[GreenKeys] M15 platen restoration

[Keith Lueck]

Hi all -

Just got the M15 back on the air.  Copying ITTY right now.  

Platen
 looked beautiful.  Nice matte finish.  With no change in print force, 
the type is slightly darker now, and definitely more even (top to bottom).  Also, the 
type is not perforating the paper anymore.  Even with the print force turned
 all the way down, the hyphen and period symbols had been almost completely 
perforating the paper, and all characters were doing that somewhat.  
Now, that problem has almost completely been eliminated.  I'll have to 
give it a few more hours of run time, but the platen itself seems to be 
holding up OK too.  Total cost, including ground shipping both ways (from NY to MO) was under $75, 
so, I'd say it was well worth it.  Total turnaround time (including shipping) was under 3 weeks.  

My platen had two layers of rubber on it.  They were able to remove the outer layer and re-cover that part (I think that saved some time and $$).  

Before this, a couple 
Saturdays of copying overstrike pictures literally shredded a ribbon on 
me.  I'll have to try
 that again and see if that problem has been taken care of too.  


Looks 
like the 90 Shore-A is working out OK.  My guess would be the old platen
 had hardened to a 100 Shore-A over the years (they tested it before stripping it), and was probably softer in the past...  

Just to re-iterate for everyone, I used JJ Short Industries (www.jjshort.com).  I traded several emails with Peter Short, and he and his company are very responsive and helpful.  There is a choice of hardness for re-covering.  Mr. Short told me that generally, older typewriters used a 90 Shore-A, while more modern ones (like the IBM Selectric) used 100 Shore-A.  Based on that recommendation, I'd intended to get mine re-covered with 100 Shore-A material.  In the end, once finished, it tested at 90, and Mr. Short gave me the option of trying it as-is or having it re-worked.  I opted to go ahead and try the 90 hardness, and so far, it seems to be working OK.  

I intend to have my ASR33 platen re-done by these folks too, as well as some rollers from some of my antique HP desk calculators.  I recommend them highly.   

More later,

Keith


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