I'm having a troubling time with this typewriter.  I think it was on another thread that I posted about the ribbon problems.  What happens is that sometimes when I type the ribbon pulls too hard or fast or something and bunches up.  That wouldn't be so terrible of an issue except that sometimes it causes a loop of ribbon to fall off of the spool and start to wind underneath the spooling mechanism.  This is mostly an issue when I get to the end of a ribbon and the take-up spool is very full.  I think it was on the other thread that someone (M. Höhne, I think) suggested that I put some felt in the ribbon cover to increase the tension on the spools.  So I tried that, and it helped with the spool problem, but it caused a different problem.  With the felt in there it pushed the spools down too much and caused the ribbon to slip out of the vibrator, because it was being pulled downward too much  on the take-up side. So, at this time, I can either have the felt glued to the inside of the ribbon cover and keep having to put the ribbon back in the vibeator, or I can take the felt out and keep having the ribbon jamming because it's winding up underneath the spools.  It's frustrating, because otherwise it's a nice typer.

Was this typewriter supposed to have some sort of doo-hicky to keep the ribbon from falling off of the spool?  I looked at a post on The Oz blog where he compares a Royalite to some similar typewriters, and the other two seem to have a sort of flat metal spring that holds the ribbon to the spool, but I don't see one on his pictures of the Royalite.  I'll come back and post a link in a minute.  I guess an alternative would be to shorten the ribbon so the spools won't be as full. 

I feel like the real problem is that the tension in the ribbon mechanism is just too loose, allowing the spool to unwind too much at each key stroke, but I don't know how to fix it.

ETA: Here is the Oz blog I mentioned earlier http://oztypewriter.blogspot.com/2012/02/royalite-and-nippo-typewriter-cousins.html

If you look at the pictures of the condor and the Nippo, they both seem to have a little spring or lever to help hold the ribbon on the spool.

Last edited by Spazmelda (08-4-2015 18:14:27)

Hm, that would explain my problems.  I can't even see a place where they'd attach though.  On that Oz blog, the picture of the Royal sure doesn't look like it has a ribbon-nonflopperator-gizmo-thingie, and I think that's the only picture of that area I could find.

The part is called a "spool holder" and lots of machines, including the Royalite, don't have them. As you can see from my Royalite, it also tends to throw a little too much ribbon off the slave spool (the one on the left), but I've never experienced it causing any problems while typing. I assume that you have the ribbon in your vibrator the same way as is shown in the photo? What type of spools are you using, plastic or metal? As you can see I have metal spools in the machine, and possibly it's their little extra weight over plastic that creates more resistance to free spinning.

Okay, well I think something I did worked. I'm not sure what it was.  Between the metal spools, shortening the ribbon, and fiddling with the vibrator prongs the ribbon does not seem (at least for now) to be falling off of the spools. Thanks for the help y'all!

Last edited by Spazmelda (09-4-2015 08:57:14)

It's a valid point, especially in the case of ribbon covers that use grommets to hold them in place. Usually a quick look at the underside of a ribbon cover will confirm whether or not a spool has been dragging on it.