The typewriter was completely frozen when we took it home from the antique store. I removed the body panels (10 screws) and used an air compressor to blow out the dust, which revealed a non-trivial amount of rust. I was tempted to just dunk the entire thing in a vat of evaporust but before doing that I emailed Tom Rehkopf (aka “Typewriter Tom”) who told me that dunking is a “last resort”. He was kind enough to invite me to an Atlanta Typewriter Club meetup this Saturday where he would take a look.
In the meantime, I washed the body panels with simple green and flushed the internals with mineral spirits (not to be confused with mineral oil – I learned that the hard way). In doing so, I figured out that the margin lock key was misaligned in the wrong slot, and when i re-slotted it and pressed it the bell rang like a choir of angels. When I then tested the keys, the carriage moved – although intermittently. Progress.
After reading the War Department’s manual on typewriter maintenance I decided to adjust the space bar trigger point and tighten the mainspring. The spacebar adjustment helped a little but I was unable to get the mainspring to turn. I determined that the loose dog (aka the tripping dog) is catching on the escapement (star) wheel, and this binding is resulting in the intermittent carriage movement. I am going to flush with more mineral spirits then apply more lubricant. More to follow.
