Tag: Fold-A-Matic

Restored 1951 Remington Super-Riter Standard Typewriter

Earlier this week I started stripping down my recently acquired 1951 Remington Super-Riter typewriter. The machine’s serial number puts it into the 15th month of production of the Super-Riter which replaced the storied Remington 17 and the Remington KMC.

Features of the Remington Super-Riter

A nearby manual for the Super-Riter can be found in the one Richard Polt lists as a Super-Riter, but which seems to be for the slightly later Remington Standard.

This machine, which weighs in at a solid 33.7 pounds, provides a similar Keyboard Margin Control (KMC) functionality which it’s predecessor the Remington KMC did. This allows one to very quickly and easily set the margins by holding down the key and moving the carriage. I find it to be wonderfully ingenious and much more robust than Royal’s Magic Margins similar feature which is much easier to accidentally activate and subsequently mess up your carefully set margins.

The keyboard also features a key return button (marked KR) which allows one to quickly clear key jams by pressing a button. This helps prevent one from getting inky fingers otherwise caused by pressing the jammed keys back down by hand, an action which also requires taking one’s hands off the keyboard to effectuate.

This model has a relatively standard American keyboard with 42 keys and 84 characters. It has a tabulator with a keyboard-based tab button at the top flanked by tab set and tab clear buttons.

While they look like doubleshot plastic, the keys are done in two molded plastic pieces which are friction fit together.  The keys are also friction fit onto the key levers so they’re (relatively) easy to remove for cleaning.

The platen is easily removeable and potentially replaceable by pulling a small lever on the front of each side of the typewriter. 

Different from many typewriters of this era, the side plates for the carriage are friction fit onto the machine utilizing a pip on the front and two on the back. A thin screwdriver wedged into the back will loosen them and allow their removal. Once these are taken off, the paper table lifts off easily. (Apparently someone was unaware of this on this particular typewriter and an incredibly thin piece of the metal holding the paper table on was shorn off. Hopefully this note will save future paper tables from damage.)

Restoration

Surprisingly all the panels of the body are removable from the chassis with just ten screws (and the removal of the knob on the ribbon reversal). The paint and finish of the typewriter were in dreadful condition and cleaning with some Simple Green and a soft bristled brush followed by a wipe-down with WD-40 have done some wonders, but it still leaves much to be desired. There are some drips of red paint and more than a fair share of chips and wear. On the positive side, the decals are in great condition. Because all the body is easily removeable, I’m very tempted to use this as a candidate for either stripping and repainting or potentially a plating process (nickel seems fun here perhaps).

This is my second Remington standard with the Fold-A-Matic feature, which again, made cleaning out and making adjustments of the interior much simpler. A prior servicing had sprayed oil everywhere inside the majority of the typewriter which had long since hardened and gummed up with dust. With the use of some mineral spirits, a toothbrush, a brass bristle brush, and the air compressor the interior is about as clean as it can be without completely disassembling the entire machine and hand polishing everything.

The rubber on most of this machine is in acceptable condition. The feet are excellent for their age and still have some grip that prevent it from walking across a desk. The rollers are still round and have grip. The platen is great for it’s age, but will certainly see recovering once the exterior is stripped and restored.

One set of pieces which didn’t survive as well are the brass grommets and rubber gaskets which are used to hold the side and rear panels onto the machine. I can easily clean up the brass portions, but the rubber will require complete replacement. In the meanwhile the machine is functional without them, but it will help to give the panels more stability and reduce small vibrations.

You’ll find a “naked” photo of the typewriter during restoration here.

Ribbon and Typeface

I’ve replaced the old, dried out ribbon with 1/2 inch blue and green bichrome from Fine Line. The typeface, based on the 1964 NOMDA Blue Book, seems to be Remington’s 534-10 pitch.

Typeface sample of Remington 534-10 pitch on a Remington Super-Riter

Photos

Angle down onto the front of a 1951 Remington Super-Riter standard typewriter

View down onto the dark green keys of a 1951 Remington Super-Riter standard typewriter. The letters appear double shot in light green plastic.

Close up angle on the hood and carriage of a 1951 Remington Super-Riter standard typewriter

Table level view of the front of a 1951 Remington Super-Riter typewriter. There's a silver Remington badge on the front of the hood.

Left side profile view of a 1951 Remington Super-Riter standard typewriter sitting on a lazy susan. The greenish-brown crinkle paint is worn but has been shined up a bit.

