1 of 1- TheScribe
- New Member
Offline - Registered: 26-10-2016
- Posts: 4
Royal Empress Carriage Will Not Move
Hi, so I just bought my first typewriter, a Royal Empress. It's in great condition and works really well, but the one problem I'm having is that the carriage will only move halfway and then the bell will ring and it will stop. I've figured it's a problem with the margins, but I can't get it to move when I try to change the margin either. I am, by no means, an expert, so if anyone knows how I can fix this, or can tell me anything else about my typewriter that would be great. Thanks.
- Uwe
- Moderator
Offline
- From: Toronto, Canada
- Registered: 12-3-2013
- Posts: 4,410
Re: Royal Empress Carriage Will Not Move
The Empress has Magic Margins, and it sounds like you're not using them correctly.
To set the right margin you need to pull the right Magic Margin lever toward you and hold it there as you slide the carriage to where you want the margin to be set, and then you can let the lever go. While doing this you will need to use the carriage release lever at the same time in order to slide the carriage to the left.
The pronoun I has always been capitalized in the English language for more than 700 years.
- TheScribe
- New Member
Offline
- Registered: 26-10-2016
- Posts: 4
Re: Royal Empress Carriage Will Not Move
Okay. I didn't know you needed to pull the release lever as well. That worked. Thanks!
- •
Thread Starter- Uwe
- Moderator
Offline
- From: Toronto, Canada
- Registered: 12-3-2013
- Posts: 4,410
Re: Royal Empress Carriage Will Not Move
Enjoy your Empress, it's a great typewriter. I would also recommend using a backing sheet at all times. Every Empress that I've looked at had a very hard platen, so if you notice holes being punched through the paper or the ribbon itself, those are signs of a platen in need of help.
The pronoun I has always been capitalized in the English language for more than 700 years.
- TheScribe
- New Member
Offline
- Registered: 26-10-2016
- Posts: 4
Re: Royal Empress Carriage Will Not Move
Thanks for the tip! I'll make sure to do that!
- •
Thread Starter- Fleetwing
- Typewriter Talk Vet
Offline
- From: Hartford, CT USA
- Registered: 30-6-2015
- Posts: 1,011
Re: Royal Empress Carriage Will Not Move
No shame in not knowing how the Magic Margin is supposed to work. If you know how to use it (and it's working properly), it's great. But it's not intuitive, and I think it's a solution to a non-problem.
- M. Höhne
- Key Master
Offline
- From: Maine
- Registered: 14-3-2013
- Posts: 640
Re: Royal Empress Carriage Will Not Move
Fleetwing wrote:
No shame in not knowing how the Magic Margin is supposed to work. If you know how to use it (and it's working properly), it's great. But it's not intuitive, and I think it's a solution to a non-problem.
No, they were a very good solution to a very real problem. What we forget is that these machines were designed for heavy use in busy offices. In an environment full of different forms, labels, personal and business letters, invoices, requisitions, and so on, Magic Margins (and similar from other makers) are a real help to fast typists who previously had to reach back, sometimes open a door, feel for margin setters, correlate the margin bail number with the bail on the front, and then sit back down. And typists were well trained and used them all the time so they didn't forget how MM worked or get it confused with Remington's, Smith-Corona's, or Hermes's systems. The real world back then was quite different from ours, where we just diddle with typewriters at leisure.
- Fleetwing
- Typewriter Talk Vet
Offline
- From: Hartford, CT USA
- Registered: 30-6-2015
- Posts: 1,011
Re: Royal Empress Carriage Will Not Move
All good points. For cranking out lots of paperwork, features like the Magic Margin would have been important to a typist who was familiar with how it worked. (This last part being key -- analogous to, though much simpler than, a modern-day worker being confronted with a whole new word processing system.) And of course office typewriters were regularly serviced by professionals.
Nowadays, dealing with an old Royal for the first time, Magic Margin may not be so easy to use, especially if the mechanism needs cleaning. Something like an Olympia or Smith-Corona, where the margin setting mechanism is straightforward and less mechanically complex, may have withstood the years better.
- TypewriterKing
- Inactive Account
Offline
- From: DeepInTheHeartO', Texas
- Registered: 17-2-2016
- Posts: 1,011
Re: Royal Empress Carriage Will Not Move
Well, the slide set can also have problems too. Take for instance the old style Underwoods--the pre-SX-150 models. Their sliders were quite a bit more complicated than the ones installed on the new style. The left margin stop controlled the right margin, and vice versa. What's more, there were two margin releases--the lever on the right side of the carriage gave an unlimited release left of the left margin while the button on the top right of the keyboard only gave you five or so spaces beyond the right hand margin. And when gummed up, the margin stops would freeze into place--especially the right one controlling the left margin. I've had to hammer and chisel I don't know how many machines to free 'em up. I was very careful, mind you, but sometimes when something sticks that hard, more serious measures are called for.
Underwood--Speeds the World's Bidness
