One of the BIG draw-cards for antique sewing machines are decals.

Decals are the decorative stencils and patterns which were transferred and printed onto the cast-iron bodies of these antique beauties back in the factory, when they were being made. Although most of these patterns were never given names, sewing machine collectors, restorers and users have given them names in modern times, to help us differentiate between them. Such as “Victorian“, “Egyptian Sphinx“, “Filigree“, “Indian Star“, “Lotus” and “Red Eye“, to name a few.

Antique sewing machines which have spent years and decades in rough storage can often have their decals dulled, gritted up and darkened by years of dust, grime and gunk which have gathered on the machine, and then dried and crusted over.

Some people leave the machines as they are. While others wish to buff them up and restore them. Understandably, some people are scared of doing this, for fear of simply scraping the paintwork off and losing the patterns altogether!

On a whim, I conducted a small experiment today.

My Singer 128k is my ongoing restoration-project. And for a while, the gunky, grimed up decals have been an eyesore to me. Pondering how to clean them, I discovered a very simple and easy method:

Steel Wool. 

To buff the decals and polish and scrape off all the accumulated grime, dust, grease, cigarette smoke, nicotine and other gunk that has built up on the surface of my Singer, I used extremely fine-grit steel wool.

You can buy this stuff at your hardware shop. It comes in lumps in cardboard boxes like cotton wool. Buy the FINEST GRADE steel-wool – nothing else. Finest-grade steel-wool is specifically for polishing and buffing and removing gunk and rust.

Tear off a small lump, about the size of your thumb. Roll it into a ball or mash it into a pad, and then simply buff and polish away on the decals to remove the grime.

Here are the results:

Here’s the decal at the base of the head:

Here’s the main “SINGER” decal:

After a buffing with steel-wool, it looks like this:

This is the decal on the other side of the pillar:

The set of decals on this machine are called the Victorian.

Gosh this is satisfying 🙂 How’s that old Brylcreem ad go?

Steel wool,
A little clump’ll do yah,
Use more, only if you dare,
Watch out, the re-sults may surprise you,
You’ll want to try and use it everywhere… 

…it’s also great for polishing your knob…

…on the end of your sewing machine, that is!

A box without hinges, key, or lid, 
A golden treasure, inside, is hid. 
What is it? 

A Singer “Puzzle Box”!!:

My father and I went out antiquing today. Today being Australia Day, we did what all red-blooded Aussie blokes do!

We went to the annual Fryerstown Antiques Fair.

Nine hours of father-son bonding. And in the 30’c heat, we almost bonded permanently! Phoof! It was hot!

The Finding of the Box of Power

I’ve been mesmerised by these things ever since I saw pictures of them on the International Sewing-Machine Collector’s Society (ISMACS) website. And I figured I’d like one for my own long-bobbin Singer 128 sewing machine. I remembered seeing such a box at the previous year’s antiques fair, and went off today in hopes of finding one.

I knew that my chances were slim. Such things are rare in Australia. We never made this stuff, we only ever imported it. Whatever exists today is whatever hasn’t been thrown out, smashed, trashed, lost in floods, fires or tornadoes, and which has been lovingly stored in someone’s attic or basement.

We perused the market and saw many interesting things, took pictures and bought a couple of trinkets. But nothing was there that made us go “oooh…”. Or at least, not for the prices they were asking! I don’t go ‘ooh’ unless I get a good return on my investment!

Chugging home, we passed through a small-town antiques shop. We stopped and went inside. And, laid out on the table like some ancient tapestry was the puzzle-box…

I was enthralled and I almost did a wild little skip of joy. But then I saw the price and the skip of joy might’ve led to me twisting my ankle as I came crashing back down to earth again. But, I was lucky enough that the owner let me knock off a third of the price. So, I rolled it up and trotted it back home.

What is a Singer ‘Puzzle Box’?

Collectors call these whimsical little containers ‘Puzzle Boxes’. Probably because the only way the box folds up properly is when EVERYTHING is in its correct position (otherwise the lid won’t close). But, when these were introduced in 1889, they caused a sensation. The design was so ingenious that the designer, John M. Griest, a Singer Manufacturing Co. employee, was granted a patent for it.

They were originally called “Style Boxes”. And they were designed to hold a complement of attachments and other accessories (bobbins, screwdrivers, needles, thimbles etc), which would be used with the new, improved Singer vibrating-shuttle line of sewing machines. In all, 14 variations of the ‘Style Box’ was created. And they were accordingly named sequentially. There are no markings on my box to tell me which of these fourteen variations mine is. If anyone can work it out based on the photographs, please let me know! 

The puzzle-boxes came with all kinds of attachments and bits and pieces. Bobbins, screwdrivers, hemmers, binders of varying sizes, seam-guides (an essential attachment if you can’t hold your fabric straight to save your life), and all other manner of nick-nacks. They are without a doubt, one of the greatest things ever invented for a sewing machine after the point-eye needle.

Puzzle boxes were manufactured for both Singer round-bobbin No. 15 domestic machines, and for Singer, long-bobbin No. 27 & 28-class domestic machines. The puzzle-boxes catering to each style of machine varied slightly, due to the size and style of the bobbins used in each respective machine.

I love the ingenuity of design with this box. But one thing I love even more is just how solidly its built. Steel parts, purple felt, and solid wood sides. These days, we’d get something like this made of plastic parts in a plastic box that cracks and warps and melts. This has held its shape and integrity for at least 100 years.

We Interrupt this Program to Bring you some Breaking News…

Here are some of the antique sewing machines which I saw for sale, while I was out antiquing today:

Then I saw this, next to it…

And then I saw this cute little number…

This was a cute little thing I saw in an antique shop on the way home…

 

 

For fifteen quid, you don’t expect much and don’t generally get much in return. Such was the case when I purchased a “display-purposes only” interwar-era Singer 128 vibrating-shuttle machine in London.

Over the last year or so I’ve been steadily sorting it out, bit by bit. Finding slide-plates, keys, extra bobbins, even a case-lid and attachments. But for all my progress, one problem eluded all my attempts to fix it.

The bobbin-winder.

I had tried cleaning, oiling, tightening, loosening, disassembly, reassembly…I’d just about given up hope of ever getting it working. But the problem is, it’s a huge pain in the ass winding a bobbin on these antique long-bobbin machines, without the bobbin-winder.

The Problem

The issue was that every time the winder was engaged and was operating, the large, central screw (in the middle of the heart-cam) would rotate and shift, and either become too loose, or too tight against the winder. This creates a lot of friction, jamming or disengaging the winding-mechanism as a result. The only way for the mechanism to work was to hold the screw in-place, with a screwdriver, while you operated the crank. Hardly an ideal situation.

