12 Dec 2014

Ideal Portable

1939 Ideal Portable M 756874/M



















1937 Erika M and 1939 Ideal Portable M








Sorry for the slightly worn-out ribbon. It came with a blue/red ribbon in fair enough condition that I'm keeping in because I like the color. I finally went out and bought a brand-new blue ribbon that I will be installing in this permanently!

Sent from my new Ideal Portable M

10 comments:

  1. Beautiful (as is the photography :)
    Very satisfying to fix things with a machine, it is a bit like really taking ownership of a machine perhaps. (If the feedrollers come out easily, I can recommend heat-shrink tubing to smooth out a sanded-down round-roller.)
    Happy hacking!

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    1. Despite all the sanding-down I did, the feed rollers are actually still quite lopsided. (I should have taken photos!) This definitely deserves all-new ones.

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  2. Congratulations on such a fine typewriter and your successful repairs. I think bringing a pristine looking and desirable machine back to life is much of the fun of typewriter collecting.

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    1. I agree, absolutely. Especially when you pay a fair price for it.

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  3. Very cool machine, and it looks great. It is satisfying to be able to fix a series of problems like that.

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    1. I was quite frustrated with it at first, but I let it sit overnight and came back to look at the issues and within minutes I'd figured out what was causing the last two problems.

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  4. I agree that much of the pleasure we get from typewriters is through working out mechanisms and solving their problems. They can also be frustrating, though, when the solution eludes us. I can also sympathize a bit with the gorilla who jammed your Ideal into the case improperly. Some of my most trying times with typers have been dealing with getting them on and off the case mounts, and sometimes (H3K) even just getting the d...d case open.

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    1. Though frustrating at first because I feared I couldn't solve the problems, it's now made it an even more special typewriter to me.

      It seems to me like putting it in the case wrong is harder to do than getting it in right, since if it's lined up with two of the pegs, it's automatically going to be lined up with the other two! I have no idea how they mangled it.

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  5. BTW, those are really, really, lovely machines.

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