This is a family member’s Remington 5 portable from 1940.
According to the serial number this machine was built in Canada.
It is a nice clean machine that came with a few niggling problems. The carriage return lever works yet kinda just flops around like it was recently at a hookah bar. Also, the carriage skips intermittently – now that is a problem. Of all the complications a typewriter can have, carriage skipping pretty much makes a machine an annoyance. Imagine happily typing along creating a missive about how your cat’s dominant hobby is to sidle up to that one member of the family who is insanely kitty allergic. You were just about to describe the intense red of his scratchy eyes and . . . zip, the damn carriage skips a few letters. You back space and . . . zippp AGAIN! Irritation rages. Now you will never get to emote about the copious nose dribbles as the cat leaps to your relative’s shoulder for the coup de grâce cat whisker to face wipe. Ok, back to reality.
Looking at the escapement it was pretty clear this had been going on for some time. The carriage rack was well worn at every spot skipping was occurring. Now this typewriter only has two rudimentary adjustments for the escapement dogs and rack interface. Once I got the up and down motion adjusted it was still skipping. I then formed the tabs for front to back motion. It still skipped. So I did what every experienced mechanic does (is it hammer time?!), I put the typewriter aside for a day to ponder my next adjustment.
In the meantime, the poor flopping carriage return lever turned out to be a broken spring. So I’m off to the magical parts drawers to procure something springy. I love our collection of vintage parts. A half hour later, with a new spring in hand, the carriage lever sobered up and was behaving quite snappily.
When I returned to the skipping problem I finally noticed the carriage rack was bent at both ends preventing the rack from fully engaging the escapement dogs. A little tweak here, a little tweak there and presto! Now you can finish that family story!
Oh, this typewriter still has the original manual. Here are a few photos for your enjoyment.
