I'm pretty sure the movement of the carriage movement does not cause the escapement to trigger, but rather the other way around. I can bring a typebar slowly all of the way up to the platen, and nothing will happen. Usually, the escapement is suppose to trigger when the typebar is close (but not touching) the platen. Not sure how it got to be like this.

ztyper wrote:

...When cleaning the typebars of my Torpedo 18, I found out that all of the keys, when slowly brought up to the platen, do not trigger the escapement. This results in "dead" keys like on some other European layouts. When typing, the keys trigger the escapement and the typewriter works fine, it's just that sometimes, I'll get overlapping letters..

I'd like to be sure I understand that correctly. When you bring the key bars up slowly none of them trigger a normal carriage movement? And when you are typing at normal speed all the keys seems to trigger normal carriage advance most of the time, but sometimes not?

When you see overlapping letters, is it two letters typing exactly on top of each other, or is the second letter typing before the platen has moved a full space over, with partial overlap?

As for what triggers what I'd say without a detailed understanding of this particular mechanism that's not worthwhile to debate: bottom line is the mainspring supplies the power, a keystroke releases the power so the carriage can move over to the next typing position, and the escapement allows the carriage to move over exactly one position rather than running free to the end. 

ztyper wrote:

Repartee wrote:

When you bring the key bars up slowly none of them trigger a normal carriage movement? And when you are typing at normal speed all the keys seems to trigger normal carriage advance most of the time, but sometimes not?

None of them trigger the escapement when I bring them up, and all of them do when I type.

This implies there is something velocity sensitive in the action, and I would really be curious to learn why. Could this be an even more extreme version of the Victor 10, which was said to reward only fast typists: a machine which actually didn't type at all if you didn't move your fingers fast enough! 

Since it seems the overall sequence of mechanical events during a normal type stroke includes something velocity dependent (more accurately, acceleration dependent), two possible explanations for it failing sometimes during regular typing ...

1) Your finger did not strike the second key with sufficient speed
2) The acceleration sensitive part of the mechanism did not move freely

Or some combination of 1) and 2), a little sticky, a little slow.

Have you experimented? I'm sure you are a good typist, but I know sometimes I have the unsatisfying feeling of a finger giving a key a slap rather than a solid strike. There is a 3...

3) Escapement sometimes sticks for reasons unrelated to velocity dependent action.

I'd like to know what you find out.

I own a Torpedo also, or at least a lever from one: a bicycle, not a typewriter!  They did make bikes, and there are some really funny German expressions by the three gear speeds, which escape me just now.