Close up of the Remington metal-esque logo on the hood of a 1951 Remington Super-Riter standard typewriter

Left front corner table level view of a 1951 Remington Super-Riter standard typewriter. The side of the keyboard section has a heavy used patina.

The broad expansive and massive looking rear of a 1951 Remington Super-Riter standard typewriter

Right profile table-level view of 1951 Remington Super-Riter standard typewriter

Close up from the right side of the right side of the carriage of a 1951 Remington Super-Riter standard typewriter

Seen from behind, this is a view down into the wide opening of a typebasket of a 1951 Remington Super-Riter standard typewriter. We see all the typebars and the slugs. Two brown crinkle painted wings extend from the sides of the typewriter to help cut down on dust into the machine. At the front of the photo we see the shiny silver typing point right next to the platen.

Angled view of the left side of the carriage on a 1951 Remington Super-Riter standard typewriter. We see the green plastic platen knob and silver variable platen button on it.

Close up view of the hood and typing point of a 1951 Remington Super-Riter standard typewriter

Close up view of the mechanics on the right side of the carriage and platen of a 1951 Remington Super-Riter standard typewriter

Left side angel on the bulbous shape of a 1951 Remington Super-Riter standard typewriter. It sits on a wooden lazy Susan on a wooden table with a bee themed table runner. In the background are several bookcases full of books.

Acquired 1951 Remington Super-Riter Standard Typewriter by Remington Rand, Inc.
S/N: J2013204
Remington Pica 534, 10 pitch typeface; 6 lines/inch
Dirty as all get out, but seems to function nearly flawlessly. A full clean, oil, and adjust is mandatory as will be new ribbon, but in surprisingly solid condition for all the accumulated filth. Not all bad for a thrift purchase of $11.00.

View of a 1951 Remington Super-Riter standard typewriter sitting on a wooden library card catalog. It's sitting at an angle so that the front right corner is facing us. It's obviously quite dirty

Type sample on a white index card from a 1951 Remington Super-Riter. It's got a clear pica Remington typeface. The machine obviously needs some adjustment and cleaning based on the appearance of the type.

Using the Fold-A-Matic feature of the Remington Standard to Clean, Oil, and Adjust

Today I spent a few hours cleaning, oiling, and adjusting my new (to me) Remington Standard typewriter.

Remington Fold-A-Matic

Fortunately, before I had started I was aware of a possibly little known feature called the Fold-A-Matic. I came across the idea of the Fold-A-Matic while looking at other Remington Standards and Super-Riters on the TypewriterDatabase. This led me to a photo of James Groom‘s typewriter and a post by Ted Munk which had a diagram from a Remington repair manual. The fun of the feature is that by loosening a few screws, removing a few others, the entirety of the back end of the typewriter including the carriage folds open allowing easy access to almost all the parts of the typewriter. This means it’s far easier to clean, oil, and adjust almost everything on the machine. 

Simple conceptual diagram of the Remington Fold-A-Matic from a typewriter manual selling the benefits of the functionality. Featured is a diagram of red removeable panels followed by a diagram of the blocky typewriter being folded open.
Typewriter manual page from a 1960s Remington 19 typewriter.

So instead of spending a day and a half cleaning out a typewriter, I managed to do it in about half a day. 

Since I didn’t come across any great photos of  the machine opened up, I thought I’d document some of that process along the way. 

Technical diagram of the rear section of a Remington standard typewriter with indicators of which screws to remove to utilize the Fold-A-Matic functionality of the typewriter
From the Remington Standard Typewriter Repair section of AMES Basic Training Manual for Standard Typewriters by Murray Harris (January, 1968) https://typewriterdatabase.com/1968-Ames_Standard_SVC.remington-repair.manual

To begin, one needs to loosen the screws that hold the top of the left and right body panels onto the typewriter. They can then be leaned out and quickly removed. 

Next one removes the two screws (the rear ones labeled B in Monk’s diagram) on either side that hold the rear cover in place. It too pivots on a small piece of metal at the bottom so it can be easily lifted off and removed. 

Next one can remove two screws in the carriage area (labeled A in Monk’s diagram), the other two “B” screws and the “C” screws on either side. Finally, one then loosens the two “D” screws at the back rear corners of the typewriters.  It’s important that these should only be loosened a few turns as they’re used as a pivot to hold the rear of the typewriter in place. They could certainly be completely removed, but it takes some work to get everything aligned and back together again. 

