1 of 1- Cuentos
- Novice Typer
Offline - From: Washington State
- Registered: 14-3-2020
- Posts: 34
Problem fixes itself... Is my typewriter HAUNTED?
I've been having loads of trouble with my Rem. Noiseless 10 over the last few days, but suddenly its working perfectly again. PERFECTLY. I think its haunted. Maybe the ghost of one of the many, many spiders I cleaned out of it. It was skipping, rather badly, generally 5 to 8 or more in 65 spaces, and seemed to be doing it in the same spots. I cleaned the escapement, which had dried-on old grease, like hard rubber. I was sure that was the problem, but no. I checked for binding or play, everything looked great. I loosened the spring tension, by hooking a piece of light wire onto the end of the strap, extending it a few inches. That actually worked, sort of, but I did feel quite disgusted about that... Then last night I started typing and it wasn't skipping at all. No problems. I put the strap back the way its supposed to go, and it hasn't skipped one space. I've typed several pages since then with not one problem. I wondered if one of those spiders was sabotaging my Noiseless 10... i held up the machine and carefully shook it to see if any tiny spider-sized monkey wrenches fell out. Its a mystery...
- Uwe
- Moderator
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- From: Toronto, Canada
- Registered: 12-3-2013
- Posts: 4,408
Re: Problem fixes itself... Is my typewriter HAUNTED?
Some things do work themselves out with sustained use. I'm not sure if that applies to your situation, but it's been my experience that even though the majority of decades-old dirt can be removed with a cursory cleaning, some of it will continue to drop out on its own when you use the machine a lot.
I recall one Royal standard that I'd bought complete with a mouse nest in it. I spent a couple of hours cleaning it, and it worked fine. However, I did have to clean my desk underneath the machine for a while after every time I used the machine. Odd items such as seeds and bits of hay would fall from places that were inaccessible during a quick clean.
The pronoun I has always been capitalized in the English language for more than 700 years.
- steini
- Touch Typist
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- Registered: 12-4-2017
- Posts: 121
Re: Problem fixes itself... Is my typewriter HAUNTED?
"I had I machine with skipping problems, I cleaned the escapement from grease as hard as rubber, now it doesn´t have skipping issues". I don´t see any mystery at all, just a normal consecution of events and a logically perfect action-result.
- Cuentos
- Novice Typer
Offline
- From: Washington State
- Registered: 14-3-2020
- Posts: 34
Re: Problem fixes itself... Is my typewriter HAUNTED?
You're right but that's not exactly what I meant, I should've clarified that it was still skipping after I cleaned the escapement. You know one thing I love about typewriters? No autocorrect! I'm typing this on my phone and the screen is badly cracked and thats causing problems-- Not fun problems like of a malfunctioning typewriter. Off topic... The typewriter wasn't working better after I cleaned the escapement, so I loosened the main spring which mitigated the problem a little. Then later when I was using the machine, it just started working perfectly by itself. I wrote quite a few pages while it was skipping some, but suddenly I noticed it stopped. I'm sure the escapement needed that old hardened grease off it but it took about 15 pages before the machine started working right. And I never had a problem before. Its haunted, I'm certain of it. PS I wanted to clarify what I mean by "pages": when working on my book, I type triple space to give room,for editing, and only one side so I can cut and paste, so 15 pages isnt a ton of writing.
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