Let's Build A Royal 5: The Carriage, and it's done

This carriage fought back. I did my best to disarm it prior to contending with it, but it snuck a rapier in with its parts somehow, and everything just went downhill from here. Regardless! Here is how to build a carriage for a Royal 5.

Start with the sides, connected via the bottom frame and two feed-roller rods/fingers

Add the secondary plate by sliding it into its respective slots, ensuring the arms for the back feed roller slip behind the rod already in place.

Bam

Then add the roller which puts pressure on the gear

Bam.

Now the main support rod. One of the cups screws in, the other does not. You

Next the back rods which hold the margin stops, and the tabulator stops. Not shown are two small hooks which go, one on each end, on the margin rail. They have a small spring which attaches to the escapement release lever.

Next the paper bail, which uses the screws that hold the margin stop rod in place

Then the escapement release

Slide it on inside the sides of the carriage. It is kept in place via screws attached to the springs which attach to the paper bail.

At this point, I prepare to put the carriage on the machine. I throw on the last part missing from the main machine, the front paper guide.

And utilizing the two ball bearings in their respective gears, alongside the proper rail guides (5 in total, one of mine was broken). Place the ball bearings half way on their respective sides, and set the carriage assembly down centered onto the rail. It may take a bit of fudging around, but it should be smoothly moving if you  put pressure on the main rail as you make it go left or right with the escapement release pulled. Once that is the case, attach the carriage guides to permanently keep the carriage on the machine.

Next is the paper release lever.

And the linespacer gearing combo (Shown in order of left to right assembly order)

Now the return lever. Spring goes into the drum (not shown), hooking onto the bottom-most plate near it. A small screw on said drum locks the return lever to the drum. Rotate drum before tightening to change tension on return lever. Screw twisted end of return lever onto the spacing hook.

Now the paper plate.

And then the main paper bail plate.

And tada! Your machine should basically be done. Here are some before/after pictures of this machine in particular, however. Since for once I have before pictures.

And after. I accidentally made the main logo a bit more silvery than it had been:

I brought this machine from a state of disrepair in which nothing worked at all (even the typebars refused to budge) to something which can kinda sorta type. Missing one of the rail guides makes a large and negative difference, and so I can only properly type on the first 66% of the platen before it starts wigging out on me.

Another machine no longer biting the dust.

Let's Build A Royal 5: Finishing the body

Beware the ghosts of Royal technicians if you deign to mess with their handiwork! (Ominous lightning and thunder)

To begin the final assembly of the body, I started placing in the rows of keys and their base-plates. For the 4th and final one, you will need to place the keys into the base plate away from the machine, then lower it all into place.

You will want to get the Shift Lock into its position; here it is, between the key levers. It is held in place with a small screw on the black lever.

Go ahead and add the springplate onto the back end of the machine. How far up or down it goes is based on your specific machine.

Now, go ahead and finish putting the small hooked connectors onto the key levers.

And now we begin adding the typebars. Here, I have Q in place. To put these in the machine, you need to:

1) Place right hand hook into place on universal bar.
2) Place typebar into position, and move rod through it.

3) Hook left side of long rod into proper keylever socket.

4) Hook right side spring end into springplate.

5) Repeat 41 more times.

I often test each key immediately after putting it on, to ensure that there are no hold-ups or such acting on it. 

Here it is, all done. Huzah.

Next we throw on the ribbon advancement rod, which slides into the right side first. There is a small screw on that side as well which will hold the rod into place.

At long last, the backspacer is put on.

And the back plates. The spring on the backspacer latches onto this left side back plate specifically.

And now the front plates.

Tada! Your Royal 5 body is now complete. As long as you've been testing every function along the way as you have installed them, there should be no issues at this stage, and when pretending to type on it, all keys should work properly. Put some pressure on the escapement, and ensure that everything is aligned right.

Next up: The Royal 5 Carriage and Finishing Touches