My Erika 5 is one of my go-to machines for its light touch and beautiful performance, so when the opportunity to get an Erika 9 on Ebay Germany of course I went for it. 

It arrived all dusty and filled with over 50 years of detritus, but the keys had the characteristic "grasshopper" snappiness right of the cobwebby box. 

I thought to myself, awesome -- there's little work to be done! Until I started typing.... 



With my older electric typewriters, type that prints partially is easy rectified by repositioning the platen. But in a manual, that option seems remote. 

Have you faced a similar issue, and what workarounds or remedies worked for correcting type alignment and misprinting? 

Also, is there a way of make the force needed to strike a key any less? I just find it odd that the Erika 5 requires less than half the force of the model 9 to strike the key for a 100% black impression--- especially since the keys on the Model aren't in the least jammed. 

Thank you!