First real look at the Royal

Got my bench cleared off and put the Royal up. Actually took my first real good look at the entire unit today.

Remember, I originally bought it for the key caps only.

I vacuumed the entire unit and closely examined it and things (as usual) got more complicated than expected.

Can I interest you in an off-color joke about “not going down”?

I originally thought that the type bars were tangled. You know, clowns press more than one key at a time and the bars get tangled. But no, they aren’t tangled, but there are six bars that just won’t retract and none of the characters actually strike the platen.

Also, the carriage isn’t advancing when I hit the spacebar. I’m hoping that I have one problem and not two. Generally speaking I don’t believe in multiple simultaneous failures, but this unit has been stored in an unheated garage for over ten years.

And I bought it for $15. I bought it just for the keys. At almost scrap rates. It might have been junk when I bought it.

I was hoping this would be a simple cleaning, but nope. I’m going to have to tear it down and figure out how it’s supposed to work. And then figure out how to fix it. Hopefully I won’t need any parts for my 95 year old machine.

All that being said, it’s a beautiful piece of art equipment technology. And really, technology is what it is. It has the ability to type in two different colors. You can also take the ribbon out of the path of the type bars if you want to cut stencils.

Upper lever selects ink color or stencil cutting.

This machine is also equipped with a “tabulator bar”. The tabulator bar lets you set up columns on a page.

Place those six clips where you want your columns

So what we have here is word processing, publishing, and a spreadsheet creator. It also handles both paper and card stock.

The line spacing mechanism is beautifully simple. When you hit the carriage return lever, an escapement mechanism allows the platen to roll one notch. The line spacing lever operates a shield that blocks the escapement for zero, one, or two notches.

Line spacing indicator.
That’s the shield below the knob. Those notches are half of the escapement.

At this point, I’m going to start a careful disassembly process so I can gain access to the mechanism between keys and type bars.

I’m going to move slowly and take lots of photos. Hopefully I’ll be able to find someone online who’s done this before to offer some guidance.

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Author: rexplex

With a bachelors degree in history, I turn wrenches for a living. I’m most at peace when I hear the wind in the trees or the gurgle of a brook. I’m a believer in the Renaissance Man, as epitomized by DaVinci engineer, artist, soldier, statesman. As Heinlein said, “A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyse a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”

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