The typewriter with its case, original dust cover and instructions was bought at auction. The paperwork supplied showed it had been owned by a lady in Surbiton and serviced in January 1981 and 1982 by a local typewriter maintenance company ‘Surbiton Typewriters’, 10 Winthrop House, Surbiton.
According to its serial number, BR 948893, it was manufactured in 1963 in Holland.
The machine could be stored in the carry case by locking it on the inside base of the case. Unfortunately, the surrounding zip was beyond repair, but the fact that the case could be closed with a catch meant that it could still be transported safely.
After a general clean-up, including the type slugs and dealing with sticky keys the main problem was found to be the paper feed roller as it was ineffective due to severe flattening in one area. The decayed rubber covering was removed from the metal rod and was replaced with plastic piping to provide exactly the same dimension as the original.
An alternative to plastic piping is to use heat shrinkable polymer clay moulded onto the metal rod. This would provide a durable solution but requires that the clay is rolled out to exactly the required thickness – in the link above use of a pasta making machine is suggested!
The platen had quite a build-up of dirt and was thoroughly treated using Platenclene, a printer- roller cleaner. The resulting output following all the cleaning was quite acceptable.
A copy of the instruction leaflet supplied with the typewriter can be downloaded here.
A brief history of Remington
‘E. Remington & Sons’ was founded around 1845 for the manufacture of rifle barrels and grew its armament business over the years to encompass production of agricultural equipment and then sewing machines. Remington produced the first commercially successful typewriter based on an 1868 patent granted to Sholes and Glidden. In 1886 E. Remington and Sons sold its typewriter business to the Standard Typewriter Manufacturing Company which renamed itself Remington Typewriter Company. Remington Typewriter then merged with office-supply maker Rand Kardex in 1927 to form Remington Rand.
After producing goods for the war effort in the second world war, Remington Rand returned to typewriter manufacture focusing on portables. In the middle 1950’s, Remington’s subsidiary company, Remington Rand Holland BV, began production of the small Travel-Riter. A variety of portables designs followed with the last of the true Remington designs appearing in the late 1960s. In 1955, Remington-Rand merged with the Sperry Corporation to focus more on new technology and the office machine business was sold off to what became Remington Rand Corporation. The subsidiary, Remington-Rand Holland, was also sold off but to a different group. Problems and lawsuits regarding the new Sperry-Remington SR-101 electronic typewriter eventually killed off both of these around 1981.
For more information on the history of Remington visit here.
How did you remove the front paper roller? I have the Travel Riter, not the Travel Riter Delux.
Unfortunately I can’t quite remember the details but it was snapped out from its holding. The following may be of help
https://www.reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/cz2zx0/1964_remington_travelriter_deluxe_gr936555/
https://i.ibb.co/XZsQMcH/IMG-20190903-193138.jpg
https://typewriter.boardhost.com/viewtopic.php?id=3008