Maybe your machines are all perfectly tuned, and/or your technique is really good. But, especially with Royals in my experience, you will get improperly spaced letters when you type too fast (and it's random). The first letter types fine, but the second isn't properly spaced, so the first letter looks like it's infringing the second letter's personal space, so to speak. The second letter also tends to not print well. I find it happens when I type "th" too quickly.

I'll have to experiment with trying to create that effect. It must more often be a technique issue because not all of my typewriters are in perfect tune. For those who experience this issue often, are you touch or hunt-and-peck typists? I'd definitely like to hear more people chime in on this phenomenon. 

M. Höhne wrote:

I have only seen what I would call piling when I reach the right margin on a typewriter that doesn't have an end-of-line lock...

Okay, that makes two of us, and I feel a little better now. I absolutely understand both scenarios you've described because I have experienced those situations too, but never have seen letters pile together intermittently in the middle of a page. 

If that's what 'piling' is (overprinting one letter over another) I should think it impossible on any decently made machine which is in good order.

I thought I knew better but some things, like the fact that a person who has difficulty evaluating evidence can be completely convinced by hearsay and convince you too, it's not easy to be permanently wary of. Here I forgot the danger of assuming all understand the same thing by a word: I took "piling" to be what happens when one type bar does not get out of the way of the next in time, but some take it to mean what happens when the second type bar does not collide with the first but arrives at the paper before the carriage has advanced a full space. My FP never does either to me though my technique is not flawless! I think actually it's a bit high strung and either needs to back off the caffeine or the mainspring tension. 

By "skip" I indeed meant adding an unintended space.

Uwe wrote:

I'll have to experiment with trying to create that effect. It must more often be a technique issue because not all of my typewriters are in perfect tune. For those who experience this issue often, are you touch or hunt-and-peck typists? I'd definitely like to hear more people chime in on this phenomenon. 

M. Höhne wrote:

I have only seen what I would call piling when I reach the right margin on a typewriter that doesn't have an end-of-line lock...

Okay, that makes two of us, and I feel a little better now. I absolutely understand both scenarios you've described because I have experienced those situations too, but never have seen letters pile together intermittently in the middle of a page. 

Come to think of it, I have seen piling in the middle of a page. It happens when the carriage hits an immovable object to my left that I hadn't noticed, like another typewriter on a cluttered workbench. So that's how you can replicate it---move your desk next to your fridge....

I have also seen crowding IRL. I have gotten so good at certain combinations, like "th" that I sometimes outrun the escapement. But at least in that case, like Jimmy Buffet says, It's my own damn fault.