Typewriter Repair Service

The Refurbished Typewriting Machine

To truly appreciate the satisfaction of employing a typewriter, you must be operating a well maintained machine. There is no comparison to be made between a typer that has been languishing in a basement for twenty years and a freshly lubricated, fully adjusted writing machine.

All of the typewriters available for sale at Blue Moon Camera and Machine have been professionally refurbished to their optimal mechanical functionality. When necessary, they are completely dunked, stripped, and reassembled. Keys and hammers are straightened and their alignments corrected. Platens are shaved, massaged, or replaced (with used, when possible, while our stocks last). All typewriters leave our care with fresh ribbons and three month warranties.

Perhaps you already own a typewriter and would like to see it serviced back to perfection.

Our typewriter service may also be applied to your existing machine. We'd like nothing better than to make sure that the experience of using your current favorite typewriter is the best it can be. Our typewriter mechanic can return most any machine to good working order.

Expert mechanical service at a fraction of the price, in a fraction of the time.

Our general rates for the overhaul of manual, mechanical typewriters are $65 for portable machines, and $75 for desktop machines. Our general turnaround time is one month, from the time a typewriter arrives at our door until it's ready to go back out into service. A fast scan of the typewriter refurbishment services available, on a national level, indicates just how good a deal this is. Calling us on the phone and sending us photos of your machine can help us provide you with an even more accurate quote before you visit us or ship in your machine.

It's not a restoration, folks. While we try our best to make the machines look good, our intention is to refurbish an appliance for use, not to create a pretty museum piece.

We're happily accepting machines from our national (and international) clientele. Please be advised that properly shipping these machines can be prohibitively expensive. We will happily give you advice on the best methods for packing and shipping, but the first rule is that it is not cheap. We ship many typewriters and speak from experience. For example, the traditional Underwood Number Five Desktop shipped from Baltimore, MD to Portland, OR will easily cost $60-70 each way. Aside from moving to Portland, there's just no way around it, and your repair should be budgeted accordingly.

Always save your spools. More often than not, we can supply your machine with a factory-ready ribbon, but there are occasions when we need to wind a roll of inked ribbon onto your existing spools. Failing that, or on particularly old or historic machines, we can actually re-ink the existing ribbon. Although this is always our last resort, we take pride in being able to return almost any machine back to service.