case.

The typewriter hood and several pieces have been disassembled and appear on the table around the towel and the body of the typewriter.

The platen and even more pieces have been removed from the typewriter and its carriage. They sit above and to the side of the typewriter and the layout of tools.

The skeleton of the typewriter sits on the table surrounded by it's parts and screws.

Finally, we see a different angle of the typewriter looking across the table. In the front is the naked typewriter on the hand towel which is surrounded by it's now cleaned body panels, platen, feet, and various other parts, screws, and springs. In the background we see the tools including many screwdrivers in their tool bags.

Office setting with a green metal table in the foreground with a brown Royal HH typewriter on it. In the background are a card catalog filing cabinet and a four drawer filing cabinet whose paint matches the table. There's also a barrister bookcase full of books.

Today’s office. We’ve got a newly finished Shaw-Walker filing cabinet and a 1955 Royal HH standard typewriter.

Forget gasoline. Dismiss lighter fluid. Let slip the idea of lacquer thinner.

When I clean my type slugs, I only use bourbon.

Two Royal Quiet De Luxe typewriters sitting on top of a library card catalog at angles to each other. One on the left is black with grey trim while the other is gray with chrome trim.

Henry Dreyfuss Royal Quiet De Luxe Typewriter showdown. Which do you like better, the black and gray 1948 or the grey and chrome 1949?

Two packages of index card guides sitting on a library card catalog next to a gray Royal typewriter. The manilla package has 4x6" guides and the 5x8" guides are in blue pressboard.

Oxford seems to have quit manufacturing the 1/5 cut tabbed 4 x 6 inch index card guides, but yesterday I scored a bundle of 100 along with some 5 x 8 inch A-Z guides. The big win here was that the lot came for a total of $3.50!