Restoration of a Remington Standard 12

 

Remington Standard 12

Overview of the Machine

The machine dates from June 1929 and has the serial number Z173548.

It was manufactured at the Remington factory in Ilion, New York (USA).

It weighs 15.3 kg and measures 37.5 cm wide, 38.5 cm deep, and 26 cm high.

It has its own gallery on the global typewriter database: https://typewriterdatabase.com/1929-remington-12.27827.typewriter

Overall Condition

The machine’s overall condition suggests that a restoration could yield a good final result, both aesthetically and functionally.

It is very dirty, but at first glance appears to be almost complete.

Only the small crank on the rear right, used to manually unwind the ribbon, seems to be missing.

One of the carriage levers (on the right) is slightly bent, and the rear cover is slightly dented, but these issues can easily be fixed.

The rubber on the cylinder isn’t cracked, which is a good sign, even though it has certainly hardened. The condition of the rollers will become clear once the machine is disassembled.

Overview of the Cart

The carriage has the most common width, 10 inches.

The width of the rubber belt on the cylinder is 9.75 inches.

The usable typing width is 8.25 inches (starting 0.75 inche from the left edge of the rubber belt and ending 0.5 inche from the right edge).

The carriage can therefore accommodate sheets up to US Letter size (8.5 inches wide).

The carriage return lever is located on the left, pointing upward. Before 1927—and thus on most of these machines—this lever was located on the right, pointing downward.

Keyboard Overview

The keyboard uses the AZERTY layout (french) and has 42 keys (84 characters).

Note that there are no 0 or 1 keys, which was common at the time.

To type 0, you must use the uppercase letter O, and to type 1, the lowercase letter L.

This machine is not equipped with fixed tabs or decimal tabs.

Fixed tabs (5 red keys located above the number keys) were intended for the U.S. market, in the “secretarial” version of the machine. The fixed positions corresponded to the fields (Street, City, etc.) on administrative forms. These fixed tabs were discontinued after 1925.

Decimal tabs, on the other hand, were intended for the “accounting” version . The keys 1, 10, 100, 1000, etc., were also located above the number keys and caused a “shift” in position to align numbers to the right. Machines equipped with decimal tabs often had a carriage wider than 10 inches.

The Different Views

Left side,

- No missing or severely damaged parts.

- Both feet with their rubber pads are present. 

- The ribbon spool access door is also present and in good condition, as is the cylinder knob.

- Surface oxidation and areas where the nickel plating is missing on the carriage return lever.

On the right side,

- The small crank for manually feeding the ribbon is missing.

- The two feet with their rubber pads are present. 

- The access door to the ribbon spool is also present and in good condition, as is the cylinder knob.

- There is surface oxidation, some areas where the nickel plating is missing, and the paper release lever is slightly bent.

On the back,

- No missing or severely damaged parts.

- All five tab stops are present.

- The carriage drive belt is present and not broken.

- The back panel is slightly dented, but can be straightened out.

Below,

- At first glance, no parts are missing, damaged, or bent.

Disassembly

These machines are primarily assembled using rivets, pins, and slotted screws.

For the screws, S2-0.3 to S2-0.7 (standard metric) screwdriver bits or heads are suitable, but American-style flat, parallel (hollow-ground) types ranging from 0.012“ to 0.032” are ideally suited.

It is important to clean the slot in the screw heads before attempting to unscrew them, as the screwdriver blade must reach the bottom of the slot. You should also use the thickest blade possible and press firmly on the screw heads when you begin unscrewing. The heads are easily damaged.

To give yourself the best chance of reassembling the device correctly—using the right screws and without any extra parts—I recommend:

- Taking plenty of photos from different angles.

- Organizing small parts—including screws, washers, springs, etc.—chronologically in compartmentalized boxes.

- Disassembling the device assembly by assembly, keeping the parts from each assembly well separated.

Removing the carriage

For a complete disassembly, it is best to start with the carriage.

First, unhook the drive belt from the carriage.

To do this, as shown in the photos, with the carriage in the center position, open the hook, remove the end of the belt, and hook it onto the screw provided for this purpose at the end of the rear guide rail.

In practice, I had to remove the rear guide rail from the carriage.

So I attached the carriage’s drive belt to the frame using a piece of wire that was stiff enough.

To release the carriage, you must at least loosen the fasteners on the rear guide rail sufficiently—or even remove it entirely—which is what I did.

To access the mounting screws, you need to remove the side plates and the sheet-metal rear panel. Once the plates and panel are removed—at least initially—putting the screws back on the frame ensures you won’t lose them or mix them up with others.

The screws on the brackets that might appear to secure the rail are actually just stop screws for adjusting the position. Do not remove these screws; instead, remove the ones located inside the chassis, beneath the rail.

Once the two screws securing the rail have been removed, simply lift the back of the carriage to free it and remove it.

Front view of the removed carriage :

Rear view :

The rear guide rail with its roller bearing :

The bearing, with its four rollers, ensures precise guidance of the carriage along the rail.

It moves smoothly thanks to a gear wheel driven by the holes at the bottom of the rail and its counterpart on the carriage frame.

Discovery of a broken exhaust mount

Once the cart was unloaded, a very unpleasant surprise...

The exhaust bracket is broken.

You can see that the bearing is missing on the side of the carriage drive gear.

Fortunately, the broken part is still there and is resting on the frame.

Before disassembling the carriage, I wanted to make sure (or not) that the bracket could be repaired. This part is essential for the machine to function.

There is a separate article on repairs, which you can find here : Repairing the Exhaust Mount

Complete disassembly of the cart

Overall, the carriage is fairly easy to take apart and put back together.

It’s quite heavy because its frame is made of gray cast iron.

In the photo, taken before it was disassembled, you can see that the paper release lever is bent. This may be related to the breakage of the exhaust bracket. Did the carriage take a pretty hard hit?

One of the paper-pressing rollers is completely split. The rubber has dried out and shrunk.

First, remove the back plate (with the brand name and logo) to avoid damaging it. It’s in good enough condition for gentle cleaning, followed by protection with microcrystalline wax.

Removing the Cylinder

To remove the cylinder, remove knobs (1) and (2). For knob (2), the screw is located on the cylinder.

Once both knobs have been removed, remove the thick washer (3) by sliding it downward with a flathead screwdriver.

With the washer removed, the cylinder has enough lateral play to be lifted from the side where the washer was and removed from the frame.

Be careful with the paper guide (4). It is thin and fragile. Do not bend it.

The cylinder’s rubber has lost some of its flexibility but is in good condition (no marks or cracks). I clean and maintain the rubber on the cylinders of my typewriters using baby cleansing milk.

Removal of the paper tray and paperweight assembly

The paper tray is held in place by the two small screws shown in the photo.

The paper clamp assembly is held in place by the two screws shown.

Once removed from its mounting location, this assembly comes apart on its own (side brackets, bars, rollers, and guide rollers).

The rollers will need to be replaced. They have been pressed against the cylinder without rotating for many years and are heavily worn and completely deformed.

These rollers are no longer available as original parts. Replacing them with pieces of rubber tubing with inner and outer diameters as close as possible did not satisfy me at all from an aesthetic standpoint. So I opted for a 3D print in TPU with a Shore hardness of 95A.