1954 Smith-Corona Sterling Disassembly for Cleaning

[@olehardfood3986]

This helped me clean up my great grandfathers Clipper. Thanks!

[@kimberlyparsons6309]

I picked up one of these for $60 and I’m trying to get it cleaned up and working - I already know the drawband needs attention. Thank you for this video.

[@stephanesurprenant60]

I got the exact same one down to the color and case as a gift for my wife. She always wanted a typewriter and she loves that green!

[@mecharulz555]

I got a Smith Corona recently, and I love it. It's in really great shape.

[@charlesroberts8128]

Well done. A very good visual by-the-numbers disassembly process. The music selection was also a good background piece. Of course this will have to be a three part series: disassembly, your cleaning methods, and then reassembly and any problems encountered during it.

[@TomLokovic]

Thanks! I have indeed been filming the cleaning as well, so I hope to do roughly what you suggest. :)

[@TomLokovic]

Two questions for any typewriter experts out there: At 10:21, there's a spring with a very weird, almost slimy-looking residue that just flakes and falls off when I touch it. The spring seems fine under the crud. Any idea what that is? At 14:51 I take off the paper table and lower rollers. On the underside in the center there's a sticky goop where the paper-release-lever-linkage presses on it. I saw that goop on a similar Smith-Corona, so I'm guessing it's supposed to be there for friction. Any idea what that goop is (so I can replace it after cleaning)?

[@tmunk]

the orange rust-like stuff is likely residue from some long-ago spill along the front comb that didn't get cleaned. maybe also rust. all that sawdust-looking stuff inside is eraser shavings, which can goopify over the years. just clean it out, don't replace it. (: Also, what you're doing at 15:18 will knock your side-to-side type alignment off - that's set at the factory, so now that you've knocked it off, your "p" and "q" will need to be adjusted back to spec when you reassemble it. Prolly shouldn't tell people to do that, because it isn't needed. (:

[@TomLokovic]

@@tmunk Thank you for the input! This typewriter actually came with a weird round rubber object with a brush attached, which only yesterday I learned was a typewriter eraser, I didn't realize that was a thing! Growing up I had those white correction strips that you type-over to fix typos, I didn't know erasers were a thing for typewriters. Seems like a horrible idea, sprinkling rubber bits into the mechanism. What part will knock the side-to-side type alignment? I assume you just mean that the type guide has elongated holes that give it some left-to-right adjustment. I could tell that was an adjustment, so I expected I would need to tune that on the way back together--or is it more complicated than that? Either way, I appreciate your feedback! UPDATE: When I got it back together, I did need to tweak the left/right adjustment of the type guide a couple times to keep keys from binding there. It seems fine after those couple tweaks. Thanks again!

[@rossman1600]

Were you able to get this put back together and functional again? I learned the hard way that once you remove the type guide, it is really tough to get the type aligned again. Maybe you have a trick for this?

[@TomLokovic]

Yes, I got it back together and working great. I had to fiddle with the type guide but after a few tries I got it aligned again. I'm not sure I have a trick, per se--I just loosened, adjusted, tightened and tested repeatedly until it was in a good place.

[@johnlennon1049]

Very interesting.

[@jvasquez1972]

Very cool.

[@tylerd8609]

What screwdrivers are you using?

[@TomLokovic]

I wanted parallel-tip flathead screwdriver tips to avoid damage to the screws, so I got these: www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001C63M7O

[@wiwingmargahayu6831]

wow