A Vested Interest

The Vesta is finally finished.  It is nicely clean, although not perfect and it sews, which is good!  I do not have a leather belt to treadle it with but we fashioned a belt out of rope and it seems to work.  The stitch is decent and the machine even reverses!  Some more pictures from the process below.

The tension assembly in pieces before cleaning.

The tension assembly in pieces after cleaning.

The snake skin patterning was difficult to clean as I was paranoid about scratching the chrome.  I ended up coating them in oil and then carefully cleaning the grooves out with a machine needle, rather time consuming.

Back cover after cleaning.

Faceplate before cleaning.

When the back cover was removed, all the workings in that end of the machine could be seen, I could have spent forever watching them!

Under back cover.

Before I went to the extreme lengths of tidying off the Vesta's table I wanted to check the machine actually stitched, so here is a picture of it all threaded up and ready to go.  The thumbscrew holding the faceplate on is one borrowed from a tucking foot and the only one I could find that would thread into the required hole.

Not a very good photograph, I know!

The machine did indeed come with accessories, however I am not sure how many are original as there are no markings on any except for the ruffler which is labelled 'Singer' so is clearly not original!

Accessories and the piece of paper it came with.

I'm not sure what the piece at the top roght is off, I think maybe a ruffler again but I'm not sure, however the others are as follows:
Middle row (from L to R): Binding foot, two thumbscrews, the lower one is not original and does not fit the machine, the upper one is to secure the machine to the table and finally top foot is standard straight stitch foot and the bottom foot is a rolled hemmer.
Bottom row (from L to R): Hemming foot and Tucking foot

Next on the agenda is a Christmas shirt to wear on Sunday, I think I may be pushing it a little but who knows?