Singer 900, why do you growl at me?

I'm not sure how popular Singer 900 sewing machines are. Looking at this one, it seems to be very well built, with typical Singer quality in many places (but then there are other places that are lacking a bit). When I first plugged this one in and fired it up, it growled. Wow. What a noise. I'm thinking it is because it has an electronic motor control and running at slow speed seems to make the various parts vibrate loudly. However, once I oiled it up, the growling subsided substantially. It is now a fine running machine.

Elna Transforma - the little sibling to the Supermatic

This here photo below shows the native form of the elusive friction drive tire on an Elna Transforma sewing machine. The highly technical term for this phenomenon is "flat spot". Ah, the dreaded flat spot.

Montgomery Wards Simplicity - Happy Times

You're thinking, "Huh? What's he so happy about?" Most people wouldn't be too happy about a sewing machine that took the better part of a day to get to stitch properly. My Happy-ness is in this next photo:

Singer 403A Completes The Set

I can finally stop my seemingly endless search for Yet Another Sewing Machine (YASM). Ok, I suppose I can't go so far as to say I'm cured of YASM, but having a complete set of a particular model run of sewing machines is something we 'nuts' strive for.

For those that, when they hear the numbers 401 - 403 - 404 and don't have a clue to what those numbers mean, I'll clue you in. What I'm referring to is when Singer was producing what many think are the quintessential sewing machine family, the Singer slant-needle 400-series.

The model 401 was the top of the line Singer in the late 50s. It could do it all, and it could do it without having to pull one cam and insert another. Scads of stitch options (not sure how many but somewhere between 10 and 100) were available merely by turning a couple knobs on the front of the machine. And it could take cams as well. The 403 was the lower-priced variant that only took cams, no built-in stitches were to be had. The 404 was the straight-stitch variant that was for those looking for no frills, or possibly for use in school home-ec classes.

I have no clue how Singer managed to come up with the numbering scheme they used for sewing machines back then. When I'd mentioned 401, 403 & 404 to my wife and daughter, they immediately asked, "What, no 402?" All I could say was, I have no clue why. And Singer made things more convoluted when they introduced the 500-series. There's a 500 (successor to the 401) and a 503 (successor to the 403). Ok, so the 403 and 503 make sense, but where's the 501, 502 and 504? I just don't know.

Well, now that the (very lengthy) preamble is out of the way, here's the subject of today's blog:

The machine pictured above is the illustrious Singer 403A, the "cam-only" version of the 400-family. I had picked up a 401 some years back and not too long ago I found a 404, so this 403 rounds out the 400-series collection.

It came in a portable Singer case that has seen better days, but I think is salvageable with a fair bit of elbow grease, some warm soap and water, and maybe a little glue.

And it even came with a bunch of attachments and 9 cams.

Not a bad haul, I'd say. The only down side is that the stitch length knob is missing, but there may be one waiting for me on that popular auction site...

Ciphering for dummies

I was doing some ciphering (Jethro Bodine of Beverly Hillbillies fame is one of my childhood heros, and he was a ciphering fool) on my latest eBay sale, and it's not pretty. I got one bid on my sewing machine, so it sold for the starting price of $34.95. Could have been better but not bad, I thought. So then I started to break down my costs versus my percieved $34.95 profit.

Shipping to Maine was $47.72 for the 41-pound box containing the sewing machine and goodies (no fancy "express" or "priority", just plain-jane shipping). I charged a flat $13 handling fee to cover the box (I purchase heavy duty double wall boxes, especially appropriate for this cast iron beauty), packing peanuts, bubble wrap, plus the package of needles and thread I provide the buyer. Those actual costs are about $12.20 but I figure I can legitimately charge 80 cents for my labor packing the machine up and driving it to the post office. I suppose I actually lose money on my 80 cents too, with gas prices the way they are, but I digress.

The final shipping/handling fee was $60.72 ($47.72 + $13.00). The eBay/PayPal fees were $12.64, based on the $95.67 total price ($60.72 + $34.95). So, what did I make on this sewing machine?

* $95.67 came into my PayPal account from the buyer.

* $47.72 went out to pay USPS shipping from the West coast to the East coast.

* $12.64 went out to eBay/PayPal for their fees.

* $12.20 went out for the box/packing peanuts/needles/thread.

* $14.11 I paid for the machine at Goodwill.

