Sunday, February 27, 2011

My new old addition


I can't turn down a sewing machine. My favorite uncle told me that he had an old singer in a neat 30's or 40's cabinet that belonged to my grandma and he wondered if I wanted it. I kinda don't have the space, but I know that he needs the space that it was taking up in his house even more, so I said ok and cleared out a spot in my sewing room. Isn't it beautiful?

so simple, so heavy duty - just forward and backward and I think there's a stitch length adjustment. plus, there were neat things in all the drawers

(see how cool and curved the drawers are?) like a button box and a couple incredibly complicated button hole attachments. Unfortunately, it probably hasn't been used in 20 years or more and it needs some tuning up. It was going real slow at first and we oiled up all the spots that looked like oil ports (it actually has spots with little felt wicks where it'll hold oil and dispense it as needed!) and my uncle is super good at working on stuff like that so he knew some stuff to look at and as a result, I now know what a worm gear does! For a while it was working pretty well, but then it started going downhilll again. I think I'm going to take it to someone because I'm betting that all the oil that was there is pretty gunked up after 20 years of sitting idle and our addition of new oil may not be enough to get it going. Fortunately the motor itself works great (we disengaged the clutch and let it run full out - so it's obviously just the moving gears that are bogging it down.) And there are no belts or electronics, of course, so it's just mechanical parts that need to be cleaned up. the cord could also use to be rewired, which I'm sure I could do, but because that's not the only thing involved, I think I'll have to find a hospital for her! I did a search online and found a few around here and some up in Columbus - anybody around here have a recommendation? I'm kind of afraid I won't be able to find someone who knows how to work on these things - just folks who are used to changing out motherboards and electronic cards on new machines!

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