“Leisure Suit Larry”
198x Smith Corona Coronet Super 12 #6LEF 502035 M
To take apart a Coronamatic cartridge so the internal bits don’t fly everywhere, start at the front side of the cartridge (faces the platen when loaded). 
1) Pry open the top carefully. it will be difficult to get the tabs open the first time, but much easier later. The plastic is not brittle, like many old plastics can be, so I haven’t busted a tab yet despite doing this about 10 times now while learning about the cartridge. DO NOT POP IT ALL THE WAY OPEN YET! HOLD IT CLOSED UNTIL STEP 3! 
2) Turn the cartridge around while still holding it closed, and pop the two tabs on the other side. STILL DO NOT LET THE CARTRIDGE OPEN! 
3) Flip the cartridge over so it is top-side up. 
4) now you can set it down and take the top off. If you do it upside-down, all this stuff falls out on the floor. 
Now this is where the carbon ribbons and the fabric ribbons differ. The carbon ribbons are on spools and the fabric ribbon is a continuous loop that’s unspooled loosely inside the cart. I’ll show a Fabric ribbon in next post.
5) Since this is a carbon ribbon I’m fixing, I pull out the takeup spool and mark what direction it turns. Then cut out all the used ribbon so I can splice the spool back onto the ribbon. 
6) A little scotch tape will do it. Doesn’t matter that the leader is mangled, it winds into the takeup spool anyway. 
7) ensure that the feed spool is positioned and the ribbon is threaded like so. 
8) ready the take-up spool. it feeds *above* the feed spool path, and the feed path should be like so. Note that the used ribbon is pulled by the white pinch roller. The grey gear is just an unpowered roller. No idea why it has gear teeth. They don’t connect to anything. 
9) Slot in the takeup reel and take up the excess ribbon by winding the direction you’ve marked. The takeup reel is driven by the gear poking out the bottom of the ribbon shell. 
10) Snap the top cover back on and you’re all done! 
I recently took apart a fabric Coronamatic cartridge and “re-inked” the ribbon by hand, using a stamp pad ink bottle, then proceeded to spend the next few days getting the ink spread more evenly.
On the fabric ribbon carts the pinch roller just shoves the ribbon back into the upper level of the body of the cart; the pinch roller pulling on the ribbon is what pulls it out of the body shell, around the corner and down the ramp to the tongue, then around the double 90 bend to the upper level at the print position, then back to the pinch roller.
The lady that owns this machine has me ordering new Smith-Corona fabric carts from Amazon, then she reimburses me — she’s too computer averse to get them herself.
So you’re ordering the cloth ribbons for her and re-inking them, or does that source supply actually fresh ribbons? The fabric ribbon I got yesterday was still fully sealed and dry as a bone. I did open it up and WD-40 it (interested readers: take it apart the same way as the carbon one) Thank the Lizzie for that neat little internal tray that holds that loose ribbon inside. Makes it way easy to just spritz a little juice on the ribbon. When I get moved in, I’ll need to find my colored mica powder and try to make a colored/pearlescent WD-40 mix that will add some interesting color highlights to the black, and maybe make it darker.
The carts I buy on Amazon are still inked well enough to work. The one I re-inked was an experiment to see if it was worth the hassle.
The lady is looking for an electric with standard ribbons, but I don’t feel like giving up one of my Electras.
Here’s the fabric carts I’m ordering:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00006RVRZ?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title
I had a Coronamatic in graduate school in the 1980s; it was very faithful and had very few problems, and, believe me, I used the machine every day, often for hours. I wish I’d had this post when, after years of service, tangles kept happening in the ribbons, and I had no idea why. Coronamatic were constructed well—and the variety of ribbons meant you could do a lot with them. I’d use the carbon ribbons on the final drafts of my papers, hoping for a grading edge (which I didn’t always get). Because of this post, I’ll be looking for one in a local thrift store.
Yeah, it’s actually a super-nice machine, very well-built. Has some nice features not present on earlier models, a more fine-tuned variable throw on the keys that tend to punch through paper like the period, comma and dash – they throw a lot softer than the other letters. 5-position half-line spacer, little things that can be annoying about older SCM Typebar electrics.
I’ve always been a bit prejudiced against them, looked down on and passed up basically anything in a brown blow-molded case that wasn’t a manual Galaxy. I am seeing the error of my ways. (:
I’ve got another post on the ribbon system and cartridges later. I feel like very interesting things can be done with them.
Congrats on the new typewriter.
Thanks! (:
Congrats on enjoying getting to grips with a new machine :)
And wow LSL brings me back (probly showing my age here).
(And yes, signal-noise ratio has taken a nosedive, search is increasingly useless. Wondering how that’ll pan out…)
Glad to see that you, too, have found a Leisure Suit Larry!
https://writingball.blogspot.com/2013/03/meet-frank-and-larry.html
Ha! I knew I’d seen one before! :D