The Solution

If the screw holding the bobbin-winder could be placed in its optimum position, and be induced to STAY there, then the jamming and friction would cease to be an issue. All previous attempts to address this issue had failed. Until today.

Taking a closer look at the mechanism, I determined that this big central screw is held in-place on the machine via a nut at the back, which holds it onto the winder-body. If I could adjust the nut (which is fiddly, because it’s right at the back, where you can’t see it. You can only feel it with your fingers), then the screw at the front would cease to move. Problem solved!

So, I positioned the screw in its ideal position. I held it in-place with a screwdriver while I tightened and loosened the nut behind it, with a pair of pliers. I was doing this entirely by trial and error, trying to get the right tension on the screw and nut. It has to be loose enough that the wheel and heart-cam spin smoothly, but not so loose that the wheel doesn’t engage the winding-thread connected to the bobbin-wheel.

The Result

It took a while, but I finally got it! Now, I can run the bobbin-winder without it jamming. The winder-arm now runs smoothly from the right…

…to the left…

…and back again, over and over and over, without the screw coming loose, turning around, and jamming up the works anymore! The addition of a bobbin and a spool of thread to the equation causes no problems at all!

Winding a Bobbin on a V.S. Machine

Winding a bobbin on a vibrating-shuttle machine is a minor adventure.

Unlike later round-bobbin machines (Singer 99, 66, 201, 15, etc), which have automatic-stop toggles built into the winders, V.S. machines (27, 28 & variants) simply wind the bobbin. They don’t do anything else.

Round-bobbin machines have toggles or catches built into the winder. As the bobbin fills with thread, it presses against the toggle. When the bobbin is full, the thread forces the toggle back, disengaging the winder automatically.

Some GERMAN vibrating-shuttle machines came with mechanisms such as this, and I believe, so did some American ones. But as a rule, Singer vibrating-shuttle machines did not. So when you wind a bobbin on one of these machines, you have to be careful not to over-wind it. Otherwise the bobbin will be so full of thread, you won’t fit it into the shuttle!

I’ve done one for TYPEWRITERS. I’m not sure why I haven’t yet done one for sewing machines. Anyway, here goes.

Modern sewing machines have all kinds of advantages and features which make them desirable. But they also have numerous disadvantages which make them undesirable. You can perform a wider variety of stitches and functions, at the expense of poorer quality workmanship, disposable parts, and lack of portability. Unless you can physically carry it ANYWHERE and sew with it, without being tied to a power-outlet, it ain’t truly portable.

People are attracted to antique and vintage sewing machines for a number of reasons. Strength, power, durability, classic designs, and a quality of workmanship and construction which literally cannot be found today in modern machines. So, why might you want to buy a vintage or antique sewing machine?

Reasons for Buying a Vintage or Antique Sewing Machine

It Looks Nice.

First-Impressions are everything. Would you rather use a glossy black and gold, wood-cased classic, or a cheap, flimsy, cloud-white modern machine? Even when your classic Singer, Jones, Wheeler-&-Wilson, Domestic, Butterfly, Stowa, or Frister & Rossman isn’t being used, you can put it on a shelf, or on a side-table, and it can sit there as a beautiful piece of industrial art.

Can your modern sewing machine do that? I don’t think so. The problem with more modern machines is that they’re more about function and feature, rather than style and longevity. They’re meant to do something, and once it’s done, you chuck it away into the cupboard.

Antique sewing machines were designed to appeal to people’s sense of style – Don’t forget that buying a sewing machine was a HUGE investment in the second half of the 1800s – they were so expensive, Singer had to come up with a whole new way of paying for them, just so that folks could own one! Few folks could just PAY for one. So Singer allowed for trade-ins in return for discounts, or organised installment-plans and lay-by for customers.

Considering that the machines cost so much, folks weren’t willing to spend the money on something unless what they received in return was ABSOLUTELY SPECTACULAR. And that is just one reason why vintage and antique machines look so much damn nicer than modern ones.

It Has Better Construction.

In my mind, this is not even debatable. Sorry. No. It isn’t.

Vintage and antique machines have better construction, better quality of parts and materials, full-stop. Everything on them is steel or cast iron. Nothing is going to break, snap, wear out, warp in the heat, crack in the cold, melt under desert sun or split in arctic winter.

Old sewing machines are workhorses which will run forever, provided they are maintained properly. Your latest machine, which you paid hundreds of dollars for, is history the moment the electronics crap-out. Now, you have a white, plastic doorstop.

Vintage and antique machines were designed to last until doomsday. Breaking down was not an option, and throwing the machine away and buying another one was UNTHINKABLE! As a result, they had to be made of the very best materials, and made to work forever!

It’s Fun!

I don’t do that much sewing. I repair clothes, I make bags, pouches, the occasional cover or slip for a pillow or cushion, the odd alteration to a pair of trousers, but I enjoy it because it’s fun.

It is. It’s fun to make stuff. But it’s more fun to use something that’s been around for ages, and which will continue to be around for ages. It’s fun to turn that crank, pump the treadle or force the lever, to get those old machines going. The mechanical beauty, the synchronisation of parts, is what makes it fun.

They Work Better

Vintage and antique sewing machines may only do a single, straight lockstitch. But they do it incredibly well. Everything about these machines was designed to work, and to be as durable as possible. Everything was made of steel or iron. And compromising on quality was never even considered. Unlike today.

Why?

Like I mentioned before, it’s because they were so damn expensive. If the machines even DARED to suggest that they weren’t absolutely the BEST that you could buy, then nobody would buy them, because nobody was prepared to spend their hard-earned dollars and pounds on junk!

On top of that, vintage sewing machines had to do a lot more than just repair a torn sleeve. In an age when most people made their own clothes, even domestic sewing machines had to be incredibly tough and rugged. They had to chew through everything from silk, to denim, to cowhide leather. And they were expected to do it without complaint or fault. And they did!

Most people only owned a few sets of clothes, and keeping them repaired and neat meant that a sewing machine had to be able to cope with absolutely anything that was passed under the presser-foot. As a result, they were made to last! Singer even used to do a gimmick where they would sew together two sheets of aluminium metal together, to prove that their machines were powerful enough to punch through solid metal, too!

How to Buy a Vintage Sewing Machine?

So. After reading that whole marketing spiel, you’ve decided that you might like a nice vintage sewing machine. Perhaps you like making your own patchwork quilts. Perhaps you like making clothes? Or maybe like me, you like making pouches and bags and covers, with the odd bit of repair-work thrown in? What do you need to know about buying a vintage sewing machine?

Makes and Models

You need to know what make or model you want to buy. The most popular brand in the world is Singer, of course. But there are others. Wheeler and Wilson, Jones, New Home, White Rotary, and a whole heap of others were American machines. However, Germany was another sewing-machine mecca – brands like Sidel & Naumann, Pfaff, Frister & Rossman, Stowa, Wertheim, and Vesta (among countless others) dominated the European market.

