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Hi all,
I am very new to this type writer game. Bought an very cheap typewriter that I was told was skipping a few spaces.
Turns out it skips an entire page. Anyway it was only a couple of dollars, so decided to buy it and pull it apart. Again I am very new to this, have not touched a typewriter before. Very proud of myself for giving it a shot haha After some googling I learnt that the escapement mechanism is often the culprit, so I decided to have a look at it. In order to get to it I had to take the carriage off.
Now photos are below.
What I found was that the escapement mechanism works perfectly fine yay, however the gear on the escapement mechanism that I believe the carriage rail runs on had a broken tooth.
I think that explains what is happening. Once the carriage rail tries to mesh with the broken tooth, there is nothing holding the rail in page and the carriage continues to slide along until the end of the page/margin. I noticed that when it is sliding and I hit a key it stops sliding which makes sense as the gear turns and a non-broken tooth meshes with the carriage rail.
I hope all ^ makes sense. Based on the photos what does everyone think?
Funny thing is when I put it all back together, it has stopped doing it. I have a suspicion as to why. There are 3 guide clamps that I had to remove off the carriage to allow me to remove it, they just prevent the carriage from lifting up and run along a rail. I suspect that when I reinstalled it, one of the clamps is rubbing against the rail, providing a bit of friction which might just be enough to hold the carriage in place when it is meshed with the broken tooth.
Anyway, just thought I would sign up and ask for peoples thoughts Have I found the issue, can I fix the issue? Could I just JB weld some metal onto the broken tooth?
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You need to find another part. JB Weld will not hold up to a application like this. What is the pitch of the machine? Pica or Elite?
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I am not sure what the pitch of the machine is is there a way to find out?
Is it possible to buy replacement gears?
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FPS-16-88-6451315
Found it! That is the serial number
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Hi Dil
The pitch of a typewriter refers to the number of letters it types to the inch or characters per inch (CPI). Hold a steel rule or a known accurate rule against the paper bale and count how many lines make up an inch, should be 10 or 12. There may also be a number 10 or 12 stamped right on the escapement star wheel next to the gear with the broken tooth. However, as you now have the machine back together, using lower case L as figure 1, type 1234567890 and measure it. If this takes up a full inch, the pitch is10 CPI, if it doesn't take up a full inch, then it's 12. Let us know what you find,
Sky