Yesterday I got 1935 LC Smith #8 with an 18 inch carriage (it's absolutely massive). It types fine, and just needs some cleaning. But the carriage seems strangely stiff, which is one of the first things that I noticed about it. I did clean the bearing rails and greased them again to reduce friction. But it still has trouble returning to the right when I return the carriage, and when carriage release is engaged, it makes this awful screeching/grinding sound.

​Is there something wrong with it? Or does it just need a further cleaning? I really do not want to take off the carriage, for ball bearings and I are not the best of friends. The ghost of the '32 LC Smith that I butchered over two years ago still haunts me to this day, so I want to take extra caution when dealing with this typewriter. thanks

Mockingbird wrote:

Just got an olympia monica in with a social security number scratched into the side. 

 Well that's not something that should have been there... Who would do such a thing...?

​Anyways, I do have a '39 Royal Arrow with "Colbert" lightly etched underneath it. Besides that and some service stickers, I really don't know much about my typewriters besides what people have told me.
 

Just to clear things up, I snapped a quick pic of the ​Typewriter and Business Machines Repair Home Couse​ that I bought from a former repairman in my town last June. Buuuut, it for some reason won't load, so I'll just copy the terminology definitions

​Spacing Terms
        When the spacing is insufficient, the letters will print too close together. This is called crowding​ (Figure 6A). If spacing is totally lacking, so that the letters print one on top of the other, the condition is called piling​ (Figure 6B).
​        The opposite of piling is a condition that occurs when the typewriter spacing more than it should. If a typist, for example, strikes any typing key once and the machine moves two or more spaces, this is called skipping​ (Figure 7).

​Well there you have it folks, it turns out there are many things that can go wrong with the spacing of the typewriter. The book goes on to explain that the usual cause for these ailments are user error, but it does say to check the escapement anyways and how to adjust it. And, like M. Hohne said, the book explains how crowding can occur when the typeslugs are misaligned. Personally, I've had all three of these things happen to me, on an admittedly dirty Royal FP. The worst is the Royal Arrow portable. That thing will punish me for not going steady. Anyways, I hope this clears up some of the fog, and I'll see if I can somehow upload the entire book (along with a Selectric adjustment troubleshooting manual) to the internet.

I suppose I'll lend my two cents about the FP.

​Right, the Royal FP. What a wonder typewriter, I find its touch to be the best that I have ever used on a standard typewriter. It's light, responsive, and just doesn't seem to want to stop. As for the piling, I have 4 Royal manual standards and this one is about the same as all of the others. If I have an extra cup of coffee that day and am too quick and jittery, the FP will skip a space or pile. But that's only happened a few times.

The style is very contemporary, showing the shift from the 50's to the 60's nicely. The build quality is excellent, a hallmark of Royals. Though for how big it is, it is rather light; I was surprised when I first lifted it up and carried it from a garage to the trunk of my car. I repainted mine baby blue, because I figured I don't have any blue typewriter save for a single Olivetti Lettera 22 (and even that is more akin to a teal). The FP is easy to repaint, for all of the panels that were originally painted, come off rather easily. I even did the side panels because I wanted a little extra pop of color.

​All in all, a wonderful typewriter, and represents the Royal line very nicely.

Perhaps I need to clarify: I would like the size of the bolts that people have used to mount typewriters to desks, from people who have these kinds of desks.​ Experience is really what I'm looking for, and I know one or two of you out there have one of these desks, so cough it up