I have acquired rather a number of machines over the past few weeks, it does not matter how hard I try, I always find more to buy! One of these machines is the Singer 320K, a free arm version of the Singer 319K (which I also own). Getting this one was an incredible stroke of luck as the vendor told me it was already sold, before contacting me a week later to say I could have it. For $25 complete with instruction manual, all cams, all throat plates and various feet, I was extremely happy! Today I got around to looking at it. It was very dirty, particularly on the outside and had some damage, mainly from misuse.
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| The wooden base forms the flat bed. This is before cleaning. |
The bobbin area was very felted and I took the whole hook assembly apart. When I re-assembled it I retimed the hook for a standard needle, thus doing two jobs at once.
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| Bobbin area before cleaning |
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| Bobbin assembly dismantled before cleaning |
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| The cleaned bobbin area and feed dogs reassembled |
The outside of the machine was stained with lots of old oil. I have found methylated spirits to be very good for cleaning machines, so long as you check you are not removing the colour as well.
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| Cam selection keys, before cleaning |
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| Zigzag arm, before cleaning |
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| The back of the machine after I took the motor off, before cleaning. |
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| The zigzag arm and back of the machine arm after cleaning. |
Under the faceplate was not too bad, the worst bit was oiling everything with my wayward spray lubricant. I was getting more oil in my face than the machine was.
I always remove the needle, foot and bobbin/bobbin case before I begin to clean any machine. Consequently they are the last items I clean and replace on the machine. When I cam to clean this machines bobbin case I was horrified by the number of needle strikes on it. It has at some time been incorrectly positioned and the needle has struck the case about fifty times. As a result the case was misshapen and starting to fracture. We carefully beat it back into shape and filed the sharp edges off and it seems to work okay.
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| Bobbin case showing the needle strikes |
The pedal innards also required some work, as they had at some stage been assembled incorrectly. However when I got this machine up and stitching I was very pleased! It is very quiet, other than the clacking of the throat plate (I must see if I can quieten that down a bit as it is rather irritating) and put up with been run at top speed backwards and forwards without skipping a single stitch. No mean feat for one of these machines, which tend to be super sensitive.
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| Lovely and clean, showing fee arm |
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| Clean back of the machine. |
All in all, not a bad days work and a very worthwhile $25 I think!
