Sunday, February 26, 2012

Post(Card)-A-Day 26: American Baby - Smith Corona Skyriter

 
Once you get over the dull color, it really is a nicely styled machine. A good candidate for a makeover paint job, once I figure out how to preserve that badge. I'm not in a hurry, though.

What the alignment looked like before - look at that errant "a"! Really...

It is not super thin, but small enough. 

The peace sign of a paper support is absolutely adorable, of course. I wish it reclined just a bit instead of sticking straight up, though.

I know, the elastic band is a bit of an eyesore. Any suggestions on what I should be tightening within the machine itself, or a subtler way to resolve the loose lever issue?

9 comments:

  1. Cute little machine. Have you ever seen a Dart machine. I don't remember the actual company at present (possibly Royal). Its the smallest machine I have and quite compact. It has a covered bottom so works as a lap typer. Its one of my favorites.

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    1. I love the look of the Royal Dart, especially the charcoal gray colored one. I saw one of those on La Vie Graphite and was instantly charmed by it. I have yet to find one locally, though.

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  2. Nice typewriter. One that is on my list, but low priority. I never understood and still do not understand why so many American companies chose the cruddy wrinkle finish on so many products. That finish is so difficult to keep clean, it is not durable and it perhaps only covers minor scratches and such form sloppy metal working. If you can sold alignment issues I'd like to know your solution.

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    1. J tells me this alignment issue was solved by bending back some parts that had gotten crooked. It now produces decent type but nowhere near perfect, as you can see. I'll just tell myself it adds to the charm.

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  3. I do love my skyriters, and I have one exactly like yours (except american keyboard) that has been a steady go-to machine when I want to take along a light, robust typewriter. Given a choice, I would pick the 1964 Hermes Rocket over it, but probably not any of the earlier Rocket/baby models I've tried or have owned. Someday I'll paint mine black, but I'd want to strip off the crinkle paint first. I'm pretty sure the name badge just pops out the back of the lid if you remove the soundproofing pad.

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    1. Thanks for the tip about the name badge, Ted! Now to pick a color that will suit the dark green keys... this could be a fun project for the summer.

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  4. It was on my list too, but I can't get one in the dirt-cheap price range. I'll stay open to it but not really pursue. I have a rubber band holding the right shift-lock key on the Woodstock. I'm happy with a kluge that works. If you don't like the look, maybe a different color elastic or a hair band.

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  5. I had a Smith Corona Corsair for a bit, in the standard Baby Blue. It's a unique ultra-portable design, with a permanent base and a removable snap-on lid. Only drawback, any dust, crumbs, or eraser-flakes that fell into that thing were never coming out. There's a decent collection of snapshots on the Google Images.

    Mine was a local-dump find, and wasn't in good enough shape to keep, so it went out via the yard-sale. Probably one of the only typewriters I've ever made a profit on.

    There's a definite scarcity of Hermes Babies and the like over here, though.

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