I shall start with the traditional ‘before’ picture.

My daughter got this lovely old typewriter in a carboot sale the other day to go in her 30s style bedroom she is creating, it was cheap, and broken, so needs a bit of a clean up and various repairs to get it working.

These Underwood #5 models (this one is from 1938) are fairly common but still fetch around £90 for a good example, so if I can get it working and looking half decent, it will be a bargain.

Right, first thing was to remove the front measuring bar. Screws were rusted tight but good old 3-in-1 loosened them up nicely.

Once that was done I could oil the bars and get the tab indicators moving. They were solid, but steel wool and more oil got them moving freely. Moving them exposed screws I needed to get at later.

Next I had to remove the colour switcher, and then the front panel was easy enough removing (after more oil) 4 screws.

Now I could get right inside and start hoovering out the years of gunk that had built up inside it. Mostly dog hairs by the looks of it. I applied 3-in-1 as I went along, and loosened rust where I could with steel wool and a wire brush. I also removed the felt key rest under the keys by getting at the screws I exposed earlier by loosening the tab indicators.

Turning the unit around, the two main screws at top left and top right needed a lot of work and 3-in-1 to get them out, eventually they gave way, and the top just came stright off.

This allowed more access and I could get the hoover right in to the fiddly bits. Amazing the amount of crap that was in there.

This next photo then is the state I got it to before the main clean. Washing, drying and oiling the internal workings and some of the outside.

The keys that were bent were straightened, key pads were put the right way around. I renewed the red colour in the colour switch (using a small bit of red card) and unbent the space bar arms and rewound the spring so it returned when pressed.

The ribbon cases were not turning on key press, so unbent (or actually slightly bent it forward) the cog arm to the front right hand side so it engaged the cog on key/space bar press.

Next I oiled and freed up all the striker arms so that none stuck when pressed. Fixed the shift lock which was not engaging, and repositioned the ‘D’ key so as not to interfere with my newly straightened space bar arm.

Right. Space bar works. Back space, shift works and all keys strike cleanly. Ribbon moves on one click when key pressed, and main carriage cog moves on one click on key press. Oh, and I got the little bell working :)

At this stage I put most of the front bits and bobs back on again.

Next step is to dismantle and clean the main carriage, which I think has some more serious problems……

So far so good.