I have a Royal 10 too (1928 though) and I had the problem of the glass hving dirt underneath it. Yes, you do remove the tabs on the bottom, take the ring off, take off the glass, and then straighten the paper with the printed letter. However, sometimes the ring may be sticky as with the case with my Royal 10. I had tried to use a pocket knife to kinda leverage the ring off, and the glass cracked. It now looks like this:



Be careful what you read around the forum. I thought that glass keys were actually just a myth and it was just a form of plastic like most 'glass' keys, but apparently Royal used real glass for their 10's (not that this is a bad thing, I love the real glass and how I can see my reflection when it's all polished up). But just be careful when fiddling with the keys.

I think I would just swap the cracked one with another from a less-used key, as long as it was easy to open up, or replace with a bit of thin perspex.( Cake/ dessert boxes often have transparent windows made of sturdy but thin perspex-like material. I often save it for crafy projects for myself and kids.)  Or something from one of the sets of immitation keys might work.

ztyper wrote:

I have a Royal 10 too (1928 though) and I had the problem of the glass hving dirt underneath it. Yes, you do remove the tabs on the bottom, take the ring off, take off the glass, and then straighten the paper with the printed letter. However, sometimes the ring may be sticky as with the case with my Royal 10. I had tried to use a pocket knife to kinda leverage the ring off, and the glass cracked. It now looks like this:

<photo removed to save space>

Man...   Sorry that happened.  Thanks for posting photo & warning.  Once had better idea, managed to remove ring & glass to get it straightened out.
 

Last edited by BrianE (02-6-2015 19:24:33)

I would have just left the keys like they are. They make the typewriter more unique.