This is a persistent myth. Tolerance has nothing to do with it -- even in high-precision machine tools machined to within a thousandth of an inch, oil is necessary to reduce sliding friction and prevent wear. (In fact, super-flat bearing surfaces will even have deliberate channels cut to allow oil to stick.) Review some old service manuals and you'll find detailed lubrication instructions. This old Remington manual, for example, has a chart at the end specifying four different types of oil for different parts of the mechanism; this Typewriter Repair Training Course describes several methods for lubricating entire machines; and this Army manual suggests basically hosing the machine down with light oil. I suspect many people get the impression that oil is bad because very old oils, before the invention of modern synthetic oils and greases, tend to gum up into a sticky paste as they oxidize and separate over time. (Some pre-WWII greases were based on animal fat, and would go rancid!) Combine that with fifty years of cat hair and dust and the machine seizes up entirely. Modern synthetic light oils and greases should last much longer.
u/capnrefsmmat reply to
u/lodger238 at https://reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/1hslx56/huh_i_thought_wd40_was_horrible_as_a_lubricant/<br /> Agree completely and to further the point; typewriters were manufactured with low tolerance in many areas just so they wouldn't need lubricating.