Richard The Deep Breather, a $10 1925 Corona 4

Weapon of Choice: “Richard The Deep Breather”, 1925 Corona 4.

Bichrome selector is a spindly thing directly attached to the ribbon vibrator.

Yas, but what patents?

Ugh. screw head broken, will have to figure out that before I can get the platen off..

Sanded and LPS’d the platen to make it ever so slightly more grippy.

The mystery part.

A Mystery mount point drilled into the left front frame.

Well, that screw won’t fit.

And the holes don’t line up.

Oddly, the part does sort of match the curves of the frame, if it did mount there.

How about these added screws? is this the mount point for that mystery part?

They’re the right size and the holes line up…

But I don’t see how that makes sense…

Nor that…

But, that certainly makes sense, sorta – and it explains the nick marks in the paint on the left front frame.

Oh, ok, yeah. Now it makes sense.

These are the correct spools, but there’s two “R” spools and no “L” one.

Quite a bit of wear on the outside edges, but hopefully I can get the right set in trade.

Still has a brush and a clip for holding what might have been an oiler?

Here’s another mystery – what are these clips in the top lid of the case for?

Updated: June 26, 2019 — 11:12 pm

11 Comments

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  1. Sort of reminds me of that great lump on the right-hand side of Royal HH ! I’m wondering if this machine belonged to someone with a handicap (perhaps lost part of their hand(s) in an accident or in WWl… If that’s the case it would be good to be able to peck at the keys and the Shift with whatever fngers you’ve got and then do a sort of Royal HH ‘thump’ to get a space. Dunno… just thinkin’…

  2. Congratulations on getting such a fine typewriter.

  3. I just read through your 2017 post about recovering a Hermes 3000 platen with shrink tubing. I will be referring to that as I have a Remington portable with a terrible platen. When you heated the shrink tubing, did you use a heat gun or hair dryer or…?

    1. I used a Heat gun back then, but I don’t have that anymore, so I’ll maybe try a hair dryer next time.

  4. Neat, that word counter (and neat detective work! :)
    The clips in the lid would have held rubber ‘feet’ to press on the platen. My ’25 machine has the clips double though, these are half. And yes an oiler – a metal tube with screw-cap that has an oiling pin.

    Very nice machine, at 10 Dollar that’d make me break my firm no-new-machines regime. (Though plenty of other stuff gets acquired still ;-)

    1. Ahh, ok. Positioning-wise, a platen hold-down would make sense. More rubber bits to figure out (:

      I wish the counter machine was still attached, but I suspect it wore out and was dismounted from the frame. That would have been a cool bit of hardware.

  5. I think you should add a counter! You can do it.

  6. Ha! I haven’t read “The Mad Scientists Club” in decades, but I DID read it! I remember the cover illustration (actually, the cover to the “New Adventures of” with the submarine), but sadly, I do not remember “Richard, The Deep Breather” or much of anything else about the series. Might be time to revisit my younger youth.

    I discovered your site today while looking for typewriter adjustment tips. I pulled my 1946 Underwood SS (I know this as of a couple of hours ago, thanks to the typewriter database website) out of storage yesterday and it’s kind of goobered up. It used to work, but now the upper and lowercase letters are way out of alignment and the margin bell doesn’t ring. What’s the point of using a manual typewriter if the end of line bell doesn’t ring?

    I see you have a manual typewriter repair book available through Lulu. Would that help me get my SS back in action? I hope so, because I’m gonna order it as soon as I’m done blabbing away here.

    Your site is epic in its awesomeness. I’m looking forward to having more time to look through it.

    And I’m already hoping to start building a manual typewriter collection with interesting, functional, and funky models.

    1. The Deep Breather is Zeke the junkyard man’s old truck! (:

      Yes, the Manual book (Orange) covers the Underwood Standard from 1944, so it should be very much the same as the 1946 SS – should be quite helpful.

      I hope your collection grows fat and happy! :D

  7. Oh, that’s right! The junkyard man’s truck! It’s starting to come back to me!

    Ordered your typewriter repair manual via Lulu. Looking forward to receiving it. I’m also curious as to the quality; I’ve never purchased a Lulu print-on-demand book before.

    (I’m gonna have to track down some inexpensive copies of the “Mad Scientists Club” books, now, too!)

    1. Lulu’s pretty good. I think they use some sort of industrial inkjet process that uses non-water-based inks (doesn’t smudge). As far as the Brinley books, there’s actually new versions out now. (:
      http://www.madscientistsclub.com

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