I recently bought a Corona Four off eBay for cheap.  When it got here I was very please.  Isn't it pretty.


When I bought it the seller said that they thought it was in working order, but the carriage cable was broken.  I thought to myself... "surely repairing a snapped draw strap is within my meager typewriter repair talents."

It took me a bit of effort, but I finally got a new cable threaded through the pulley obstacle-course and successfully repaired the carriage.  There was much rejoicing.  Something I didn't notice when I was trying to replace the draw strap, but became immediately apparent once it was fixed is the carriage teeth weren't catching.  The carriage was perpetually resetting itself and none of the keys seem to advance it.  

“Hrm,” I thought, “I suspect I need to adjust something else.”  I’m unfamiliar with this model of typewriter and became bewildered because I couldn’t even fathom what the teeth were supposed to be catching on. 

Then a dark suspicion took root as I was staring at a rather empty section on the back of the type writer below the carriage. 



I did some hunting for a picture or diagram of what a Corona Four ought to look like underneath and eventually found an oiling diagram in a scanned manual.



Sure enough, if this diagram is to be trusted, and I’ve done my detective work right, my Corona seems to be missing a pretty important part (or parts!)  I guess this was someone else’s parts machine at some point. 
 
Thems the trials and tribulations of eBay.  Currently I have a nice display piece, but I’m short a new typewriter.   Doh.

In case someone in the future has a similar problem this is how I solved it.  Thanks to the advice from this site and a furniture restoration site I ended up sanding the key (use something very very fine) and polishing it up a bit to remove the white.

The furniture site suggested that if denatured alcohol turns a surface white it might be lacquer or shellac and very light sanding might be necessary.  

Thanks for the advice.  I'll look into giving that a try.  Besides this key I've mostly got the Royal cleaned up.  The replacement carriage return strap I fabricated seemed to be working well and I've managed to unbend some of the damage the poor thing suffered during shipping.