What type of machine you can get your hands on will depend on where you live in the world. If you live in America, Canada, or a country that was part of the former British Empire, chances are, Singer will be the machine of choice. If you live in Europe, then a German machine will be the most common. If you live in Asia, Butterfly (a Singer knockoff-brand based in Shanghai), or one of the numerous Japanese knockoff-brands, will be most prevalent.

Age Before Beauty

When buying a vintage sewing machine, no matter where it was made, or by what company, keep in mind the old adage of Age before Beauty. By that, I mean, pay more attention, first-off, to how OLD a machine is, before anything else.

Why? A number of reasons.

While older machines are certainly very beautiful, and many will still create an excellent stitch, they come with drawbacks. Chief among these are:

Needles

What I shall term ‘1st Generation’ (transverse-shuttle) sewing machines used Singer 12-type needles. These needles are perfectly cylindrical and are unlike any other needle in the world.

Which makes them extremely rare. They’re not manufactured anywhere, anymore. Not even in a reproduction manner. Transverse-shuttle machines are therefore almost useless for sewing with in the 21st century. Unless you have a huge stockpile of these old-fashioned needles lying around – you simply can’t use these anymore. Some later-model transverse-shuttle machines were modified to take modern needles (back in the 1920s and 30s), and you might get lucky using one of those. For more information, see further down).

Sticking with needles for the time-being (ouch!), keep in mind the following: Some sewing-machine manufacturers actually produced machines which would ONLY take the needles made BY that company FOR their machines. This was prevalent in the United States. This means that, once the company stopped, so did the needles. And while sewing machines will live forever, needles don’t. And once they break or blunt or bend out of alignment, you’ll have to get another one. And if you can’t get another one, your machine is useless.

Bobbins and Shuttles

Another BIG issue is bobbins and shuttles. Early sewing machines, from the 1850s up until the turn of the 20th century, used what are called ‘long bobbins’, and operated on a flying-shuttle stitch-mechanism. 1st gen. sewing machines used transverse-shuttle (‘T.S.’) mechanisms (see above), where the shuttle (with the bobbin inside) sat in a carriage, and ran back and forth across the machine, catching the top thread on every forward pass, to form one lockstitch with every backwards pass.

Then, came the vibrating-shuttle (‘V.S.’) mechanism. This used a shuttle, mounted in a side-swinging carriage that pivoted back and forth under the machine, to form stitches with every forward swing.

Both these stitch-forming mechanisms are extremely old. REALLY old. They date back to at least a decade before the American Civil War. The result is that transverse and vibrating shuttles (and the bobbins stored within them) are no-longer manufactured. This can make them tricky to use. I’ll talk about this more, soon.

Where To Find Them?

Search online. Ebay or Gumtree, or sewing forums. Or try flea-markets, antiques shops or charity shops. I’ve seen plenty of antique sewing machines work their way through charity thrift-shops. Flea-markets, antiques shops and sewing-forums are also great ways to get your hands on things like original attachments and add-ons, missing parts and other accessories for your vintage machine. Stuff like shears, measuring tapes, extra feet, bobbins, oil-cans, original instruction-manuals and spare parts.

Finding missing parts for your machine is a real adventure, and a great exercise in patience. In a pinch, you can sometimes find substitutes. The replacement slide-plate for my Singer 128 isn’t for a Singer machine. It actually belongs to a German-made Frister & Rossmann machine, but I found it in a box of old bits and pieces, sans machine.

What Price to Pay?

Sewing machine prices vary WILDLY depending on where you live. But keep in mind that antique machines are extremely tough. They can be over a century old, and still work PERFECTLY. These things were NOT designed to break down, and they were NOT designed to be thrown out. They were designed to last for centuries. And they do!

That being the case, they are not as rare as you might think. And since they’re not that rare, they are also not that valuable, and should not be very expensive. A vintage sewing machine in working, functional condition can be purchased for $100 or less in many, many cases. In some instances, even less than $50, or $25, depending on how lucky you are. You may even get one for free! You might even have inherited one! The key is not to spend more than is necessary.

Sewing machines were VERY common. There was a time when EVERY HOUSEHOLD HAD to have one! I don’t mean because it was some sort of fashion-accessory, I mean that they HAD to have one, or else, the whole family would be ass-naked. There was simply no other way to get clothing! The result is that there are still billions of them out there. Don’t be bought in by all that crap about “It’s old”, “it’s antique”, “It’s rare”.

It’s NOT. Old it may be. Rare? No. Expensive? Certainly not. Valuable? I wish. The vast majority of old sewing machines can be bought for a pittance. You needn’t spend the earth.

What to Buy?

As with anything, the older it is, the harder it is to find replacement parts. Keep that firmly in mind when buying any old sewing machine. As much as possible, stick to big, well-known brands. Market-leaders. And buy wisely.

These are all things that you must keep in mind when you go shopping for an old sewing machine. Now, let’s move onto actually buying a sewing machine…

Buying Your Machine – T.S. Machines

Purchasing a transverse-shuttle machine is bit of a mixed bag. And care should be taken when purchasing one.

Originally, several countries made T.S. machines. The U.K, Germany and America, to name a few. And these used old-fashioned, round-shank Singer-12 type needles, which are almost impossible to find today. If you have a machine which takes these needles, it’s basically an ornament now.

However, in Germany, sewing-machine manufacturers held onto transverse shuttle technology for a lot longer than in other countries, which had moved onto vibrating-shuttle and round-bobbin, rotary-hook machines. They were still producing transverse-shuttle machines well into the 1920s and 30s.

To compete with more modern machines, these old German designs had to be updated. And to do this, they had to swap out the old round-shank needle-bars with modern needle-bars which take conventional, modern-style machine-needles. If you DO buy an old T.S. machine, make sure that it is a later model which is capable of taking modern needles.

(Thanks to Lizzie Lenard for this titbit!)

Buying Your Machine – V.S. Machines

Vibrating-Shuttle machines are very popular. They’re whimsical, cute, they work very well…and they’re extremely old. The vibrating-shuttle mechanism was invented before the American Civil War! So, how do you buy one?

Let’s use my V.S. machine as an example:

I purchased this at the Camden Lock Market in London about a year ago, for fifteen pounds. When I bought it, it didn’t have a base-lid, it didn’t have a key, and it didn’t have a front slide-plate (all of which it now DOES have!). But what do you need to keep in mind?

Vibrating-shuttle machines are the oldest machines which you can still use today. The reason for this is because the vast majority of them will use modern machine-needles, despite the fact that some of them can be over a century old! The style of needle used in most domestic sewing-machines has not changed greatly since the 1880s. As a result, the machine-needles that you buy today will, in most cases, still fit into an antique vibrating-shuttle machine. But there are still a couple of shortfalls.