Now you can fold down the entirety of the rear of the typewriter, thereby opening it up for cleaning and adjustment.  Of course, not everything is accessible in this configuration, but by removing the ribbon hood or flipping the machine over, the majority of the typewriter components are readily reached.  This procedure takes just a minute compared to about 10-20 minutes of work to get other machines apart into a somewhat similar state. You save this time again on the other end when putting things back together.  The other benefit is that so much of the machine can be easily reached and adjusted that less tweaking is required along the way. It cut my cleaning process roughly in half. 

Remington Standard viewed from above with all it's body panels removed along with several screws removed to allow the Fold-A-Matic functionality to open the rear/carriage of the unit for servicing.

Side view of the Remington Fold-A-Matic in action.

View from the back of a Remington Standard with the Fold-A-Matic rear panel opened revealing lots of eraser bits spread over the internals.

View from the back of an opened Remington Standard typewriter with Fold-A-Matic functionality. We see the carriage in the foreground, but we can see into the body of the typewriter's internals.

Missing/Broken Screws

One of the issues my particular model has is that the rear cover didn’t seem to have any means of holding it on. There were holes in the left and right side, but there didn’t appear to be any way for them to be used to hold the rear cover onto the machine. While cleaning, I discovered both of the screw heads (shoulder bolts, in fact) had been shorn off. Fortunately the screws were long enough that they exited the opposite side of their mounts, so I was able to easily remove them. I’ll have to find some replacement screws.

A hand holding a broken bolt next to the panel hole and typewriter frame into which it would have been screwed.

Historical Servicing

Given the age of the machine, the small chips and dings in the paint or the wear on some of the crinkle paint, it was reasonably well-used and likely cleaned and adjusted several times. It’s been a while since the last cleaning as some of the eraser bits inside the machine have stained some of the shiny steel.  But I’ll note that the amount of oil used in the last service was very light at best. There were several patches of grease used on the mechanics on the sides as well as the axel of the mainspring and in the bearing assembly for the shift mechanism. I photographed these as evidence of how this model was serviced at some point in its prior life.

Mechanics on the left side of a Remington Standard typewriter with the side panel removed. Several of the pivot points have brown grease caked up on them.

Right side view of the Remington Standard typewriter with the panel removed showing the mechanics of the ribbon selection system. The main pivot has brown grease caked on it.

An old splotch of grease on the mainspring of a Remington Standard typewriter

Additional points

After winding through some of the ribbon, I’ve found a usable patch. I’m curious to see if the dried out parts will absorb some moisture to be usable again. We’ll see what happens, otherwise, I’m sitting on a nice mountain of new ribbon to respool onto this machine. 

The right ribbon cup of a Remington Standard typewriter stained red from years of bichrome ribbon use.

After cleaning, I’m noticing that the speed of the machine has picked up a bit. I’ll give it a few days of use to see how things proceed, but I suspect that it could be faster. If it doesn’t improve, I may give it a few additional drops of oil in places, a process which dramatically helped out my Royal HH a week after cleaning it out. Pending this, I also ought to take a closer look at the touch control set up functionality. 

The type basket of a Remington Standard typewriter

The platen on this machine has a bit of play left, but not much. It’ll probably go another few years before it’s completely rock hard. At least I don’t need to have it recovered soon.

Cleaning and adjusting got rid of the residual grinding on the carriage I was experiencing a few days ago.

In the cleaning process, I noticed that one of the poor design choices is that the panels on the carriage don’t remove as easily as they do on other machines.

I notice on the paper fingers there are separately a small hole on the left for drawing straight lines using a pen or pencil and a small triangle on the right for similar usage.

As I’ve done on some past machines, I treated the crinkle paint with WD-40 after cleaning it off. The difference is quite dramatic, though even the before and after photos don’t really do the process justice.

Comparing the left and right body panels of a gray crinkle painted Remington Standard typewriter. The left is dull and dirty and the right has been cleaned and treated with WD-40 and sparkles in the sunlight

As ever, there are still a handful of small issues with this machine that I hope to address in the coming weeks as I use it. I like it quite a lot, and it reminds me of it’s much smaller brother, a 1957 Remington Quiet-Riter, but with some finer features. I hope to pull it out and do a direct comparison in the next few days. We’ll see how it grows on me as a machine, but at the moment, I still like my Royal KMG and HH a bit better for day-to-day use.