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| Looks more gray than brown after a Scrubbing Bubbles bath. |
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| Zep does a nice cleaning and leaves just a slight coating of rust preventative. Supposedly neutrally polarized so it does not attract dust. |
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| This one has a unique to me type bar rest pad. It is a felt covered rubber. I generally replace the pad, but I decided to leave this one. |
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| No more bent or stuck together slugs. |
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| After cleaning with a toothbrush and naptha. |
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| S still gives a bit of a problem. Not illegible or unuseable, just not perfect. Any different alignment makes it worse. As I was taught from my first mentor, 'let well enough alone.' |
This post is an example of how my priorities get out of wack. Plans were to do a detailed post on the Skyriter from Ledeaux then move on to one of my other machines. Seems I get stuck on too many of the same machines. Maybe I need to get back to pens. I found a good fountain pen cheap pocket notebook combination too. That post was going to be done over Thanksgiving.
How about input from you. What should I post next? The final on Ledeaux's (is that proper?) Skyriter? one of my Adler's? Classic-12 Script? Another cheap pen from China (I found several really nice ones -- why pay $50 for one when $10 or less gets a nice one into your hands and the postage is free -- Notebooks? I guess subject matter is near endless.
Anyone what a
Royal Crescent for the shipping? Should I give it to Ryan? WordPlay?
Corrected. I wanted the Logo first, but one of Blogger's quirks is adding an image to where the blogger wants it after the post is already built & posted.
The Skyriter cleaned up well, good job. Hope you get it to be close to perfect eventually.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to see a post on one of your Adlers. Do you have the Jack Nicholson Adler from "The Shining?"
I was just cleaning a '40s (?) Underwood for WordPlay and I know exactly what you mean about Scrubbing Bubbles changing brown to gray.
ReplyDeleteIf certain letters are regularly causing a skip, look on the underside where there are little prongs that move the universal bar. Each prong can be individually tweaked a bit to make it a little less trigger-happy. This saved my niece's Skyriter from skipping when I finally figured it out.
I've been playing around with those prongs ever since your post. I compared them with a working Skywriter and found many were jammed together. I opened them. No change. It will randomly add and extra space between letters, and not always the same letter(s). Double striking is just as intermittent. I discovered the screw holding the escapement ratchet was loose. It was tight on all my other Skyriters.
DeleteI tightened it. That jammed the machine. Nothing worked. I loosened it. There are a few places where the carriage seems like it wants to bind (goes from little friction to high friction) as I return the carriage. Release the carriage and it slides nicely.
Those are my reasoning for replacing the escapement assembly. I have a few escapements that look like the same size. I may try replacing the screw that acts as the spindle and maybe the ratchet if it matches the ones in my junk box.
Jeez, this sounds frustrating! Good luck.
DeleteYes, I can spread the prongs or squash them tighter, no change. If I do not change out the escapement this will be (as it is fast becoming) a parts machine. The working one in my post is only a bit older and it too is an elite.
DeleteI for one would love to see some more on those Chinese fountain pens; they're especially attractive for a college student like myself! :)
ReplyDeleteNice work getting this going! How many Skyriters does this make now?
ReplyDelete4 that work fine and one needing work. Same as my Hermes 3000 machines, except each Hermes has a different type face.
ReplyDeleteAnother quality post! Ill have to begin to entertain the thought of a zep bath for some of my grimmier typers.
ReplyDeleteDo you know if skyriters all had the same typeface?
I've only seen plain old Pica and Elite.
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