Carriages

An ingenious feature of all downstrike Olivers (excluding the No. 1) is the removable carriage. By pressing the escapement and right margin releases, the carriage can slide off the left side of the machine without the use of tools. Removing the carriage allows for easy cleaning, maintenance, and swapping carriages of different sizes. If the serial numbers on the carriage and the frame match, the carriage is original to the machine. Because all carriages from models 2 through 16 are mechanically interchangeable, Olivers are occasionally found today with carriages from a different machine or different model altogether.

The regular short carriage length is 9" on models 7/8 and earlier and 10” on models 9/10 and later.

The Oliver could be purchased with a short carriage, a long carriage, or one of each. Because of the latter option, some Olivers have two carriages of different lengths with matching serial numbers. Below are the long carriage sizes that were available.

Some Oliver pamphlets indicate extra-long carriages could be supplied to order. The example sizes listed are 21", 24", and 30". However, the only known surviving extra-long carriage length is 30".

The carriages of some Oliver No. 15 machines were labelled with letters to designate their lengths. A, B, C, and D carriages are 10", 12", 15", and 18", respectively.