tessagin

Great idea!!

J Miller

I do make custom bags, drawstring and other closure types as well. Got it down to a science, but for my foot controllers I figured out how to use one 9"x11" piece of felt and a length of Velcro to make it. Nice and soft and you can color coordinate them to your machines.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]530505[/ATTACH]
Pouch

[ATTACH=CONFIG]530506[/ATTACH]
Velcro closure

[ATTACH=CONFIG]530507[/ATTACH]
Side view


I like working with felt.

Joe

sewbeadit

Great ideas for the foot pedals. I had a lot of small fleece scraps that I made my bags out of, I just make the square bag with no closure big enough to fold it over and lay it on the bed. Fast three seems and the fleece is thick enough and soft to protect from jarring bumps. We are all so clever. I recommend these all the time to people so they don't mar the machines.

miriam

Just about anything will keep from marring the machine. It depends on if you want to make a career out of protecting the machines by making bags. I like the idea of using the left overs from a T-shirt quilt for making a pedal wrap - just use more width from the back to pad under it. There really is no need to sew these or use a closer. The T-shirt is stretchy enough to hug the pedal and will keep it held in. The wrap around the arm with that wad of fabric under is good padding and the weight of the pedal it holds it in place pretty nice. I didn't stuff the cord in there but it could be done, too.

I do have some kind of padded fake leather all ready cut out so all I have to do is fold it in half and sew. I have enough to do 22 of them. The rest will get either a cut off jeans leg or a cut up T-shirt. I'm thinking most of the machines I've had a while have a cover - this is for the new kids.

annievee

Clever idea-plenty of use for old t-shirts !

Gray fox

Joe, your lovely Free says 'long bobbin rotary' on the arm, and I'm wondering just what that means. It looks, by the sliding plates, like a normal vibrating shuttle machine.

I like the idea of the booties for controllers. That goes on my to-do list.

Dianne in Colorado

miriam

one of the best foot controller covers I made was made from a stretch jeans leg. Just cut to length and sew the cut edge. I might have even French seamed that one.

J Miller

Dianne,

The machine does use a long bobbin and it is a VS. It's the way the shuttle carrier is driven that is the rotary part.

All my VS machines are still in IL so I can't take pics for you, so I'll try to describe the differences.

On normal VS machines the shuttle is driven by a shaft that swings on a pivot point under the machine. That is also driven by a pivoting bar in the pillar. There are variations of that but that's basically it.

On the Free Long Bobbin Rotary, the shaft in the pillar moves vertically like the crankshaft in your car engine. That converts to a rotary motion under the bed below the pillar driving a horizontal shaft. This shaft has an angled section about 3/4 of the way to the left. As the horizontal shaft rotates the angled section drives the bar that swings the bobbin carrier back and forth.

When I get my VS machines here I'll start a thread with pics on how each drive the bobbin carrier. There are pics out there, but I just don't have any suitable to post here.

Joe

ThayerRags

Is this Free Westinghouse drive the same as your machine, Joe?

CD in Oklahoma

Gray fox

Joe and CD, thank you for your comments. It seems that CD's Free-Westinghouse might match your description, Joe. Then again, it could be different, if I'm seeing things differently from the way you are describing them.

I pulled out a machine badged 'Aviator', to examine it's workings. It is likely a Free, a model L, as best I could determine, and totally different mechanically. I'm going to start taking photos of the undersides of my machines, as time allows; the different ways of solving the same problem are fascinating. It should be interesting to compare the different models and makers we have between us once you are able to get to yours, Joe.

Dianne in Colorado