curly wrote:

Any update on the progress for this? I'd like to see some pictures if you have them. I have an old Remington 11 desktop that will need a complete teardown. There is a Facebook group for typewriter parts.

Hello! Glad to see the old Forum isn't dead. Sure, I'm actually working on it. 

The motor came from eBay at $9 and I just recently joined Facebook to get into the typewriter groups. You can buy 'em, sell 'em, trade 'em and show 'em off there. Hm. I am 21 and thinking about getting into typewriter repair as a business or at least a side hustle. 

Disassembly went well. The Underwood comes apart in a series of assemblies. I don't know how the Remington 11 works; I have a Remington Paragon 12 and it's similar but...it has side plates & I don't take them off to just stare at the guts. 

 If I could upload a file I would.

Anyway, the Underwood has had a number of challenges so far. One is organization. I have had to put every screw back where it came from and that helped a lot. Two is rust. Salt air since the 1940s had tore this one up pretty bad. So I have taken an old greasy piece of sandpaper & scrubbed rust off the space bar, only to find the original blued finish underneath. OK, color me surprised.
I then went on to disassemble the machine to basically the frame & key levers & springs all in one assembly, and then the carriage way rod, and the ribbon winder assembly & its shaft. The segment came out but all the typebars are apart.
more than likely I will end up redoing the nickel plate on them, and every silver piece of this machine.

The platen shattered like a vase when I pulled the rubber off & struck it on the workbench. It needed replacing. I'm going to do a heat-shrink polyolefin rubber platen. Keys are going to be Ames printouts to replace the originals, might as well while I've got the rings off for plating and also so I can clean under the glass.

Feet will be No. 4 test tube stoppers.

This whole thing is a big mess! I think

Hey guys, the repairs aren't quick but I'm digging it apart. This one will run again if I can find some pieces.

Thanks much for all the info about rust removers.  I'm going to go with something like Evapo-Rust. Turns out a lot of pieces are nickel plated on this machine and so it looks like I shall be building a plating bath as well, eventually. 

The paint is going to have to come off. It has holes in it and looks beyond shabby. What strips that black asphalt paint well? 

Thanks; I'll be redoing it without whole-body electrolysis. It's pretty nasty. So I will be dismantling what I can of it & then using Evapo-Rust as has been mentioned. 

The Underwood is an old No. 5 desktop and it is missing a mainspring barrel assembly & a pivot for the tab rack (plus feet...and I likely shall redo that platen while I am in there.) It is incredibly rusty. I don't know what else is missing. The serial number I had thought was a 1917 number. It is instead from the late 1920s. I do not remember off the top of my head what year it is exactly. But anyway, it is still an Underwood. 

Oddly enough the shift lock is on the right-hand side. 

The machine is pretty sorry looking but it's yet there. If I had an image hosting site I'd put a picture up for you. 

Thanks for all the helps! 

Does anyone know when Underwood switched to black keys with white lettering? The paper inserts are black instead of white.

In need of screw attaching backspace lever to frame,
One paper rest arm & screws,
2 screws attaching escapement cover to carriage. 

If anyone has these parts or at least the specifications for the screws, please let me know. Thanks! 

Thanks, I tried Kroil and nothing really happened. Now the noise is louder so I guess the dogs are engaging the star-wheel better. What do I adjust?