1 - Jfraney
- New Member
Offline - From: Hancock, MN
- Registered: 12-11-2015
- Posts: 24
Carriage won't advance (most of the time)
Hey all, I've a new (to me) '56 Optima Elite 3. It was working great until, out of the blue, the carriage stopped advancing. The weird thing, and why I'm starting a new topic post, is that it DOES advance, only maybe 1 out of 10 strikes.
My question is, is anybody familiar with this type of malfunction? It's not a carriage lock problem unless something is jammed oddly, it's not a drawband problem because, as I say, every tenth or so stroke the carriage will advance a space and then freeze again. So if I hit the space bar 2000 times, I might get halfway across the rails 
So my guess is that something is jammed, but I'm no expert and I'm hoping one of you could chime in with some ideas.
Thanks in advance.
- JoeV
- Touch Typist
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- Registered: 11-4-2015
- Posts: 152
Re: Carriage won't advance (most of the time)
If you grasp a platen knob and pull the carriage release lever, does the carriage slide left and right on its rails freely? As you pull from left to right, you'll feel the tension of the draw band; does it feel normal, like there's sufficient tension?
How far you can thus move the carriage is limited by the margin settings. It's possible to have them both set toward the center of the carriage, limiting the motion to a very narrow range. It is more commonly a problem with machines that have quick-set margins, like Hermes 2000s and Royals with their Magic Margin.
Does your machine have tabs? If so, try working the tab settings and see if that helps.
~Joe
- Jfraney
- New Member
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- From: Hancock, MN
- Registered: 12-11-2015
- Posts: 24
Re: Carriage won't advance (most of the time)
JoeV wrote:
If you grasp a platen knob and pull the carriage release lever, does the carriage slide left and right on its rails freely? As you pull from left to right, you'll feel the tension of the draw band; does it feel normal, like there's sufficient tension?
How far you can thus move the carriage is limited by the margin settings. It's possible to have them both set toward the center of the carriage, limiting the motion to a very narrow range. It is more commonly a problem with machines that have quick-set margins, like Hermes 2000s and Royals with their Magic Margin.
Does your machine have tabs? If so, try working the tab settings and see if that helps.
~Joe
Yes the carriage moves freely when the lever is released, although it does seem to scrape along the rails where it didn't before
- •
Thread Starter- Repartee
- Key Master
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- From: Brooklyn
- Registered: 12-10-2015
- Posts: 683
Re: Carriage won't advance (most of the time)
Yes the carriage moves freely when the lever is released, although it does seem to scrape along the rails where it didn't before
Well, if it's scraping, it's not moving freely. 
Why? Maybe the rails had been cleaned but not lubricated, except for a very thin film of the higher molecular weight fraction of whatever solvent mixture they had been cleaned with, which was still volatile enough that it eventually evaporated. I've noticed that white spirits - at least the kind I use - have an strong odor that lingers for days, which means some part of it takes that long to substantially evaporate.
"Damn the torpedoes! Four bells, Captain Drayton".
- Jfraney
- New Member
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- From: Hancock, MN
- Registered: 12-11-2015
- Posts: 24
Re: Carriage won't advance (most of the time)
Yes the carriage moves freely when the lever is released, although it does seem to scrape along the rails where it didn't before
Well, if it's scraping, it's not moving freely.
Why? Maybe the rails had been cleaned but not lubricated, except for a very thin film of the higher molecular weight fraction of whatever solvent mixture they had been cleaned with, which was still volatile enough that it eventually evaporated. I've noticed that white spirits - at least the kind I use - have an strong odor that lingers for days, which means some part of it takes that long to substantially evaporate.
I just meant free in the sense that it does in fact move. Would that be enough to prevent the carriage from advancing? If there's a lubricant you recommend, let me know!
- •
Thread Starter- TypewriterGuy
- Typewriter Talk Vet
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- From: United States
- Registered: 24-4-2015
- Posts: 1,250
Re: Carriage won't advance (most of the time)
Gun oil would be good, of course typewriter oil would be best, but sadly that hasn't been made for a while ):
Back from a long break.
Starting fresh with my favorite typer. A Royal Futura!
- Spazmelda
- Key Master
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- From: Ohio
- Registered: 25-2-2015
- Posts: 830
Re: Carriage won't advance (most of the time)
I have had something like this happen to a Smith Corona Sterling. I cleaned it up and the carriage was moving fine. After several days of use the carriage started scraping and not advancing properly. What I found was that some other debris had dislodged and gotten wedged in the carriage assembly mechanisms. I can't remember exactly, but I think it was a bit of cardboard. It probably came from somewhere else in the machine and just happened to fall into a place that messed the carriage up. I don't know if that is the problem with yours, but it's worth another cleaning and examination to see if some other junk has lodged itself down in there.
- Repartee
- Key Master
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- From: Brooklyn
- Registered: 12-10-2015
- Posts: 683
Re: Carriage won't advance (most of the time)
Gun oil would be good, of course typewriter oil would be best, but sadly that hasn't been made for a while ):
If you search eBay for typewriter oil you will find several brands. The copy for the synthetic oils have been translated into layman's terms to sound like snake oil (for laymen who haven't taken chemistry), but translated back the claims are reasonable: (1) rather than a mixture of molecules with different weights you have mainly a single synthetic molecule with just the right weight, and (2) this molecule resists oxidation. These are reasonable claims and together mean the oil will not gum up.
Whether they apply to the particular nostrums sold is unknown.
"Damn the torpedoes! Four bells, Captain Drayton".
- TypewriterGuy
- Typewriter Talk Vet
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- From: United States
- Registered: 24-4-2015
- Posts: 1,250
Re: Carriage won't advance (most of the time)
Oh really? I will have to look this up...
I never...
Back from a long break.
Starting fresh with my favorite typer. A Royal Futura!
- malole
- Inactive Account
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- From: East Anglia, UK
- Registered: 02-6-2014
- Posts: 330
Re: Carriage won't advance (most of the time)
I use sewing machine oil, works wonderfully well and you can find it easily on ebay. A good alternative for those of us in the UK.