I netted $9.00 in my pocket for a nearly-$100 transaction, not counting the hours I spent cleaning and oiling the sewing machine, and the labor and gas money expended to procure and ship the thing. I should have left well enough alone and not delved into this. I never did figure this sewing machine hobby to be a money-maker but it would be nice to break even.

More Fantasia

I got the Fantasia all back together and was testing the different stitches. I got to the buttonhole settings and noticed the stitch length forward and reverse were different lengths so tried adjusting with the small screw on the back of the machine........ One of the few plastic pieces in the machine happens to be the eccentric cam to balance forward and reverse stitch length for the buttonhole. I'll give you one guess as to what happened.

Fantasia model F7500E

I picked this up a couple months back and wanted to get it cleaned and oiled so I could start using it as my everyday machine, the few times I really do use or need a sewing machine.

New Home 6000 - the final chapter... maybe

Things aren't looking too promising for this old girl. The feed dog stepper motor drive circuit seems to be flaky. Getting to this point though was a bit of a chore. First I was thinking the stepper motor itself was cutting out, so out comes the stepper motor:

New Home 6000 - Cleaning, oiling, adjusting

Part two of the continuing saga of the Binford 6000, a.k.a. New Home Memory Craft 6000. This first photo is of the handwheel side of the machine with the cover removed. A cogged belt goes from the motor to the handwheel and a second cogged belt goes from the handwheel to the bottom shaft.

New Home (Janome) Memory Craft 6000

The title sounds like one of the old Home Improvement shows where Tim the Toolman Taylor would advertise some new Binford tool.

Tim: "Hey Al, what do you suppose we could use for that new awning we need to make?"

Al: "Not sure, Tim. What did you have in mind?"

Tim: "Let's see if this New Nome Memory Craft Binford 6000 sewing machine will do the trick."

Ok, so it's a little lame. I guess that's why I'm not in Hollywood writing for these guys...

So, here we are, my lovely bride and I taking a nice drive out of the area a few days back. I'm telling her that because of the horrendous pile of sewing machines needing attention in the basement, I'm thinking I shouldn't frequent any Goodwills or thrift stores until I whittle down the inventory. She says "let's just go to this one store we haven't been to before". Ok, hon. So we stop in at the Goodwill store in South Tacoma and what do I see but a New Home Memory Craft 6000 sewing machine. I didn't know what it was at the time. I just saw another newer machine. I did notice though that it had a pink 1/2-off price tag, lowering the price to a manageable $10.

Since I could tell it was electronic to some degree, I plugged it in and tried a few rudimentary functions just to make sure I wasn't buying an ugly door stop. It did seem to work. Fast forward a few days to today. The machine looks pretty decent, so I thought I'd try some stitches. Straight stitch works. Zig zag works. On to some fancy stitches that require the feed dogs to go both forward and reverse. Nope - didn't work. I decided to pop a few covers off and see what there was to see...... The innards of this puppy haven't seen the light of day for a while, and this next photo is it's good side. I didn't get shots of the wads of lint removed from the back side.

I again tried some fancy stitches but to no avail, so I poked around inside the machine, trying to reseat every connector that I could find. And let me tell you, there were plenty.

I again tried some fancy stitches and lo, it seemed to be working, at least for now. Ok, now to try my hand at programming something. Here's what I came up with (yes, it does letters - 135 or so different stitches in all):

Hey, look, it works. And even better, I can program it to some degree. I don't have a manual for this thing but I can get by for now. Below are some more shots of interesting features of this machine. The first couple show some LEDs on the bottom that indicate something. LED 1 appears to be lit whenever the machine has been plugged in. It still glows after unplugging the machine, so it must be connected to some big capacitor inside. LED 2 comes on when the machine is on. LED 4 blinks momentarily when the power switch is flipped off. I haven't seen LED 3 come on.

Here is a shot of LEDs 1 & 2 on:

DANGER WILL ROBINSON!!!! (see below) - I'd better not even think of taking this cover off... But a label like that will only make me want to take the cover off even more.

I'm sure I'll report more on this sewing machine at some point but that's all for now.

Yet Another Garage Sale (YAGS) - 5 machines (3 Singers, a New Home and a Universal)

At work I live in the world of acronyms (civil service - Navy), so it's no surprise I attempt to do the same when at home. Thus the title of today's post. YAGS.

