Secrets of the Oliver . . . Typewriter, that is.

[iguana5500]

I bought an Oliver # 5 at an antique shop about 5-7 years ago ($20 I think, maybe $10?). It sat at my Dad's cottage until today, as we started clearing out the cottage. I really want to restore it, but the keys are basically rusted almost together. I am fairly mechanically inclined, but have no idea how much work this is going to take, or whether the keys could possibly involve replating. Wish I could have seen what your's looked like prior to restoration.

[maartenrijs3]

@iguana5500 You can buy a product called "evapo-rust" on line which is water based, does not hurt decals or paint, and can remove rust by soaking the object in the solution. It works as a chelating agent to bond to iron oxide and remove it. That should help with your rusted keys. And, yes, restoration will involve work, BUT, it is well worth it!

[VintageTopHat]

Can I ask? I'm not familiar with Oliver typewriters in general but what on earth do those two keys (above the standard qwerty keyboard) do? And roughly how much is the number 9?

[maartenrijs3]

@VintageTopHat One key is for the tabulator, the other is the right margin release. Prices on 9s vary quite a bit as on all antique type writers and there is no blue book of values. For the machine in the picture I paid $30. Platen and feed roller recovery was about another $25. But the amount of time I put into this machine, if my time is worth as much as my auto mechanic's, pushes the price into the range of a grand! But, in case any one is wondering, my machine is not for sale.

[TroutItOut]

This is very helpful and I look forward to checking out the other episodes. I have recently been given an Oliver no. 9 from my grandfather that his father actually used for his job nearly 100 years ago. I am trying to find as much info and guidance as I can about restoring my newly inherited gem!

[clockbuilderhg]

Beautiful typewriter but it's backwards! Your video is flipped.

[maartenrijs3]

@clockbuilderhg Yeah, I know. I wasn't familiar with how to operate the camera on my computer!

[frankieboyfrankie]

Thanks for the "secrets of the Oliver" videos! They helped me a lot fixing my British Oliver 15! Looking forward to see the next episode. :)

[Enigma758]

Nice job. If you sliced out a small section of the tubes using an X-acto knife so that the cross section was like a "C" (rather than an "O"), I wonder if you could make different sized tubes (for different margin stops) and just snap them on over the shaft rather than having to unscrew each time. Just a thought...

[maartenrijs3]

@Enigma758 I hadn't thought of that, but, you are absolutely right, that could be done! I'm going to try it.

[djkoepke]

Excellent video! Now I get it and that is quite an ingenious solution. I will definitely be able to do the same thing with my Oliver 9 and not have to fiddle with my tab stops.

Also, I wanted to say that you Oliver looks quite dashing. Mine was in a lot worse condition and while I cleaned it up as much as possible, it doesn't look anything like yours. Marvelous work!

[maartenrijs3]

@djkoepke Thank you, I'm glad this helped you. In fact, I made the video for you in particular to show you the fix. I also thank you for the compliments on my machine. But a lot of elbow grease went into removing the crud, the rust, etc., to get her shiny. I was fortunate that underneath it all the paint was largely intact.

[djkoepke]

@maartenrijs3 Yeah, my paint is kind of bubbly and worn. Its clean, but won't ever look really nice unless its repainted, which I'm not able to do.