Further up, I said I’d come back to the issue of vibrating-shuttle bobbins and shuttles. Well, here’s when that happens.

Vibrating shuttles are no-longer manufactured. They haven’t been manufactured since at least the 1960s. But the bobbins which they contain are manufactured as reproductions, on a small scale. And you can buy these online. Try eBay. They follow the generic, Singer-style long bobbin, so they should work with Singer vibrating-shuttle machines like the 27 and 28 series.

Here are a few things to keep an eye out with vibrating-shuttle machines, if you wish to buy one.

Check for Bobbins and Shuttles

Make sure that the machine has at least one shuttle, and at least two bobbins, before you buy it, and that these shuttles and bobbins MATCH THE MACHINE! Shuttles and bobbins are NOT generic, and they are NOT interchangeable!

A Jones shuttle will NOT fit a Singer machine, a Singer bobbin will not fit into a Wheeler & Wilson shuttle. Do not buy a machine with mismatched shuttles and bobbins, hoping that you can just marry them off and everything will work fine – it WILL NOT work fine. Shuttles will jam inside the machine, or bobbins will fall out and tangle up. And you’ll be in all kinds of strife, using language your grandmother would whip you for!

Check the Needle

Most antique vibrating-shuttle machines use modern-style needles, but just to be safe, always check the needle. A modern needle has a thicker shank than it has a tip, and one side of the shank is flattened, so that it looks like a ‘D’. In most cases, you won’t have any problems, but it’s best to be sure.

Check the bobbin-race

The race is the little channel underneath the sewing-machine base where the shuttle lives. Open the slide-plates and rotate the balance-wheel until the little steel carriage appears. Press down on the shuttle-tip, and the shuttle should just pop out. Check inside to make sure that the shuttle has a bobbin in it. The machine is useless without these components. You do not need extra shuttles, but it pays to have at least two bobbins, so that you can have at least one choice of thread. Most old vibrating-shuttle machines came with sets of between four, five and six bobbins. Singer 27s came with a standard set of five.

Buying Your Machine – Treadle-Power!

Treadle machines, the old, foot-operated ones which sit on those cute, wooden tables with the wrought-iron frames, are great. But they come with their own issues. Chief among these is weight.

Treadle-operated machines are extremely heavy. If you buy one, you must keep in mind how you’re going to cart the machine and the treadle-table back home. On top of that, treadle-machines require more maintenance – the treadle mechanism must be oiled regularly to prevent jamming. And the drive-belt has to be in good condition, with no knots or frays. And operating a treadle-machine requires quite a bit of hand-foot-eye coordination! To prevent snapping threads, the balance-wheel (and by extension, the drive-wheel on the treadle) must be running anti-clockwise (so that the wheel spins up, over and forwards, TOWARDS you). If it spins the other way, the sewing-mechanism fouls up and the thread snaps.

Buying Your Machine – Hand-Cranked Wonders

Most antique machines are crank-operated. Like my 1936 Singer:

Crank-operated machines are extremely handy if you intend to take your sewing machine to places where electricity isn’t available, or where it’s too cumbersome to take your treadle-machine (not that treadle-machines are designed to be moved from place to place!). These are the ultimate in portable sewing-machines.

Crank-operated machines are prized because of their extreme portability. They don’t have any cables or motors or levers or foot-pedals to lug around, they aren’t bolted to a huge, wooden table. They’re just what they are, and that’s what they do. And people love them, because of it!

Crank-operated machines come with advantages of reduced weight, extreme portability, but they deprive you of one hand in the process, to operate the machine. If you’re willing to put up with that, a cranked machine could be for you!

One of the beauties about hand-cranked machines is that they’re surprisingly easy to convert, should you wish to do so. This is yet another reason why they’re extremely popular.

Let’s say you have a vintage electric sewing machine with a dead motor. It doesn’t work, it’s not gonna work, and it’s a waste of time to try and get it working.

But you really like the machine.

Easy. Get out a big screwdriver, unscrew the sewing-motor from the machine (save the bolt that comes off the machine), and chuck it out, along with all the cables and leads and lights and other crap that comes along with it.

Now, get your crank-assembly (either an original antique one, or a modern reproduction, either are available on eBay), and bolt it onto the machine, using the same bolt that held your machine-motor in place. Screw it in tightly with the screwdriver, and then run the crank-arm through the spokes of your sewing-machine’s balance-wheel.

Keep in mind that, although extremely easy a conversion to do, this only works with older sewing-machines with spoked balance-wheels, such as my Singer 128. It will work with solid, non-spoked balance-wheels as well, but it will require you to mutilate your machine by cutting a notch in the wheel, for the crank-arm. You may, or may not wish to do that, depending on how much you love the machine. Alternatively, you can remove the solid balance-wheel, and fit on a spoked wheel, instead.

Buying Your Machine – The Marvel of Electricity

Vintage and antique sewing-machines worked very simply. As a result, it’s surprisingly easy to convert them so that they run off electricity. And a number of machines underwent this conversion in the early 20th century.

Having an electrically-powered machine has many advantages – it’s extremely fast, you have both hands free, you have a sewing-machine lamp to see what you’re doing, and it’s very powerful. The downside is always having to plug the machine in, and having to check the cables. Another potential downside is having to ensure that the electronics on your machine (which can be up to 90 years old, in the case of Singer’s earliest electric machines) are functioning properly. This can be assessed by a sewing-machine repairman, or by you, if you have the necessary skills.

Buying Your Machine – Tips, Tricks, Hints. Dos, Don’ts, Etc. 

Here are some things to consider when you buy your machine, whether it’s cranked, treadled, or electrically powered. Keep the following details in mind when you’re out machine-hunting, and consider them, before you actually pay for any machine that you might be interested in:

– Ensure that it takes modern-style needles. This is especially important if it’s an antique vibrating-shuttle machine. In most cases you won’t have to worry, but there are the odd ones out there, where you do.

– Ensure that the machine comes with at least two bobbins. You can usually buy more at sewing-shops, or online, but if it’s an older, V.S. machine, it’s not always so easy. Ensure that the bobbins that DO come with the machine fit the machine and work properly!

– Ensure that the bobbin-winder mechanism works! Fewer things are more frustrating than trying to wind a bobbin by hand!

– Ensure that the clutch-wheel (the smaller knob inside the balance-wheel) engages and disengages smoothly. This switches the machine between sewing-mode, and bobbin-winding mode!

