Well, I said I’d keep you folks updated with what I found for my Singer sewing-machine, and this is the first of those updates.

First, my sewing-machine restoration-adventure.  

Okay. This posting is about the first attachment which I purchased for my Singer. It is a buttonholer. It is Singer Part No. 86718. This attachment is designed to fit onto Singer 99, 99k and 66-model machines (and other Singers with a single square slide-plate in the middle of the left side of the machine-bed). It came in a handsome red box…

And has a pretty red and cream colour-scheme, with ‘SINGER’ on top:

The bit that you see on the right is the dog-cover. It covers the feed-dogs underneath the presser-foot, to stop them shifting the fabric to where you don’t want it (on older machines like this, dropping the dogs isn’t an option).

The two red knobs at the back are to adjust SPACE (size of the buttonhole) and BIGHT (closeness of the stitches that form the buttonhole outline). The big red knob at the front is to adjust the position of the sliding foot at the front of the buttonholer, to determine where you want the buttonhole to start.

Just like everything else made by Singer back in the ‘Good Old Days’, this thing is solid steel. All it needs to work is oil.

After I bought it, I took it home and opened it up. In this photo, you can see (…or not, it’s REALLY small…) that the cream-coloured cover is held on by one tiny little screw, to the right of the big red knob:

It was moving very stiff and jerkily, and after I opened it up and wiggled it around a bit, I found out why. It was full of this thick, grey, gummy oil that was acting more like paste than lubricant. So I wiped off as much of it as I could before re-oiling the whole thing using machine-oil and putting it back together.

This is a very simple buttonholer. It doesn’t do fancy keyhole-buttonholes or buttonholes of different lengths and whatnot. It just does buttonholes. And in the end, that’s really all you need. You can adjust the size of the buttonhole manually anyway, by turning the red knob on the side as you go.

Oh, and for the Americans who are looking confused right now, my research tells me that this style of buttonholer was manufactured in the 1950s and was prevalent in Australia and in the United Kingdom and Europe. But it appears not to have been exported to America or Canada, which will probably explain why folks stateside are unaware of its existence.

How to Use It?

Your guess is as good as mine. When I bought it, it didn’t come with a manual (although it did come with a sheet of “anti-corrosion paper“). To figure out how to use it, I mostly watched videos, read blogs and just used common sense. But for anyone else who picks up one of these things without the manual…

1. Screw Down Dog-Cover

The feed-dog cover/plate is the rectangular thing with the black bit dangling off it. The black dangly bit goes over the two holes that you’ll find in the machine-bed, to the right of the needle-plate. In the attachment-box, you’ll find one or two small screw-bolts. Poke one of these through the hole in the middle of the black dangly bit, and screw it into one of the two holes in the middle of the machine-bed (it doesn’t matter which one).

Raise the presser-foot and slide the main body of the dog-plate over the feed-dogs and needle-plate.

There is a small rectangular hole in the dog-plate. This is where the NEEDLE goes through, to make the lockstitch under the needle-plate. Make sure that this tiny hole lines up with the hole in the needle-plate. Otherwise your needle will just be smacking its head against solid steel and going nowhere. Once it’s lined up, tighten up that little nut from earlier, to make sure the plate doesn’t wriggle away.

2. Remove presser-foot and attach buttonholer

This is a little easier said than done.

First, you gotta unscrew the bolt that holds the presser-foot onto the foot-bar and remove it. Put it somewhere where it ain’t gonna walk off on you.

The attachment hooks onto the presser-foot bar from the back. There’s a hook in the middle of the front of the attachment that goes around the presser-foot bar, and a ‘fork’ that sticks out, which should go above and below the needle-clamp on the needle-bar. Best to shove it in at an angle. It can be fiddly, so take your time.

Once it’s on, drop the foot-bar lever, and screw the attachment firmly onto the presser-foot bar using the supplied bolt (it’s the bigger one, about an inch long). Once it’s in, adjust the buttonhole guide so that it’s at its outermost setting.

Note: When preparing your machine to put the attachment on, be weary of the orientation of the thread-breaker (that’s the little clampy-piece that’s stuck onto the presser-foot bar). You may need to twist it around so that it’s out of the way of the front of the attachment, otherwise it’ll scratch against the buttonholer, like you see it had in mine.

Raise the attachment, feed in the patch of fabric that you want a buttonhole to be made in, and drop it.

3. Run the Attachment

Once it’s in and bolted on, drop the foot-lever, and then run the machine SLOWLY. Running it too fast will tangle up the cloth and lead to all kinds of strife. Better slow than sorry. The attachment will pull the fabric in, punching in little holes and driving the needle and thread through them, making neat stitches. It’ll then move the fabric to the right, stitch across, and then stitch back, and then shift the fabric over to the left, stitch across…and that’s a buttonhole! Some people like to run the attachment through again, to make the buttonhole nice and thick.

Whatever you do, make sure that the thread-tension discs are set correctly. If not, you’ll end up with snapping thread, and huge masses of loose thread on the underside of the buttonhole. That not only looks messy, but it jams the machine.

Once you’ve done one buttonhole, raise the needlebar, raise the foot-bar, shift the fabric over to the next space, and do it again!

Easy as pie.