Saturday Morning

On Saturday morning I was recovering from a nasty cold and didn't feel particularly like going to work.  However, someone must have decided it was time I had a nice surprise because when I got to work there was a sewing machine table with a machine inside.  The pedal hanging out at the time told me it had to be an old Singer, so buzzing with excitement I lifted the lid and saw.....

This looked very interesting so I quickly set it up,

Yes, it is a 201.  I share Elisabeth @ mysewingmachineobsession.blogspot.com  passion for 201's.  They are fabulous machines although I have never seen the cast iron version before only Aluminium ones.  This one is very dusty but looks like it has hardly been used on the 60+ years it's been around.  The serial number dates it as approx. 1948.

Someone has stored this machine for a long time and it is covered on cobwebs, however there is very little rust, which is nice.

The face plate is stained but not too badly and is very like the one on my 206.

 

The chord must have been wrapped around it for years, when I unwound it, it was set in that shape.  The power chords will need replacing as they are only cloth covered and not in very good condition.  There is very little wear to the decals, which is fabulous!

 

 

201's have drop-in bobbins and this one has no bobbins with it.  However I have a heap of 201 bobbins that came with our Ali so that is fixed.  Now I just have to set about cleaning her, I can't wait!

Lemair 1781

I have had this machine sitting in the lounge waiting for me to have another look at it for a while.  Now that studies are finished for the year I decided to drag it out again.  It is made in Korea and extremely heavy.  Originally I brought it home because it needed a new pedal but then when I took it apart I realised that there was a problem with the bobbin winder.  The casting that has a groove cut into it for the spring to sit in is a trifle dodgy, as can be seen below.

This machine is, for the most part, well made but there are some hopeless blunders (cost cutting exercises?), obviously the casting on that piece for the bobbin winder is one, however there are two plastic pieces that I really don't like.  One is cracked and can be seen in the picture below, it is under the side cover, and the other is the cam follower on the rod that connects the top to the bottom of the machine, I'm sorry, I forgot to take a photo!

For some curious reason the inside of this machine is full of blue tinsel!  I have no idea what it was used for, sewing Christmas tree costumes or something??  Judging by the number of needle tips I also found, the machine didn't like it!  Another good thing about this machine is that it has metal cams and has one of my favourites, a side loading bobbin.  I would argue that a side loading bobbin gives greater precision for zig-zag stitching, however that is just a theory based on the fact that the bobbin moves with the needle and thus the hook always intercepts the needle at the same point in the rotation.

The tension assembly on this machine is woeful. There is one coarse spring inside and the discs have very poor surfaces. 

When actually stitching this machine is incredibly, beautifully quiet.  I love the stitch and it feels really lovely to use.  For $25 someone will have a bargain!  I wish I needed another sewing machine....

Tomorrow I'll see if I can post the manual for this.  I also had a real treasure waiting for me at work today which I'll share tomorrow.  Anyone who is obsessed with machines will love it!

Fashion Mate 362 continued

The continuing saga of the Fashion Mate.  There is a particular type of Singer pedal that seems to have a bit of a fault.  I'm not sure if it's an age thing or to do with them being stored, because ones in constant use don't seem to have the problem, whereas only a couple that I've come across that have been stored have been OK.  I'm afraid I forgot to take a picture of the pedal so I've had to get this one from the internet, courtesy of sewingmachinenut.blogspot.com.

These pedals are found on a wide variety of Singer sewing machines from Hushmatics to Touch and Sews.  However they have a highly undesirable habit of going up in a nice little plume of smoke and a nasty smell.  Apparently it's the capacitors but it is a trifle disconcerting the first few times.  As you have probably guessed that's exactly what the Fashion Mate did to me when I started to sew with it, I had a feeling it might because it looked like it had been stored for a while.  All is not lost though, B's son is trying to get a new capacitor for me, which would be great!

Before I got as far as plugging it in though I did a thorough 'cosmetic job' on the machine and it looks really clean and shiny now:

A lot nicer than before!

                                                                            Before

Hopefully we can get capacitors for it and there will be nothing else wrong with it!

Shirley

Yes, he has a name.  He's Shirley, named after Shirley Strachan from Skyhooks.

 

And B doesn't want him so he's ours.  The dog is convinced that Shirley is some new and tasty morsel, if only he could get hold of him!

The Frog Princess

I have had technical issues, the memory card that was in my camera won't allow me to load images to the computer, thus I have lost 40+ images, many of which I intended to post here!  Anyhow, a friend has been moving house and I got a new machine from it!  If I can get it to safely operate I'll sell it otherwise it's mine.  It's called a 'Princess' and has seen better days, the pedal (not shown in the below images, sorry) has been dropped I suspect, a LOT, it's very broken and damaged, electrocution hazard.  The plug to plug into the pedal looks like a dog has chewed it and it is basically a lot of exposed wires, another electrocution hazard!  Hopefully the motor will actually work and I can deal with the plug by taking one from another machine, the pedal I'm not so sure.  Spare pedals are almost impossible to come by.  Ok, would you like to see some pictures?

 

Lovely looking machine, it's a Japanese made, zig-zag, feed-dog drop, highshank foot model.  There must be thousands of machines like this around, all going under different fancy names, the other two I've come across being the Sterling and the Myer-Victor, both machines were fabulous.

In other news, courtesy of the friend who gave me the machine above, I have a canary.  He's lovely but I'm rather hoping that my friend B will have him.  He hasn't got a name yet, there's been quite a few suggestions from helpful family members though, Gilbert, Enrico, Bjorn, Puffball, Frangipani, Freddie, Shirley, Elton, poor bird, whatever he is named he will reflect someone's musical taste I suspect!  Perhaps we could just call him 'Canary'?

There is a story to be told about the Fashion Mate posted earlier on but some of the photos were on that memory card so it'll have to wait till I've taken a few more.