1939 Remington Remette #CR195898
Status: My Collection
Hunter: Mighty Jabba (MightyJabba)
Created: 05-14-2023 at 09:50PM
Last Edit: 05-14-2023 at 10:01PM
Description:
This was a Shopgoodwill.com purchase, and I’d say it was in the worst condition of anything I’ve gotten there. It wasn’t expensive, thankfully, but the auction photos really didn’t convey the true state of it. The platen was weirdly blotchy with what appeared to be many spots of mold. The paint on the shell was starting to come off and it was clear that there was a significant amount of rust underneath the paint. (See photo below.)
I knew I couldn’t use the machine in the condition it was in, so I decided to use the same approach that I used with my Hermes Rocket and remove the paint to reveal the metal beneath. I decided to leave the paper table alone since it seemed more or less okay, had some nice decals, and would have been a lot more difficult to remove than the other parts.
The main difference between this and the Rocket, of course, is that the Rocket was made of aluminum, so should be more or less okay even without paint, but the Remette is made of steel so rust may continue to be an issue. I removed the paint with Klean Strip Paint & Varnish Remover in conjunction with some brass wire brushes. That revealed the rust. There was a fair amount of it, but it was still superficial and I figured it could be removed. I soaked the pieces in white vinegar and then scrubbed them with the wire brushes, which did seem to get rid of the rust, leaving a lot of little pits in the surface. I polished the pieces with some Mother's Mag & Aluminum Polish, which worked quite well. I decided to spray them with some Rust-oleum Crystal Clear Enamel, since it supposedly helps protect from rust, but I’ve never really used it for this kind of thing, so I guess we’ll see.
I also sanded the platen to get rid of the mold spots and cleaned out the mechanisms, although they were actually working pretty well. The rubber thing that the type bars rest on that muffles their return had completely fused with them and was crumbling apart, so I fashioned a replacement from an old mousepad. I also got some generic rubber feet, since the original ones were rock-hard and had crumbled away.
I think it looks really good with the bare metal, especially since you can’t really see the pitting from the rust unless you look very closely. I’m happy to say that it types perfectly now.
The Remette in general definitely seems like it was created to be inexpensive, but it still functions pretty well.
Typeface Specimen:
Photos:
Hunter: Mighty Jabba (MightyJabba)
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RESEARCH NOTE: When researching the Remington Remette on a computer with lots of screen real estate, you may find that launching the Remington Serial Number page and the Remington Remette By Model/Year/Serial page in new browser windows can give you interesting perspectives on changes throughout the model series.