Oh, the extras also included three metallic ribbon rings, as shown in the photo. I believe these were used in some models of Remington typewriters, like the All-New Portable and the Riter-series of machines, or did they fit on some Underwoods as well?

Pleased to hear that you like your TM5.  You might be interested to hear that the typewriter firm I was working for in the late 1970's bought a large quantity of these as surplus from the US Air Force.  They are good machines, but we found them difficult to sell because the appearance of the Underwood 'outrigger' carriage made them look strange to customers used of Adlers, Olympias etc.  As to ribbon spools, the 'proper' spool for these only fits two makes - late Underwoods and the Imperial 70.  BUT, you can also fit these spools to post-war Remington standards although they were not designed for them.  Conversely, you can probably fit the Remington 'spool-less' ribbon to the Touchmaster, and it does look as if a previous owner has done just that.  Sorry I can't tell you if the carriage comes off easily - it is about 45 years since I last worked on one 

skywatcher wrote:

Hi JJH

It is said that there is no such thing as "The Perfect Typewriter", but there is usually the typewriter that's perfect for you and it looks like you've found it. That machine was built when I was 3 years old and looks like a piece of solid industrial machinery.

You indicate that the paper bail is a little too high for your liking, here's my thought. These machines were made for use in professional offices and typing pools, so the paper being used probably had printed letterheads which filled the top few centimetres of the paper. The printed top edge of the paper would comfortably tuck under the paper bail holding the main body of the letter ready for the typist, as I say, this is just a thought.

For continuation pages, I was taught to put the page number top and center on the page with a couple of line spaces below the page number. This might give you just enough head-space to tuck the page under the paper bail for the first line of typing, see if you think this idea would work for you. All the best,

Sky

Hi Sky,

My father was born about a year before this machine was manufactured. The original owner really did take good care of it.

Thank you for the tip about the page number and empty spaces. I had been doing this before, but for some reason I had typed the page number in the top corner; I'm not sure why it never occurred to me that I can just as well insert it at the top and center as well. With the Touch-Master the gap is still a bit too wide even if I do this, but as I said, it's not really a big issue.

thetypewriterman wrote:

Pleased to hear that you like your TM5.  You might be interested to hear that the typewriter firm I was working for in the late 1970's bought a large quantity of these as surplus from the US Air Force.  They are good machines, but we found them difficult to sell because the appearance of the Underwood 'outrigger' carriage made them look strange to customers used of Adlers, Olympias etc.  As to ribbon spools, the 'proper' spool for these only fits two makes - late Underwoods and the Imperial 70.  BUT, you can also fit these spools to post-war Remington standards although they were not designed for them.  Conversely, you can probably fit the Remington 'spool-less' ribbon to the Touchmaster, and it does look as if a previous owner has done just that.  Sorry I can't tell you if the carriage comes off easily - it is about 45 years since I last worked on one 

Thank you for that interesting piece of history, Mr. ttwm. It's interesting to hear that the US Air Force had a surplus of these, and they certainly have the look of something I could imagine being used at military bases. After familiarizing myself with a few Continental Standards, the style of the Touch-Master's carriage no longer seemed alien to me.
I might be mistaken, but I assume this style of carriage would have some kind of a simple locking mechanism somewhere, which when unlocked would allow me to slide it out either from the left or right, like with most Continental Standards. I might make a separate topic in the maintenance help section about it, as it would be nice to learn how to do this.

Besides the Remington ribbon rings, thankfully this particular machine did come with what I assume to be the original metal Underwood spools:


Now that I was more familiar with this model and knew that I want to keep it, I decided to go back to the thrift store, check out their somewhat rough-looking Touch-Master a second time, and make an offer. Armed with more knowledge than before, I was able to negotiate a hefty discount to the steep asking price, and took it home as a backup/parts/practice machine.

The backup/parts machine on the right, doesn't look so bad from the front after some basic cleaning:


This machine (manufactured in 1966) is in working condition as well, but it has some problems with the tabulator mechanism being very sluggish, the right margin stop doesn't stop the type bars from hitting the platen, and the print quality isn't quite as good as on the other machine. Besides collecting dust and dirt, it has obviously seen some rough times: The touch control switch has been broken off, so in order to use it you have to remove the front panel; the plunger piece from the left platen knob had been broken off as well, but there is enough of the shaft left that it can still be used. It also has plenty of scratches, especially at the back.

Broken touch control lever:


Broken, but still usable plunger:


Scratches at the back:


The remains of a sticker for an Olivetti service center, and a dealer decal:


I also noticed that even if the machine has obviously been through some rough treatment, the platen is softer than on the main machine. I thought I could just swap the platens until I get the original one recovered, but to my surprise this was not possible: it turns out the platens and the carriages are not 100% identical. The platen shaft of the backup machine is actually a little bit shorter. The difference is very small, but enough that it won't sit correctly in the main machine, and I cannot close the part which locks the left side in place. The backup machine can take the ever so slightly longer platen shaft though, because that doesn't interfere with the locking mechanism on the left!

The backup machine's platen above with the blue arrow:


This is how the original but harder platen sits correctly on the left side:

This is how the softer but ever so slightly shorter platen sits in the main machine; that's a no go (if I move it more to the left, the right side shaft then has a similar problem, and won't close):


I did clean up the back up machine, and while the touch isn't quite as nice and smooth, it's still a very good machine to type with. Interestingly, while the platen is softer, the rest of the action (the escapement?) is slightly noisier, so it doesn't really matter much which one I use when it comes to noise.

It was missing the spools as I mentioned earlier, but I did have a pair of these plastic "universal" spools, and while they supposedly don't actually work properly with the ribbon reverse mechanism (I will test this when I have the time), they are better than nothing for now.

Beachycove wrote:

.... snip ....
There is a centrifugal brake at the rear left that is part of the tabulator mechanism. It has a plastic gear (underlaid with metal) on which the plastic often seems to be cracked, and that can cause annoying problems like missing spaces. The trouble is that the gear effectively expands so that the teeth don’t mesh properly with the other gears present. Very common fault on the TM5, which you can read about online. Both mine were like this. Obviously this wa a weak point in the design. Best method of repair I have come across is to remove the brake (easily done), and stick a circular compression clamp like one of those little screw-on fuel line clamps around the cracked gear, in order to gently draw the plastics together (they should slide over the underlying metal). Then use an adhesive like shoo goo or epoxy to fix it for another fifty years. The machine will then likely outlive all of us.

This is exactly the fix I used for the same problem on the same machine and it worked great! Recommended.