When last I left you, I was planning to slink off and recover from the July from hell. I posted that on Wednesday August 2. The very next day – I kid you not! – I walked into the living room as a truck was pulling into our driveway. What? I had no appointments or machine drop offs scheduled. Then I noticed the decals on the truck. Continue reading Approaching Autumn
Tag Archives: restoration
Keeps on turning – some equipment restoration
Along with the Shetland fleece I posted about the other day, a skein winder and a spinning wheel arrived at the house. Both were in dire need of some attention. Based on what I was told, the skein winder may be turn of the century. I suspect it was made in someone’s garage or barn from found wood as it’s a mix of several different species but it’s well made and the mortise and tenons are well executed either way.
It does have a maker’s mark but it was barely visible when the winder arrived. Click on the pic to see the full reason why. Continue reading Keeps on turning – some equipment restoration
Needle(Plate)s and Pins – Replacing the throat plate and spool pins on Singer Slants
The Singer 431G is a stellar machine. Seriously, it’s one of my favorites but it and its sibling, the 421G do have flaws. The 421G suffers from the first one and the 431G suffers from both. Luckily, both issues are easily solved.
Flaw #1: I feel that the throat plate pins were a poorly thought out design.
In the photo above, you can see that both pins are broken. Originally, it looked a lot like a Philips (cross) screw from the top and I think this might be how they get broken.
Some people may have thought that a screwdriver was needed to remove the throat plates – and “conveniently”, there’s probably one that fits right in the accessories box just inches away.
These plates lift off, no driver required.
All of the 431Gs that have been on my bench have had at least one of these pins broken or missing. One machine had some ground down screws as replacements that scored and gouged the aluminum horribly. That machine came with a service invoice that showed that some “helpful” serviceman had even charged for the privilege of having the machine so damaged.
So, once the pins are broken, how does one fix this? After all, the parts are long since discontinued.
First, the method. Replacement is very easy.
Motorin’ – Electric motor theory
Electric Motor theory – why and how we lubricate
There have been a lot of discussions about sewing machine motor lubricants over the years and I thought I’d take a step further back and discuss why we do this, how we do this and why some of the information “out there” is sort of F.U.D. (<- Wikipedia Link)
First off: Why do we lube or oil a motor? (I’m a why person, have you noticed this yet?? I’m quite sure I drive some people nuts with my “whys?”… )
Replacing Singer 411G spool pins
Another edition of Reader Mail:
I get this question probably a couple of times a year, so today I’m presenting a post with a video companion! Jocelyn and I spoke via email but I asked her if it would be OK to use her email for reader mail. I’m guessing she didn’t expect me to get to it almost 2 years later! (I really do get that behind on the site stuff!)
Jocelyn emailed me some time ago to ask:
Hi, I inherited my mom’s Singer 411G. (Lucky ME!). Both spool pins are broken and I am having a devil of a time trying to find replacements.
Any insight/direction/suggestions would be gratefully appreciated.
Finish what you started – cars and sewing machines
It seems like summer always brings lots of household projects. This year, it’s a leaking woodstove flashing (fixed – and the painting of the ceiling to go with it – not fixed), window frames needing to be painted (again – pending) and then the vehicles landed on my radar. They haven’t seen a good detailing in well,.. ever in the case of the truck and the car probably hasn’t seen a comprehensive detailing since 2008.
Yeah, I’m not proud of that. When the August long weekend hit, we started cleaning and cleaning and… uh oh. Rust. We went from prepping and painting a few spots to some fairly major repair and painting. This is what we (former) business analysts call “scope creep”.
Great. Spraying base and clear. I’ve done this before. Last time (2007), it was a 1999 CBR 600. I’ll post that “throwback” post one day soon. Yeah, I haven’t sprayed automotive paint in 9 years – I did do some major bodywork on a truck since then but I rolled that paint instead of doing it with a paint gun.
Speaking of rusty things – I am as well and my body sure has a lot more to say about it this time around.
