An OCR-A Typeface Adler and Let’s Make Our Own Royal Portable Foot Screwdriver!

Weapon of Choice: “Moroni” 1975 Adler Universal 200 #9668314

Another identical LDS-owned OCR-A Adler U200 is in the TWDB, 18,818 serials off from mine – apparently the Mormons bought a bunch of these data entry typers in 1975.
1975 Adler Universal 200 #9649496

My original purpose for going to MTE was to borrow Bill’s Royal Portable Foot screwdriver to take the feet off of all my Royal Portables. When I got there, he handed me a filed-down church-key bottle opener that his father had made decades ago for the purpose, and it worked great! When I got back home, I figured I’d make my own.

All you need is a good hand file and an old church-key or wine-style folding bottle opener. The filing takes about 10 minutes.

You want a thin (but not *too thin*) hollow-ground edged blade at least 1/4″ wide.

Wella! Perfection! :D

Updated: October 13, 2021 — 7:05 pm

9 Comments

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  1. Very cool — that Adler is awesome! (Even better at that price.)

    There is a lot of satisfaction to be found in crafting a tool for your own individual needs. Years ago I needed a special socket to remove an oxygen sensor plug from a motorcycle exhaust. Though I could have bought one online, I decided to try to make my own. Attacking a correctly sized socket with a Dremel grinding disc allowed me to create a sufficiently sized notch in the socket. That did the trick and it worked like a charm. It didn’t take all that long and saved me both time and money in the process.

    1. It is quite satisfying – and considering the rising cost of rare original tools (and the apparent fact that even professionals tended to hand-make the specialized tools they needed in many cases), it certainly should be a part of our toolkit. (:

  2. Nice typeface. Haven’t found an OCR-A or -B print wheel as yet, seen ’em online…

  3. “Moroni” (lol) would have found a home in my increasingly crowded house too. Great typeface and I assume an excellent typewriter (one of my very, very favorite typewriters is a 1960s Adler J3). I applaud your DIY tool fabrication – so many of the specialty typewriter tools are lost to the ages, and we improvise. I was eyeing a cherry pitter the other day and thinking, “huh, maybe I can make a key top removal tool with that.” I saw a reddit post about a neat hack using a modified “Wiper Arm Puller/Battery Terminal Removal Tool”: https://youtu.be/3uFwtELEnrM

    1. Oh, hey – I could see the same bottle opener being modified into a plastic key removal tool. you’d just have to cut a proper sized vertical slot into the blade. Yeah, if you look around with the right eyes, there’s probably a lot of base tools that could be easily modified into typewriter tools. Benders, for instance, are just metal sticks with slots cut into them. (:

  4. Neat typewriter.
    Making tools is fun. I have several I made for typewriters.
    OCR typefaces are neat to use. I have OCR-A and a few others for my IBM Selectric.

  5. What a neat typeface & keyboard and a clever custom tool!

  6. I just saw another with OCR-A. The pictures didn’t show the serial #.

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