This sweet Torpedo Portable is a customer machine in for service. I love the creamy yellow color. The machine was skipping and needed some general cleaning.
After the normal cleaning and tune up the skipping was still present. Usually a good cleaning is all you need. So what do you do? You go look at the escapement assembly to see what is up. In this case, the rocker assembly was still sluggish, the loose dog not returning crisply as it should. That usually means more cleaning is in order, so off to the solvent bench we go.
Hmmm, even after two more cleaning attempts the mechanism is still slow. Well, time to remove the rocker assembly from the machine to see what is up. After dismantling everything I discovered shellacked oils in every sliding part. This required lacquer thinner to remove it all. Old goopy oils at it again. Well, after the detailed removal of the shellac, into the machine it goes. And now that crisp action is back! After all this time I still find it funny how cleaning is central to getting these typewriters running in top shape.
Oh, and it has cursive typeface!