I sure seem to have a knack for finding WWII typewriters
As I also have what I believe is the latest 1942 Royal KMM made.

Spazmelda wrote:

Looks nice Kat. I hope you figure out your spacing issues.

I'm going to have to have a repair thread for my underwood 150 I picked up in Foley. It's got more issues than I thought. It will have to wait until we get home and I can take some good pictures. The ribbon advance isn't working. I thought it was in the store, but when I got it out at the condo the right ribbon won't turn at all. It doesn't appear to be rusted, but I will give it a good cleaning and then see what I can figure out. It has a weird ribbon mechanism. A ball chain and some gears.

 
Update on this... We are home now, yay!  My husband and I examined the typewriter from this and that angle and determined what wasn't turning, but had the hardest time figuring out why,  he finally spotted a bit of rust on a part of the ribbon mechanism deep down in the depths of the machine.  I doused the part with pb blaster on a q-tip and it still wouldn't budge,  I finally got impatient and inserted the tip of a flathead screwdriver down in the joint and gave it the gentlest whack with another screwdriver and it released immediately.  The clean up can now proceed.  I think I will still start a thread on this when I have time to take some pictures.  It's got a big glob of rust on the bottom, but it doesn't seem to be a part that needs to move.  I think it's the part that holds screws that the typebars springs fit into.  So I'm not sure how much rust I need to get off.  What's the best method for this?  I tried pb blaster and a toothbrush, but do I need to use a wire brush? The toothbrush doesn't seem to be moving much rust. It's not a stellar machine, the back is missing (didn't realize it was supposed to have one) and very very dirty with moderate rust. I'm glad to have the ribbon mechanism working, and now I need to rewind a fresh ribbon onto the spools so I can test it out.

mre12ax7 wrote:

I sure seem to have a knack for finding WWII typewriters
As I also have what I believe is the latest 1942 Royal KMM made.

You have a Royal KMM with the serial number 3025999? According to the Typewriter Database, that is the last KMM made in 1942.

I think he might be talking about a radio mill typewriter? From what I gathered, they were used for government purposes.

But does your machine carry any differences that might signal something unusual? Pictures would be nice to illistrate too.

Also, if your machine seems like it was used DURING the war (late 30's early 40's) than it probably was. But that does not mean it was used FOR the war. Just because I own a shovel from 1941, doesn't mean it was being used to dig foxholes in France. Same goes for typewriters. People still used typewriters during the war, but most didn't use them for the war.

Uwe, there was a skywriter on craigslist and the seller got me all hyped up saying it was an army issue. I get there, and Im like, where is the army issue? She thoughtit was army issue because of green keys.

And adding on to what someone said about people putting typewriters in cases upside down, that happened yesterday when I was picking one up.