Blickensderfer carriage escapement adjustment

The reason for this hole in the base casting of the Blcikensderfer is now clear.

It gives visibility of the meshing of the indexing-claw with the carriage rack. This moving claw in the rest-position is held against a stop-piece that can (must) be adjusted. The stop-piece is fixed with two screws, accessible only from above, so not when the carriage is mounted on the machine.

When this stop-piece is not quite right, there will be a bit of play in the carriage position. When at rest, it will then be possible to manually shift it about a bit.

Because the stop-piece cannot be adjusted with the carriage on the machine, it is a trial-and-error iterative process today. The peek-hole shows how the stop-piece still needs to be moved. The factory almost certainly will have had an empty carriage-strip with access-holes to tighten the screws with a rack in-position.
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The second adjustment is the static claw. It is held on an eccentric screw that permits left-right adjusting. It should be placed so, that when the moving claw is pulled out of engagement, the carriage cannot be pushed to the right - the static-claw's function is to prevent any pulling-back by the moving claw when indexing the carriage.

With the two claws now adjusted, the Blickensderfer typewriter somehow feels a bit more ' solid'. When the escapement is out of adjustment it will still index and type just fine, but will have a bit more rattle and may have irregular kerning.

Increasingly, I'm amazed how well the little Blick can be made to work; and with increased curiosity for the long-lost factory documentation on manufacture and adjustment :)