– Ensure that the machine-body is affixed FIRMLY to the machine-base/case/treadle-table, and that the case-handle is affixed FIRMLY to the lid! Old wooden cases can rot and crack, and bolts and screws can work themselves loose. If possible, tighten them before you buy the machine! Or tighten them the moment you get it home! The average antique sewing-machine can weigh up to, and over, 30lbs! You do NOT want that falling on the ground, or even worse, landing on your feet! Damage to the machine or case will likely be irreparable!

– Ensure that all electronics function properly. Lights turn on. Pedals and leads work. They’re not frayed, bent or cut, melted or cracked! You don’t want to zap yourself when you get home!

– DO buy your machine from a market-leader! Replacement-parts for machines (reproduction or otherwise) are usually only made to fit antique machines which are extremely common. If you are buying a machine with a view to getting these missing pieces later on, buy a machine that was POPULAR!

There ARE people out there who manufacture replacement slide-plates, replacement keys, replacement bobbins. But these are usually for Singer machines! Unless you’re very lucky, chances are, they will not work on your obscure little American machine that you found at a country junk-sale. The older, or more obscure your machine is, the harder it is to fix, and the harder it is to find missing parts!

– DO check bobbin-winder tires. These things can wear out or dry up and crack. In some cases, they can even MELT into puddles of ugly black goo! Replacements are manufactured, and you can buy them online. If you’re unwilling to do that, existing bobbin-winder tires can be resurrected or have their working lives prolonged by wrapping them around tightly with adhesive tape, to protect the rubber from further deterioration.

– DO, if possible, sew with the machine before you buy it. You don’t want to find out when you get it home, that it’s defective and keeps dropping stitches!

– DO fiddle around with the machine before you buy it. Turn the crank at high speed, get the wheel spinning and pump the treadle. You want to be sure that there’s nothing that jams up, or breaks or rattles around.

– DO open the machine-bed, and have a peek inside. You never know what might be hiding in the basement.

– DON’T worry if the vintage machine you’ve bought (or want to buy) is stiff and doesn’t move! This is an EXTREMELY common problem. And the way to fix it is extremely easy!…and fun! These old machines drink oil. If you don’t lubricate them at least every now and then, the oil dries up and they will eventually jam. And I mean REALLY jam – my grandmother’s 60-year-old Singer 99 was so stiff you couldn’t get it going even if you smashed it with a sledgehammer! If you DO have a machine that’s jammed up, follow my restoration-guide, to get it running again!

– DON’T panic if you’ve bought a Singer sewing machine in a bentwood case, and it’s locked…and you can’t get the damn thing open! Yeek!

A 3mm flat-head screwdriver (and maybe, a couple of squirts of oil into the lock) will easily open the case for you. Simply push the screwdriver into the key-slot, and turn it clockwise. This releases the lock. Now, lift up the left side of the case, slide the case to the left (to disengage the lock on the right side), and then lift up, and away! Then, say hello to your machine.

– DO make sure that your machine-lid is placed correctly onto the base, and is LOCKED before lifting the machine up by the lid-handle to take it anywhere! You don’t want the machine parting company with the lid and smashing on the ground!

– DO oil your machine every now and then, if you use it regularly (regularly means at least once every month). Although very robust, a lack of oil will cause the moving parts to seize up and jam. And then you’ll have a bugger of a time unjamming them again with even more oil.

– DO check to see if your machine comes with any attachments! Most machines came with a wide variety of attachments and add-ons. Buttonholers, zigzaggers, seam-guides, hemmers, tuckers, and all other bits and pieces. They’re usually stored somewhere inside the machine-bed, or inside the case-lid.

– DON’T be misled by people who try to sell old sewing machines as “semi-industrial” or “industrial”, and ask an inflated price, just because they can sew through multiple layers of leather or denim. There is a HUGE difference between a domestic sewing machine, and an industrial sewing machine.

Sewing Machines – Care & Feeding

You bought a beautiful antique or vintage sewing machine. Or maybe you inherited one. I inherited my grandmother’s Singer. That’s what got me interested in these things. However you got it, here’s a few things to keep in mind…

Before using your machine, clean it thoroughly and oil it liberally. You don’t want the machine operating with any unnecessary stress or friction. Consult my restoration-guide (see link, further up) about how to do this in detail. Use high-grade machine-oil to lubricate the sewing machine.

Make sure that you put your machine on a sturdy surface! Antique and vintage machines had cases made of wood, and machines made of cast iron and steel. This makes them MUCH heavier than most modern machines made of plastic – it’s a tradeoff that you get with better quality.

That being the case, you do not want to put your sewing machine on a table or bench-top that is going to shake and vibrate when you operate the machine. Not only is it extremely annoying, it could be dangerous!

When not in use, keep your machine covered and locked. This will prevent sun-damage, and will stop things from getting dusty or from components getting lost. But also keep the machine (case and all) out of direct sunlight when not in use. Otherwise, the sun’s rays will damage the finish on the case. Best to keep the machine in a cupboard when it’s not being used.

Sewing-machines are not toys. And antique ones can be surprisingly powerful. Keep them away from kids! If you want to let them fiddle around with it, then at least remove the needle, first! Don’t worry, they’re unlikely to actually break the machine – these things were extremely tough – but they do stand a chance of stabbing themselves with the needle!

Although, you might want to buy a Singer Model 20, if your son or daughter wants a machine all for themselves:

These are REAL machines, in the sense that they will sew. They do a simple chainstitch, but the needle never rises up high enough for a child to get his or her finger stuck underneath it. For size-comparison, here’s the Singer 20 with my Singer 128:

Conclusion

This concludes my guide in what to look for and how to buy a good vintage or antique sewing machine. Questions or comments are welcome, and feel free to leave them below.

About a year or so ago, I got my hands on a very nice interwar Singer V.S. 128 sewing machine…

The machine had a number of issues. To begin with, it did not have both slide-plates. Fortunately, I managed to pick up a slide-plate at my local flea-market, along with a box of loads of other things and bits and pieces.

The machine also lacked the classic bentwood base-lid…and the key that went with it. I managed to pick those up at an antiques wholesaler outside of town.

But the biggest problem with these antique vibrating-shuttle sewing-machines is finding bobbins. These machines are not like Singer 15s, 99s or 66s. They do not use conventional flat, spool-shaped bobbins, which you can still buy today. They use what are called “long bobbins” or “Shuttle bobbins”, which look like free-weights for mice.

This machine did come with its original shuttle, and two bobbins, but that was it. I also had to source an attachments box…and attachments to fill it!

The machine could now be used, carried, locked and stored without any issues, but it still had only two bobbins. And with machines this old, extra bobbins are hard to find.

That’s why I got so excited when I found more bobbins yesterday afternoon, at a local thrift-shop. Granted, there were only two, but two is better than nothing!

