Grr. I feel I am so close with this, but can't figure it out.  If I tilt the left side of the machine up by about 30 degrees, the carriage advance works fine.  That suggests to me that a spring is missing or something, that would normally pull to the right, but I can't see any missing springs when I compare it to my older QDL. 

No, I can't figure it out.  I'm going to take it with me to the typewriter convention next weekend and see if I can beg or bribe anyone to take a look at it.

Does your friends typewriter do the weird thing where it works when it's tilted?  Like I said above, if I tilt it about 30 degrees up on the left side the carriage will go.  Sometimes I have to hit the backspace once and then it will space or type all the way to the right margin just fine.  Not when it's down flat though. It's not a carriage obstruction thing on mine as far as I can tell.  I just don't know.  I've spent so much time peering into the escapement and I can see the part that's not moving, but I can't figure out why it just moves when the thing is tilted.

When you say it feels like you are hitting a line lock, do you mean that the keys aren't striking the platen?  On mine the keys are striking the platen, even though the carriage isn't moving.  So I'm wondering if it's something different.

Last edited by Spazmelda (16-10-2015 18:01:18)

Good luck and have fun at the typewriter convention! I wish I lived on that side of the US. If you find answers to your QDL problem at the convention, be sure to post.

I may have a completely different problem since I can't get my QDL to work with tilting.  Also: backspace doesn't work on this QDL. I was hoping to find a penny or piece of junk jammed in the works, but no such luck. It really feels like a mechanical obstruction.

Fortunately I have a functional 1938 Royal Aristocrat. It and the QDL have almost identical mechanics. I plan to spend some time this weekend comparing the two machines.

TypewriterGuy wrote:

Sounds like a spring is broken or possibly the carriage rails or mainspring have something to do with it. When its sitting upright, can you push the carriage manually one space at a time after pressing keys or spacebar?

In my case, there may be a broken or detached spring somewhere.  I don't think it's the carriage rails since the carriage runs very smoothly with carriage release.  And I don't think it's the mainspring since pulling manually to the left with typing doesn't advance the carriage. The keys aren't making it to the platen, just bouncing back as if I were trying to type past the right margin.

I fixed the QDL that I was working on.  More dumb luck than anything.  I compared the functional Royal Aristocrat to the nonfunctional QDL and observed what was happening in the escapement on key strike. What I noticed was that in the QDL, a pawl (?) or dog(?) in the escapement's workings wasn't darting in and out to engage the escapement wheel like it did on the Aristocrat.


I very carefully (but unscientifically) probed with one of my dental tools around the escapement wheel and dog (pawl?) and then *BOING* the little pawl (dog?) bounced into sight.  Suddenly the escapement was tripping and the wheel was turning and the typewriter was typing. Dumb luck.

Perhaps the QDL had taken a hard knock and the pawl (dog?) had shifted out of postition - perhaps due to a loose spring. In any case, the QDL is now typing just fine.