Royal KHM

This is a stunning typewriter that exudes elegance. It’s in great cosmetic shape and seems rarely used: the seller’s relatives said the father liked to collect typewriters but didn’t use them. Besides the customary cleaning and a brushing of type slugs, it was ready to pound paper. But it had a glaring flaw: the capitals were misaligned.

I was able to fix it after finding the adjustment nuts at opposing sides below the machine. It took a good hour of tweaks and turns which resulted in a busted knuckle. I haven’t done many alignment repairs, and was overjoyed.

A week later, I noticed it was typing lightly at times, which annoyed me. So I tinkered again with the adjustment nuts. Big mistake: while tightening, I heard a slight pop, and then the shift key seized. After two hours trying to make it functional again, I gave up. It’s the first typewriter I damaged during a repair, and the last one I wanted to bungle.

Weeks later, I took it to the shop, already bracing for a call from the German repairman telling me it was “a dead dog.” (He had used this phrase before in reference to an Olivetti Praxis.) I was resigned to selling it on craigslist as a wedding prop. But ‘ole Ott fixed it, though it took him nearly two weeks. I was elated.

However, when I tested it at home (always test a machine at the shop), I found the capitals slightly misaligned. It was an easy fix, requiring only a few quarter turns of each alignment nut. The shift key remains slightly stiff, a small price to pay for having it back in the small writing studio, a luminary among elders.