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Hi all,
I bought a less than stellar Olivetti Studio 44 - very dirty, fair amount of surface rust, and a few issues with the typebars. This was my first "project" that involved a bit more than a clean, but not too difficult (I hoped).
I've cleaned it all up, removed the rust, replaced the felt, and it looks pretty good. A few of the topics in this forum were helpful - it's a wonderful resource! So now it types reasonably well, except for some of the keys on the right hand side of the keyboard.
The typebars of those keys don't quite reach the platen when pressed down. A hard strike is needed to make an impression and to advance the carriage. The keys in the middle and on the left don't have this issue - a light strike, and the typebar hits the platen and advances the carriage. It makes a smooth typing experience impossible.
I bought the service manual from Ted Munk's fantastic site, and found this:
Adjustment of the cinematic chain
...
if the type bar in a cinematic chain does not reach the platen, it means that the corresponding key has too great an idle stroke, and the bend of the first movement link P4 B 24/... must be decreased by means of a hand setting tool.
So my questions are:
- what is a hand setting tool?
- any idea how to get the link off the mechanism so the bend can be decreased?
- any other possibility about why those keys in particular have an issue? Perhaps the carriage or platen is wonky? It seems a little coincidental that all the keys on the right have an issue - and getting worse the further right a key is. So I'm not sure the bend in that link is the solution.
Any help would be much appreciated!
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Before you go bending metal...make sure you have cleaned all the segment slots and type-bar pivots. Sometimes that will take many rounds of cleaning.
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Thanks, Pete. That's a good point - the segment slots are clean (they were surprisingly clean already considering the rest of the machine, and all the other machines I've got which needed thorough cleaning there - little oil/WD-40 used on this one at least), but I haven't done much with the pivots. I'll try that first.
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Simk,
When I get down to only 1-2 type-bars not making contact after cleaning with denatured alcohol and my aiompressor, I will go after those with some lacquer thinner and my air compressor.
But you have to be really careful not to get lacquer thinner on painted parts, plastics, and rubber.
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