Typewriter Talk / Quiet Loud Smith Corona Electrics by Slowing Power Roll

**Posted by thomaswyse** 09-9-2022 18:47:32

I wanted to reduce the noise and the paper embossing on my Sears Medalist Electric 12 without recovering the platen. This should work on many Smith Corona electrics. This changes the gear ratios and slows the power roll. It's possible to make it so slow that the keys make a faint impression when the shift is enabled.
Remove the body and belts. Remove the small bolt/washer/felt that holds the double pulley in place. Hold the large side of the double pulley in a padded vise and use a parallel jaw pliers to pinch the two sides closer together. Use a spacer of your devising if you want to have precise width.

Take the pulley out of the vise and insert a screwdriver between the two haves of the small pulley sides. Gently twist the screwdriver to force the pulley halves apart. It's easy to see your progress and control the amount of spread.

Reinstall the parts and give it a try before you put the body back on. It's possible to make the large pulley too narrow and the small pulley so wide that the belt will drop too far into the vee and get caught in the parallel sides of the pulley stalling the machine. It's easy enough to push them back together and then peen bushing that the pulleys are on to hold it in if you go too far. The picture below shows how my belts ride in the pulleys. It's still possible to use the copy set knob with this setup.

**Posted by Pete E.** 09-9-2022 20:43:09

Tomas,

I have an earlier machine form 1959 and I used new o-rings for belts and it really quieted down my machine.
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**Posted by thomaswyse** 09-9-2022 21:25:36

Good to know. The O-rings must change the gear ratio some too since they are a different width than the belts.

**Posted by Pete E.** 10-9-2022 08:24:22

Here is the part number for the o-rings from McMaster-Carr on-line.
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**Posted by thomaswyse** 10-9-2022 08:46:16

Great. Thank you. How much reduction in the loudness of the slugs hitting the platen and change in letter embossing did you notice? It was surprisingly noticeable the way I did it. It went from being unpleasant to use because of the noise and heavy embossing on the backer sheet to just being a normal, hard platen typewriter noise with very little embossing.

**Posted by Pete E.** 10-9-2022 11:35:40

Thomas,

I did too many things at the same time. I cleaned/serviced it, changed the old v-belts to o-ring belts, and added a bunch more peel & stick felt where there was none. So it is very quite and smooth now but it's a combination of all I did.

I also use this Avery product for my backing sheet...which helps tone down type-slugs hammering away on the platen rubber.
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**Posted by Pete E.** 19-9-2022 09:22:04

Here is my machine and its case after several "spa-days" on my workbench...
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**Posted by thomaswyse** 19-9-2022 19:54:48

Dang! It looks great! Is the space bar the original color?

**Posted by Pete E.** 19-9-2022 21:38:32

Hi Thomas,

No, the original space-bar colour was the same as the key-tops. I used a Krylon spray paint (specifically for plastics) called "Lagoon Blue" in a satin finish.

I also had some parts from an Olivetti-Underwood 21 machine that I parted out...so the red-coloured Tab key-top is from that machine. Original Tab key-top is in a baggie in the case.