![]() I could hear the happy tappity-tap of typewriters as I walked in. When I arrived at the Shop, Jenn was conducting a kids camp. It wasn’t typing and Jenn thought maybe it had a carriage lock engaged. It had belonged to a friend who moved to Hawaii and couldn’t afford to bring the typewriter along, so she gave it to Jenn. I got an email from Jenn at the Shop at Flywheel Press and she just got a new typewriter for the Shop. I am sure that the lady who owns it will now be able to hammer out The Great American Novel. I took the Royal HH back to Moe’s with care and feeding instructions. Happy Halloween seems appropriate for this time of year. HH could also stand for Hello Handsome, Head Honcho, Heigh Ho, Hip Hop, Holy Hell, Happy Hunting and more. I have heard tell that the Royal HH was named for Henry Hart who patented the Magic Margin for Royal in 1938. I am going to call this model a Royal Happy Halloween from now on. Here she is, sitting pretty on my front bench. I only needed to wipe down the outside with a damp cloth. However, the HH was pretty clean to start with. If this HH had had a dirtier shell, I would have pulled out the Scrubbing Bubbles and a tooth brush and cleaned the crinkle paint exterior. By Uyvsdi (Own work), via Wikimedia CommonsThis HH is a serious typist’s typewriter. “Loyal Royal,” typewriter of Herb Caen, longstanding columnist of the San Francisco Chronicle, on display in the lobby of the Chronicle Building on 5th Street in San Francisco, CA. Moving on, here’s a picture of Herb Caen, a well-known San Francisco columnist who swore by his “Loyal Royal”. Munk posted recently about a similar feature on Royal portables of the early 50s. Perhaps the machine needed more cleaning to appreciate the subtleties of the control. ![]() I played with it, turning it up and down and felt no difference. Here is the description of carriage control from the Royal HH manual: ![]() The Royal HH has a “carriage control” knob. Fortunately, the erratic left margin seemed to work itself out with exercise. I find that Royals often exhibit this behavior. Lovely! When I first started typing, the left margin was a little “soft”, returning irregularly to the left. I wound new red and black ribbon onto the old spools and tested. The old metal spools are the distinctive Royal style. I wiped the key tops down with Goo Gone and the white coating came off. A lot of people call it mold or fungus, but I think it’s a chemical precipitate that affects plastics of the era. The keytops had the frost often seen on Royals of this vintage. I vigorously scrubbed the platen with Soft Scrub to remove embedded white of the correcting tape. I then wiped out the eraser crumbs, gunky fluff, and correcting tape dandruff with a lightly damp rag and Q-tips. After a first cleaning pass, the typebars were all swinging easily.
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