miriam

This might be a better link for the pin rash:
http://www.quiltingboard.com/vintage...193635-32.html
scroll a page back and you can see the pin rash pic...

Scakes

Interesting reading. I love older machines.

miriam

Ok I covered over the pin rash...
[ATTACH=CONFIG]501141[/ATTACH]

J Miller

Miriam,

You should have covered the pin rash with some medical gauze bandages. It think that would have been more appropriate.

Joe

miriam

Now now - no gauze bandages for that machine. I thought of lace but it has the attitude that it is going to get going - not go down with a little old rash... Oh and lace - not that old lady - she is a get'er done type machine. She doesn't even grumble.

beadywoman

Although I don't own an antique sewing machine, I sure would love to one day. I've looked and looked online, especially at the Red Eye models and marveled at some of them that have nearly flawless finishes and decals. But I just realized, while reading this post, just how sad a flawless finish is on one of these beauties. It's like dust on a Bible - how sad that it never got used. So if I ever do purchase one of the older Singers, I think that the signs of use will make me think of the person who owned it before me, and I will wonder what she made and who or what she thought of while she was sewing.

Mrs. SewNSew

There is something very bonding about cleaning up a dirty machine and getting it up and running again. I have so much love for the ones I've worked the hardest on. I always think about who owned the machine and wonder over the scraps of colored fabric lint and bits of thread caught in the works. It's so fun for me to think the previous owner can see how much love and care I am giving to their machine knowing from the well used look of the thing that it was loved.

miriam

I don't know if anybody other than me reads these threads after the first day but here goes....
I got a machine Friday that looked terrible. I want to distinguish between a sewing machine Grandma beat to death by using it a lot and a sewing machine that someone abused. The Singer 301 I got Friday was coated in gunk inside - I don't know who serviced that one. The needle bar is frozen. The motor barely turns and I mean outside the machine. The tension has a bit of rust and muck deep inside. The bobbin case is AWOL. There is a generous coating of dried oil on the part of the needle bar I CAN see - same on the presser foot bar. The wires are tangled and musty. The bed of the machine looks pretty good - dirty though. There isn't any pin rash. But it looks like a lot of paint was scraped off at some point - probably the machine was tossed into a donation box or fell off the back of a truck. The hand wheel has nicks where someone tried to force it. Those things are not signs of the well used slick running machines I'm thinking about. A beat to death by a loving grandma machine has pin rash all over & the decals are worn off by fabric going through it. In other words not all old machines qualify as a machine Grandma beat nearly to death...

ThayerRags

I think my Singer 66 Red Eye qualifies for the “Grandma nearly beat it death” category. It appears to have what I call “honest damage” or “damage from use” instead of abuse. It had also suffered from neglect when I got it, but someone had used the machine before that, and probably used it a lot.

It was a Singer 66-1 when I got it. The cabinet hinges were still clamped into it, and there was no sign of it ever having a motor mounted on it (no clean spot on the boss). I would say that it was a treadle machine before I got it, and I doubt that it ever had a motor on it during its life. The face plate and slide plate were both missing and I have replaced them. The upper tension parts were all missing except the center shaft, so I replaced the entire tension assembly. Parts came from a donor machine. I cleaned it with sewing machine oil and mounted an early Chinese hand crank (back when they were plain black without gold decorations) on it, turning it into a 66-3, and put it into an ugly plastic portable case that it still lives in today. I have to remove the crank to put the lid on. I have a thick vinyl bag that I put the crank into and place on the bed lashed to the arm for storage.

The arm has lots of pin rash, the bed has plenty of wear from use, and the decals are nearly all silvered from years of cleaning, but it turns like butter and sews like a champ.

CD in Oklahoma

miriam

CD - EXACTLY what I'm thinking. I usually get so excited I forget to do before pics...