Hello fellow typewriter enthusiasts and (more specifically) Hermes 3000 lovers! 

I recently acquired my first Hermes 3000 and, even though it was recently serviced, whoever did it set the on-feet incorrectly (and the card holder as well). My type was printing too high on the platen—too dark on the bottom and too light on the top. 

One thing I saw recommended to adjust the motion stops (circled in blue) to bring both cases down; however, through trial and error, I found that this is the incorrect method of approach and incredibly tedious (also, if yours is out like mine and printing too high, chances are the motions stops don’t have enough space to adjust it out anyways). I decided to tackle the adjustment via a bracket on the bottom of the segment with an adjusting screw held tight with a jam nut (circled in red). 

In short, loosen the jam nut while holding the screw from turning, loosen the two screws that retain that bracket to the segment itself, and then adjust it in full turn increments at first. Loosening the screw brings the segment down while the inverse brings it up. Adjust and test. If yours is only a little bit out and still halfway typing ok, then one full turn will probably be enough to take you from too high to too low or vice versa. Then it’s just a matter of doing smaller increments (I did quarter turns) back in the opposite direction until you have it zeroed in.

While making your adjustments, when you loosen the two screws holding the bracket, your segment will plop down, as that’s all that holds it vertically. You don’t have to worry about it though, that little adjusting screw holds where you had it last so once you turn the screw however much is appropriate, all you have to do is pull the segment up and tight with the bracket and screw by these two protuberances on each side that make up the bearing rail (circled in green) then tighten everything down. Once you’re happy with the setting, hold the screw and retighten the jam nut.  Replace the bottom AND HAPPY TYPING MY FRIENDS! 😁 

(Also, on the type test pic, you can see where all of a sudden shifted characters were printing too high, this happened because I didn’t tighten the bracket correctly. I was trying to have too much finesse with it.. just pull the segment as hard as you can into the set screw and tighten that sucker in)

Hermes 3000 (1st Gen) On-Feet Adjustment “Tutorial”