Some garage sales are good, and some are really good, while others are in the category of why-did-I-waste-precious-brake-material-stopping-for-this. Well, today's garage sale had five vintage machines. The lady had a lawn full of stuff but my eye immediately spotted the row of sewing machines on the grass even before I got the car parked. Apparently the garage sale had been going on for two weekends and this was the second day of the second weekend, so I'm presuming they were wanting to unload stuff. And I was right. While the sewing machines were not a screaming deal (which would have been on the order of a buck apiece), I did walk away with five machines for $25. Not bad for 100+ pounds of cast iron, steel and a bit of plastic. I didn't take a very good look at the machines prior to settling on a price but figured I couldn't go wrong. Now on to the down and dirty, emphasis on dirty.

If I had to choose the best machine of the five, it would probably have to be the Singer 66-4. Once I got it home, I noticed the very nice decals on it. I believe they're called Red Eye. The one downside to this machine is it is only forward stitching - no reverse. See the small knob beneath the bobbin winder? Thread that puppy all the way in and you have a long forward stitch. Thread it out all the way and the stitch length is 0, or nearly so. Sounds so convenient, doesn't it, but I guess back in the good ol' days, you didn't mess with stitch length much (as in the old commercial - just set it and forget it), especially when you didn't need to be bothered with such things as reverse. The machine does have the cool spoked handwheel and vintage layer of dust though.

The next best machine in the group is the Domestic Admiral, a Class 15 clone with the upper thread tension knob poking out the left side of the end cover. I never could understand the logic behind Singer putting the take-up lever and tension knob on the end cover of their Class 15 machines. Sewing machines are easier to thread with those items on the front of the machine.

Third in line would be the New Home model NLB. The friction drive disk has a massive divot in it from being pressed on the handwheel for the last who knows how many decades, but it can probably be saved.

The final two machines are Singers, an early 60s model 417 missing the needle plate and spool post, and an early 70s model 603E missing parts of the stitch length lever mechanism. The 603E did come with a cam under the hood, I guess to make up for the missing parts...

So there you have it. A good find at a local garage sale.

Pfaff 130 Automatic 50010 attachment installation instructions

If you are ever in need of instructions for installing one of Pfaff's Automatic 50010 attachments (the cool whizbang gizmo hanging off the back of the Pfaff 130 in the first photo below), the following link will take you to a folder with photos of all pages in the manual:

Pfaff 50010 Automatic installation manual

Excitement for the week - tire blowout

Not sewing machine related, but we were on a camping trip with our pickup truck and camper the last several days. Coming home on the final 100 miles of our 1200 mile trip we had a blowout on the left rear. A loud motorcycle was just passing us on the left and we heard a very loud *bang*. We figured it was the m/c but all of a sudden our truck started swaying. My son was driving and he got the truck pulled to the side without incident. Here's the damage:

Five... no, six sewing machines followed me home...

Five sewing machines today and one yesterday. Ok, so maybe I coaxed them along a little. They didn't actually end up at my house of their own free wills, ringing the door bell and wanting a warm place to stay. And three of them were free (parts machines). It is difficult to turn down a free sewing machine, no matter what it looks like. So without further ado, here they are. The photos show them in as-received condition.

Pfaff 130-6 (in gen-u-ine Pfaff carrying case with busted handle)

Work and play

I've been on travel for work quite a bit lately so I haven't had much opportunity to do things sewing-machine-related. Three weeks in Japan, three weeks at home, two weeks in Japan, two weeks home, then two weeks in Guam (the Guam trip I was able to take my wife along). Soooo, I'm really itching to get back to sewing machine related fun. To get things kicked off, my dear wife and I hit two Goodwill stores today, which happens to be the day we returned from Guam (24 hour travel time from start to finish). Our heads are kind of spinning from the three flights but I can always (usually) make time to hit the thrift stores. I purchased a Singer 328K in really nice cosmetic condition (photos will come at a later date) and an older Singer buttonholer, plus two boxes of Kenmore cams.

The reason for today's blog entry though is to show the machine I passed up at Goodwill, although I may have to finagle my wife into picking it up on the $1.29 Monday event in a couple weeks.

The machine pictured below is a Singer 15-91. Sorry for the lousy photo. You can't really tell if you didn't know, but the machine is mounted to a board with six screws. Someone drilled six holes through the machine bed (!) around the perimeter and put wood screws through the bed and into the wood (you can kind of make out a brass screw head in the lower right of the bed). A couple other minor issues I saw are that the spool post is a piece of threaded rod and the stitch length knob is a regular off -the-shelf screw. Oh, and there was no motor controller. All these things add up to a not-so-ideal purchase.