The two bobbins on the bottom are the originals which came with the machine. The two lying across the top are the new ones I managed to find. It’s a small triumph, but it’s a triumph nonetheless. And even better – they were free!

And it beats having to pay for them on eBay. You can buy reproduction long-bobbins on eBay, for your V.S. machines, but it’s better, and safer, to try and find the originals – those, you know for certain, will fit into the shuttle properly, and will work correctly when you run them through the machine.

In looking back over my blog, I realise that it’s been over a year since I started the seemingly ludicrous mission of restoring my grandmother’s 1950 Singer 99k sewing-machine. I am proud to say that as of the date of this posting, the restoration is complete!

Gran was born on the 7th of May, 1914 in Singapore. She died on the 28th of November, 2011, in Melbourne, Australia. Weet-Bix are suspected to have played a role in her demise. She was 97.

Granny was a dressmaker, and from the early 1950s until the early 1980s, was in this trade professionally. When she retired, she moved to Australia, and her Singer sewing machine came with her. A battered, but trusty Singer 99k knee-lever electric sewing machine. This machine was gran’s life and she used it in place of any other machine that might ever have been, or might have become available for her to use.

When gran moved to the nursing-home, in the early 2000s after worsening Alzheimer’s Disease, her most treasured possession, her Singer, was placed in the basement, where for the next eight or-so years, it sat in a corner at the bottom of a bookcase, gathering dust.

When gran died, I hauled the machine out of the basement and began a steady restoration process. I don’t know what possessed me to do this, other than the fact that this machine was gran’s livelihood for most of her adult life.

The majority of what happened next is covered in my earlier article. This posting is more of an addendum to what I’ve already written.

The Frankenstein Moment

MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

*Thunderclap!!*
*Flashlightning!*

…Ahem.

Actually getting the machine running and sewing for the first time really was an exhilarating experience. Second only to getting the machine-case off the base! It took a lot of oil and fiddling with a screwdriver, but I got it off eventually, and was very happy.

Getting the machine running was a considerable task. It was literally frozen solid when I got the lid off the machine-base, and not a single thing apart from the presser-foot lever and the bobbin-winder worked. Everything else was jammed solid from a complete and total absence of lubrication. And it’s no exaggeration to say that it took me nearly a week to lubricate the entire machine to a level where it would run as well as it did when it was brand-new.

I must admit, it was rather fun. There is the incredible thrill of a challenge, combined with the later sense of accomplishment, when it came to getting that machine running again.

I had almost given up at one point, but perseverance was the key. It was a real joy to see it running at full speed again, for the first time in probably ten years (or whenever the last time it was used, happened to be. At least ten years ago, though).

Duhr…Now What?

It’s working! Oh my god it’s working! It runs, it stitches, it sews, it runs at every speed,  the light turns on, gets hot enough to fry breakfast on, and then turns off. Everything is excellent! But what do we do now, huh?

I really wasn’t sure. Like I said, I didn’t have any real reasons for wanting to bring this thing out of the basement other than to tinker around with it. But once I’d got it running, I started thinking about these other things that I could do. And that’s when the thought entered my head that I could bring the machine back to its former glory, by tracking down and purchasing all the necessary bits and pieces for it. I had no idea where on earth I would begin. But as luck would have it, I live very close to a large and very well-stocked flea-market. And it was from that market that I purchased nearly everything for this machine.

The Scavenger Hunt

I started with simple things, like needles and bobbins. These were pretty easy to find. And all the while, I was busy cleaning and fixing the machine. It was like a gunk-generator. Every time I thought it was clean, I’d find some other part of the machine that required my attention. Like under the bed. Or behind the balance-wheel, or inside the electric motor, or underneath the bobbin-case. On top of everything, the machine required constant lubrication! It drinks oil like Barney Gumble drinks Duff Beer.

The harder things which I had to track down were the sewing-machine accessories boxes, the attachments that went inside them, the accessories that went with them, and the green oil-can that went inside the machine-case. I had no idea what these things looked like, and it took a long time to track them down. I actually ended up buying multiple boxes of attachments and pouring them all out, and scrambling them around until I had assembled one FULL box of attachments from the dribs and drabs found in other boxes. Those dribs and drabs would be useful for spares later on.

One big problem with this machine was finding the original square steel bobbin-plate or ‘slide-plate’. The slide-plate was a protective metal plate that shielded the spinning bobbin-mechanism from dust and tangling threads. There wasn’t anywhere local that I could buy one, and waiting for one to show up at the flea-market would take years.

The only way I could get one was to buy a replacement online. You can buy ORIGINAL Singer plates online (and there are people who sell these), but obviously, stock is limited, and as a result, prices are much higher. I had serious doubts about this. So instead, I went the reproduction route. With the help of a cousin, we bought the replacement plate from an eBay store based in the U.S.A., and had it shipped halfway around the world to…here.

Boy that took so long. I think it was something like a month or more, of waiting.

Finding the oil-can for the sewing-machine was rather challenging. There are all kinds of Singer oil-cans and bottles. And I had no idea which one I would need to fit the slot inside the case-lid. All I knew from what I saw, was that it had to have a flange at the bottom, and it had to have a curved base. Out of sheer luck, I found the can which I needed at the flea-market, hidden in the pre-dawn mists, amongst a bookcase full of all kinds of other cans which were for sale. I paid $5 for it and walked off.

Sentimental Attachments

Finding all the attachments for the sewing-machine was another big challenge. No one box of parts which I bought ever had the full set. So I was forced to buy four or five boxes of parts, and slowly piece them together, to form one big box of attachments. In the end, I had enough bits and pieces around to create two complete boxes!

On top of all the usual steel attachments, was the challenge of finding the zigzagger and buttonholer attachments. These old Singer sewing machines performed a very basic straight lockstitch. To allow these machines to make more complicated things like zigzags and buttonholes like modern machines can, the manufacturers came up with all kinds of fascinating gizmoes which you could bolt onto your machine.

Quality of Manufacture

One thing that I love about all these items is the quality of manufacture. The bobbins, the attachments, screws, plates…everything is made of solid steel, without exception. Nothing like that exists today. Today, bobbins are made of plastic, feet and other attachments are made of plastic. Even the screws are made of plastic. One crack or warping renders them useless. The older steel parts are nigh indestructable.

It’s stiff? Oil it. It’s rusty? Sand it. It’s dull? Polish it.

With plastic parts…it’s cracked?…Uh…I dunno. Throw it out and buy another one?

Money wasted and thrown down the toilet.

These steel pieces will literally last forever. And their simple, no-nonsense construction means that they will always do the job that they were made for, without any compromising on quality. Back in the good old days, this was standard. These days, we have to pay extra for quality that should come with the original product. Which doesn’t. They literally don’t make ’em like they used to.

