I bought this Smith-Corona 5TE electric keyboard portable typewriter from a seller in the home of the typewriter - Milwaukee, Wisconsin - 10 weeks ago. For the past six weeks or so, I have been working on it, bit by bit. One thing I had to do was take the motor out and have it rebuilt for Australian power input, which I had done by Delta Electronics close by in Phillip, Canberra.
You may recall that Ted Munk was also extremely helpful here, as when first switched on the typewriter's typebars all wanted to type at once. Ted gave me detailed instructions on how to fix this problem. Miguel Ángel Chávez Silva also gave me some very good advice on the rebuilding of the motor, in terms of changing the copper threadings of the stator.
While that was being done, I completely repainted the 5TE to bring it back to its original colour. When it was listed on eBay, the seller described it as "peach and pink". The plastic spacebar and the guides under and behind the platen were pink (and not exactly the same shade) while the rest of the typewriter had faded to what was euphemistically called "peach". Of course, it had originally been pink all over.
I have noted that with the two non-electric pink Series 5 Smith-Coronas I own, the same thing has happened to the paintwork. That it fades to varying degrees on different parts of the typewriter only further detracts from the overall appearance - at least in my opinion. I wanted to see one of these pink machines as it had originally looked. Here are images of this typewriter as listed on eBay, and you will see from the back section, in particular, that there are about three shades of pink (or peach):
The extent to which this pink paintwork had faded was revealed when I peeled off the voltage input sticker from the back section under the carriage. This was the only part of the original paintwork which hadn't faded to peach:
I then took this to a car paint shop and got them to make me three spray cans of a shade matching the original colour. In order to retain the original surface, I used a plastic texture undercoat, then covered this with three coats of the original pink shade. By the time all this was done, the motor was ready to be reinstalled, together with the belts and wheels.
Once reassembled, the 5TE sprung back into life as if new. Certainly the consistent overall colour added to that sense of renewed life. I love the end result and I hope you do too.
You may recall that Ted Munk was also extremely helpful here, as when first switched on the typewriter's typebars all wanted to type at once. Ted gave me detailed instructions on how to fix this problem. Miguel Ángel Chávez Silva also gave me some very good advice on the rebuilding of the motor, in terms of changing the copper threadings of the stator.
While that was being done, I completely repainted the 5TE to bring it back to its original colour. When it was listed on eBay, the seller described it as "peach and pink". The plastic spacebar and the guides under and behind the platen were pink (and not exactly the same shade) while the rest of the typewriter had faded to what was euphemistically called "peach". Of course, it had originally been pink all over.
I have noted that with the two non-electric pink Series 5 Smith-Coronas I own, the same thing has happened to the paintwork. That it fades to varying degrees on different parts of the typewriter only further detracts from the overall appearance - at least in my opinion. I wanted to see one of these pink machines as it had originally looked. Here are images of this typewriter as listed on eBay, and you will see from the back section, in particular, that there are about three shades of pink (or peach):
The extent to which this pink paintwork had faded was revealed when I peeled off the voltage input sticker from the back section under the carriage. This was the only part of the original paintwork which hadn't faded to peach:
I then took this to a car paint shop and got them to make me three spray cans of a shade matching the original colour. In order to retain the original surface, I used a plastic texture undercoat, then covered this with three coats of the original pink shade. By the time all this was done, the motor was ready to be reinstalled, together with the belts and wheels.
Once reassembled, the 5TE sprung back into life as if new. Certainly the consistent overall colour added to that sense of renewed life. I love the end result and I hope you do too.
