Officially Obsessive



 I guess it is official. With four typewriters now, I must be a collector.

I must be obsessive.

But in my defense (psychotic, obsessive, narcissistic, people often try to defend themselves) my last typewriter was one I chose to refurbish. No, I went a little further than simple refurbishing and pimped that baby out!

What once was a drab desert sand colored artifact from the late fifties is now a sleek shiny metallic hot rod serving as the pride of my otherwise stock collection.

Here's the typecast from this new beauty with the old-possibly original-ink ribbon still installed. Just received a new ribbon in the mail today but haven't put it in and taken it for a test-drive yet.




















In case the first picture was not enough to get you as excited as I am about this wonderful clockwork machine, here's more:




I must say, mere pictures simply cannot provide due justice to the finish and metallic reflections on this typewriter. I brought this one all the way down to bare metal and refinished it as if it were an expensive low rider project in a custom body shop.

And here's one for all those weirdo's out there into typewriter porn-a picture of what's "under the hood."


Why yes, that is sparkly felt lining the inside of that cover. It's all about the bling!

And lastly, here's what it originally looked like:



Comments

  1. NICE!.....cherry red!

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  2. Replies
    1. Yes. Now that I have a new ribbon installed, it types like a charm. I really must put the brakes on my incessant typewriter collecting for awhile, or I'll soon need a bigger house.

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  3. It would be nice if a light came on when you opened the hood. Nice job on the paintwork.

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    1. That's a great idea! I'll look into that. But, of course, then I'd have to add a battery, a charger, and a small engine.

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  4. I'm generally not into the hot rod look but you did a nice and clean paint job on this one. Cheers.

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    1. Yes, I understand you dilemma as mine is the same. I'm undecided how I feel about changing a vintage typewriter's orginal look and patina, but this particular typewriter was refurbished from the parts of two different typewriters and the finish was not in the best condition. I certainly would feel terrible about repainting a perfectly good typewriter.

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  5. Wow, you made it truly beautiful. If you have a minute, could you summarise your painting method? I've got a couple of restoration projects going at the moment, and I'm not sure which approach to take to get the best quality finish when it comes time to paint them.

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    1. When I was a teenager, I had a job for awhile in an auto body shop. Of course I was not qualified to paint cars when I began so I was remanded to prep work. Odd thing-the quality and look of the paint job relies, in most part, on the prep work. For this typewriter, I sanded it down to the original primer (did not want to remove this because in the 1950's good lead-based primers were used) then I put about eight thin coats of contrasting (gray) primer on the object. I wet sanded between each coat. I then sprayed with red base-coat. After this came the sparkles. After this last coat dried, I wet-sanded again and began applying the clear. I applied enough coats of clear, with wet-sanding between each coat, to smooth out the bumps created by the sparkles. That, my friend, is why I titled this post "obsessive."

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