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.