I also swore that time that I’d never spray clear again. Awesome. 😉
Since I’m going to be shooting clear anyway, I thought I’d try to do the touch-ups, and wet sand the sags in the paint on the “Wee One” and give her a final coat of clear too. If it doesn’t work – well, she was going to be repainted anyway.
Continue reading Finish what you started – cars and sewing machines
Cuts like a knife – Scissor care from a sharpening professional
Some of you might have seen me post on Facebook about my outing on Monday. I finally took my favorite but very abused Gingher scissors in for repair and sharpening. I’m a little embarrassed to say that in the few years I’ve had them, they’ve had a very hard life.
They’ve been dropped on their points, bent and even done a little bungee jumping.
These were my first “good” scissors and none of the abuse was ever intended – it just happened. Somehow, I have a knack for storing scissors on the ground, usually from sewing table height. I don’t think I ever did that when all I had were my craptastic scissors. Figures, right? Of course, at least 2 times they hit the floor they landed points down. Continue reading Cuts like a knife – Scissor care from a sharpening professional
More of it – Happy New Year!
“The only thing better than a good thing is more of it.”
Happy New Year Everyone! As we go into 2015, I haven’t exactly made any resolutions but I have decided that I’m going to finish some projects that I’ve been working on and start the ones I’ve been thinking of. What this means is that I’m planning on taking on only a couple of very focused projects this year which is a huge departure from previous years because last year left me pretty burned out.
I’m still going to be making posts – it’s one of the main things on my list of things both started and in contemplation. I would really like to see the 34 drafts finished and out to you all to read.
In the effort to get an early start on the projects, I started 5 projects at once in the past week. LOL! Typical for me, overkill, right?
It’s OK – these projects are easy to stagger and it’s actually not as overwhelming as it sounds. 🙂 Continue reading More of it – Happy New Year!
Stuck in the Middle – Frozen Slant-O-Matics
Note: This post is some of what we’ll be going through in the class I’m giving in William’s Lake next month.
The 401A, 403A, 411G, and 431Gs along with the 500A and the 503A (or the J version) are possibly some of my favorite Singer machines. There are a few more in this series as well, like the 401G and the 421G but I’ve honestly never laid hands on either of those models. These machines are all fundamentally the same with some small differences. They are all “Slant-O-Matics”, meaning that the whole stitching mechanism is tilted a little and angled toward the user to make the needle more visible.
Today, I’m going to talk a little about the differences and also about the one thing that makes some people shy away from these machines – the cam stack and stitch selectors are frozen. It’s typically easy to fix, so I want you all to know how to take care of it.
Continue reading Stuck in the Middle – Frozen Slant-O-Matics
A Million Miles – traveling to speak and teach!
Note: Amended date! I goofed ladies and gentlemen, April 16th is the date, not March!
Update: 2014-04-09 – It looks like the Evening class is tentatively full (may be able to open 1 more spot) and there is one left open for the morning class. If you wanted to get in, now’s your chance! We’ve been chatting about the possibility of me doing the class again in the future in William’s Lake, but there’s no firm timeline for it.
OK, so it’s not quite a million miles but I bet it feels like it by the time I get home.
I’m going to be teaching people just like you how to service and restore their vintage machines in BC next month! 🙂
Beauties like this:
The Cariboo Piecemakers quilt guild has asked me to speak to the group about vintage sewing machines at their Tuesday meeting. The following day I will be doing a marathon training session.
The class is in William’s Lake, B.C. Canada (approximately 3 hours out of Kamloops) the Wednesday before Easter (March APRIL 16th) at the Pioneer Complex, and we have just added a second session and there’s currently a little room left. The tentative times for the classes are 10am to 3pm with a break for lunch and 5pm to 9pm. If you’re interested in attending, leave me a comment below or contact me here.
Here’s what I’m planning to cover: Continue reading A Million Miles – traveling to speak and teach!