The Last Piece

By the start of 2013, I had finally gathered all of the main components of the sewing-machine. I had the needles, oil, feet-attachments, the two main mechanical attachments, instruction manuals and other dribs and drabs. However, one piece remained elusive. The bed-extension table.

The bed-extension table came with most Singer sewing machines and it was used to extend the bed of the machine, to give you a larger work-area. This had the advantage of stopping your sewing-piece from sliding off the end of the machine-bed, and pulling your carefully-pinned cloth out of alignment with the needle and presser-foot.

Sadly, they’re not easy to find. The bed-extension table is of very simple construction, and it wasn’t uncommon for them to be thrown out or lost due to their rather bland and simple appearance. Unless you knew what you were looking at, the extension-table looks like just another plank of wood.

I discovered one recently at an antiques shop, along with a box of other bits and pieces, and snapped it up then and there. The standard Singer bed-extension table measures 8.5 inches wide (the width of the machine-bed), and about eight inches long.

Finding that final, missing piece means that the machine is finally back in its original and complete condition, having been reunited with all the items that would’ve come with it when it was purchased brand-new from the shop.

Like New!

The pictures below show the machine looking as it would’ve done back in the 1950s, complete with the parts that would’ve come with it when purchased brand-new:

Bits and pieces such as zigzaggers, buttonholers and other bits and pieces were purchased separately on a required basis. But those photos illustrate what came with the machine when it was brought home for the first time.

This model, the Singer 99 series, was manufactured from the mid-1920s up until the late 1950s, and came as a handcrank machine, or as a knee-lever machine. Knee-lever machines started coming out in the 1930s, and both hand-crank and knee-lever models were produced side by side until the model ceased production ca. 1958.

The body of the Model 99 changed significantly in the later years of its production, but the machine as it appears here would’ve been identical to one from the 1920s, minus the motor and the knee-lever, and with a spoked, instead of solid balance-wheel, with a crank-handle bolted to the side.

Built like a watch? More like a tank. The Model 66, the 99’s immediate predecessor, was highly popular, but extremely heavy and cumbersome.

The Singer 99 model was designed to be a 3/4 size “portable” machine, a step down from the full-size Singer 66 model, which came out in 1905. The 99 was designed to overcome the 66’s problems with regards to size and weight.

This advertisement from 1928 emphasizes the new machine’s portability! And with portability comes choice! You can now sew anywhere you want! Bedroom, living-room, parlour, guestroom, even outside if you wanted to. The one thing this advertisement does NOT publicise is the fact that this machine is DAMN HEAVY.

Keep in mind that the 99 was supposed to be a “portable” machine, a step down from the larger and highly popular 66 model. But despite the downsizing, the 99, complete with all its bits and pieces, still weighs in at 33.25lbs, or just over 15kg! I know this because I weighed it myself. Not so portable now, is it?

Nevertheless, it’s a practical, popular, stylish and robust machine, well worth restoring and using.

It’s taken years and months, but my grandmother’s Singer 99k vintage sewing-machine is finally, and at last, complete! It has reached this level of completion thanks to the procurement of the last, and most hard-to-find Singer sewing-machine accessory…the bed-extension table. The extension-table may be seen here, hooked onto the end of the needle-bar side of the sewing-machine:

It’s the thing with the three spare vintage lightbulbs on top. The lightbulbs are spares for the one which goes into the light-socket at the back of the sewing-machine. They came as part of the package.

The extension-table came as standard with some models of vintage Singer sewing machines, such as the Singer Model 99 and it’s variants. However, not all of Singer’s sewing-machines were sold with this very handy feature included, which I think is a pity. The table measures roughly eight inches by eight inches, and the steel hook at the end simply slots into the lock-plate of the machine-bed. It extends the sewing-machine bed. That’s why it’s called a bed-extension table. Duh!

Sadly, these handy little extension-tables are not easy to find these days, and I had almost given up hope of ever getting one. I had even considered fabricating a homemade one! But fortunately, I found this, instead.

Their handiness lies in the fact that they give you a larger work-area when sewing, to stop your pieces of fabric from flopping off the end of the sewing-machine (and possibly pulling out of alignment). They also give you somewhere to rest your left hand and arm as you feed the fabric through the machine.

This is what the extension-table looks like, when it’s housed inside the case:

You can see it in this picture from a 1930s Singer 99k user-manual. It’s on the bottom of the picture (labeled ‘D’ in this picture).

It’s rather amazing how much those innovative Singer chaps could cram into such a restricted space as the lid of a sewing-machine! This is what the same arrangement looks like in real life; again, using my grandmother’s 99k as the example:

In all the same positions, you can see the green SINGER accessories box (on the left), the ‘?’-shaped knee-lever at the back, the oval-based green SINGER oil-can on the right, and at the bottom, the extension-table. Amazingly, even with all this stuff in-place, you can still put the lid comfortably over the top of the sewing-machine and lock it down tight!

Bed-extension tables. If you have a vintage Singer sewing machine and you don’t have one of these…start looking for one. They’re getting harder and harder to find, so don’t waste time!

Eeeek!!

It’s alright. Don’t panic…It’s just a sewing-machine.

A while back, I wrote this article about a Singer 128 handcrank sewing-machine that I bought in London for a song.

Well, the machine arrived home today, and I spent the last few hours cleaning it, oiling it and lubricating it. It sews, it runs, it works!

And I even found a replacement slide-plate for it. This is before:

And this is After:

Ain’t it purdy?

The eagle-eyed among you will notice that the two slide-plates do not match…

I could purchase an ORIGINAL Singer 28-series slide-plate. I could even buy a brand-new reproduction one. But I found that one in a box of sewing-machine nicknacks which I purchased for the heady price of $10 at the flea-market. One piece out of probably a hundred attachments, nuts, bolts, springs, feet and god knows what else…it cost me probably one cent!

Not bad!

Going against my own advice in my sewing-machine posts, I actually went ahead with my needle-nosed tweezers and ripped out the old, red felt wick which, as you’ll recall, is inside every bobbin-mechanism, to stop friction and abrasion, and to keep the mechanism lubricated.

I did this for two reasons:

1. The old felt was completely TRASHED!

2. It’s very easy to replace the felt wick on old Singer 28-series machines like this.

All you need is a TEENSY scrap of fabric, or some cotton wool. Roll it into a little ball or sausage, and then just stuff it into the hole where the felt wick goes. You may need to use your needle-nose tweezers or a chopstick or something, to shove it down the hole properly, but it’s not that hard.

So long as the replacement wick (made out of whatever material it was you chose) is sufficiently absorbent, you can replace the old one with no problems at all!

The only thing I need to do now, is to buy a new case-lid for it. If I can find one anywhere!

