Back home I got to work surveying this black, beast of cast iron and mechanical beauty. Coming in 5 years older than my 1959 KMG typewriter. I was both thrilled and terrified plugging it in. No smoke or flames, and the lights were still on. So with a little more courage I leaned in on the control and off it went, although at a rather sluggish pace, but hey at least it was a sign of life (^_^)
With that far from exciting start, I figured it was time for a rebuild. I mean after 60 some odd years of use who knows what I would find inside. After pulling the first part off I was already happy I had. There was more bare wire than insulated, the old rubber having flaked off and disintegrated years ago.
Lucky it hadn't caught fire on the first start up. Since all I had at the time was electrical tape I re-wrapped all the bare wire with electrical tape. From there it was time to take a look at the mechanical workings. Over all it seemed like it had been fairly well taken care of with no rust or seized parts.
After clearing out and replacing all the old grease and then oiling the joints she was running but not as fast as I would have expected. So next it was onto the motor, as to be expected the brushes were worn but still had plenty life, so went about cleaning them and the stator up with a file. Carefully chucked in my hand drill cleaning up the stator was a breeze.
After putting everything back together and crossed my fingers. Initially it started up turning as slowly as before, but after a bit sped up and started to sing as the oil & grease started to do their thing. After running it for a minute or so the pace picked up even more as the brushes had conformed to the stator. It’s amazing the difference from before & after. With the mechanicals all taken care of set about finding out what all else had come with the machine.
In the end quite excited to add yet another old but trusty and robust tool to the arsenal. Now just to re-learn how to sew lol.
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