A Singer V.S. Model 128 Manual Sewing Machine

This beautiful pre-war gem, dating from 1936, was mine for just fifteen quid at the Camden Lock Market in London. A steal. Really a steal. It’s less than $25AUD. I don’t know many other places apart from London where you can find such nice deals on vintage sewing-machines, or on vintage and antique anythings, really. Certainly I’ve never seen such a deal happen in Australia. Not unless you’re supremely lucky.

The Singer Model 28-series was a Vibrating Shuttle (Abbrev.: “V.S.”) machine. The Vibrating Shuttle mechanism was essentially the second generation of sewing-machine mechanisms, and was one-up on the earlier and less effective Transverse Shuttle (“T.S.”) sewing-machines. This posting will look into the various features of this machine, such as they are…

What Was the Model 28?

The Model 28 and its variants (128, 28k, 27, etc, etc, etc) was one of Singer’s most popular domestic sewing-machines. Mechanically simple and easy to use, the Model 28 was capable of producing neater stitches at a faster and more consistent rate. Because of this, it was manufactured all the way from the 1880s up into the 1930s.

What is a Vibrating Shuttle?

Early lock-stitch sewing-machines operated by using a long, barbell-shaped bobbin inside of a small, shiny, bullet-shaped thing…called a shuttle. How the shuttle (and hence, the bobbin) interacted with the machine determined the model-name.

Transverse (“T.S.”) Shuttle machines worked by having the needle punch through the cloth and pull up. The cloth moved back and the shuttle traversed (moved across) the bed of the sewing-machine, behind the needle-plate, underneath the machine, from left to right. The sharp point or nose of the shuttle (the bullet-shaped end) went through the loop of thread made by the needle, and pulled the bobbin thread through after it. Then, the shuttle slid back across the machine, from right to left, a second before the take-up-lever pulled the stitch tight and the feed-dogs shoved the cloth along, ready for the next stitch. A machine typical of the T.S. system is the Singer Model 12 “Fiddleback” from the mid-1800s:

The photo of this beautiful Singer 12 comes from ISMACS, the International Sewing MAchine Collector’s Society

This is ingenious, but at the same time, inefficient. To improve efficiency, the V.S. was created.

Exactly why it’s called a “Vibrating” shuttle is a mystery…not only to me, but it seems…to every other person who’s written about this subject, who’s writing I’ve read. It doesn’t vibrate at all! It swings!

The V.S. swings back and forth to make each stitch. The shuttle with its bobbin inside, sits in a small carriage that moves back and forth in a semi-circular motion, with each forward motion catching the loop of thread and pulling the bobbin-thread through it, and every backwards motion pulling the stitch tight.

If anyone ever asks you how a sewing-machine works, I think the best working example you could find is a V.S.

An Examination of Crank-Machines

As you may notice on this machine, it’s crank-operated…

This machine dates from 1936, by which time, the first generation electric sewing-machines had entered into the market. Why then, does it have a crank?

Singer produced manual, crank-operated sewing-machines for a hundred years, believe it or not. They were still making brand-new crank-machines as recently as the 1950s! Why you might ask, would a sewing-machine produced in an era of radio, electric lights, talking pictures, record-players and 1st-generation telvisions, still be made with a crank?

A number of reasons.

– Unreliable power-supply.

It wasn’t until the mid-1930s in Britain that there was a unified, nationwide electrical power-grid. Prior to about 1935, every town and city in England had their own separate power-stations, producing different voltages of electricity. What might be enough to power a radio or a light in one town or county, might be too much in another, or too little somewhere else. With this lack of uniformity, it wasn’t possible, or practical, to produce one electronic machine for the whole nation to use, since it would have to be adapted and altered to suit every single separate power-grid in the U.K.

So to overcome this, machines were made to be as independent of the power-grid as possible. This wasn’t just sewing-machines, but other things – typewriters, radios (which ran on batteries), and even stoves (which would run on gas, instead of electric hotplates).

– Spare Parts

In a way, Singer (as with many other products of the day) were victims of their own success. As anyone else who tinkers with these things will surely testify to, a vintage sewing-machine is built to be indestructible. Nothing short of a nuclear explosion will even put a dent into these machines. And because of this, the old cranks on machines, as well as the machines themselves, rarely broke down. As a result, any spare parts (such as cranks) which were produced, were not often sold to already-existing machines. So to prevent wastage, they simply went on making crank-machines.

– Rationing

This machine was built just three years before the outbreak of the Second World War. When the war started, and Singer’s factory in Scotland wasn’t able to produce any more modern sewing-machines with electric motors, they reverted back to the older, more reliable and less grid-dependent crank-machines. They were easier to build, and if the power went out thanks to a German air-raid, you could keep on sewing. And sewing was important during the war – with few clothes and fabric being strictly rationed for the war-effort, housewives, dressmakers and tailors had to be incredibly skilled with a sewing-machine to make every swatch of cloth count and not waste anything.

– Portability

The crank-driven sewing-machine is the ultimate portable sewing-machine. Treadle sewing-machines are strictly stationery objects. Electric machines can only go as far as the cord will allow you. But a crank-operated Singer can be taken literally anywhere, and still work flawlessly, without being reliant on anything other than the strength of the operator’s right arm (to turn the handle!)

On the famous ghost ship, the Mary Celeste, an posting about which, may be found on this blog, the captain’s wife, Mrs. Briggs, brought her sewing-machine with her when she joined her husband on his latest voyage. It was almost certainly a hand-cranked model, a treadle-machine being too bulky and heavy to carry onboard a sailing-ship. Most likely, it was a Singer 12, the most common model of the time (the Mary Celeste set sail in 1872, the Model 12 came out in 1865).

A Look at the Mechanics

Hand-crank machines worked very simply. They operated no differently from comparable treadle, or even electric machines. It was just a different method of doing the same job.

If you’ve ever looked at the side of an old sewing-machine, you may notice a hole underneath the balance-wheel. This hole is where the crank-assembly is bolted onto the machine (or in later models, where the sewing-motor is bolted on). The crank works by the arm of the crank fitting between the spokes of the balance-wheel (if your machine has a solid balance-wheel, then you can change it to a spoked one if you want it to be a manual machine) and turning the wheel.

The cogwheels on the crank-assembly work in a ratio of 1:3. One turn of the crank-handle turns the big wheel one revolution.

One revolution of the big wheel produces three revolutions of the small one.

Three turns of the small wheel turns the arm three times, which turns the balance wheel three times (and therefore, produces three stitches).

Given the size of the machines and how compact everything had to be, it’s not a bad power-ratio.

Hand-crank machines such as this one were popular for their compactness, ease of use and their portability. The tradeoff was that you had to use more muscle-power to run the machine, but on the other hand, you could take this places that your treadle, or even your electric machine, could never go.