Donna, Thankyou for your response. when I went to Singer co. it showed up as made 10/5/1910 and that 30,000 were made.the factory was in Elizabethport N.J. I'll look into your website next. Jan

Janis, I would like your link too.

I will try to send a picture when I can. Jan

the link I used was singer co.com

If anyone's interested, there's a 1952 Singer 301 short bed, tan, for sale in my area. It's listed on a blog, but the blog belongs to a lady in my guild. She and her husband collect Singers and show them. The machine is pristine, has all attachments in an original box, and has a cradle avail. too. She's asking $280 US but that includes shipping. Here's the site:
http://sewingmachineswantinganewhome...-na206128.html
Teresa/Ontario

I have seen someone convert a 201 with potted motor to a HC. Some can be and some can't. I believe it would need a bobbin winder from a donor machine.
It would be hard to replace the motor if that's the problem with it. You would have to find one from another machine as they are no longer made.[/quote]
Grins, you're talking way over my head. I'm still crawling, not walking yet with the abbreviations? HC ? What does that mean? Pictures help... I understand part of it. I will probably feel really stupid when I find out what HC means. Grin, I can take it ! Thank you for the info.

You are coming to Maine? What part do you go to? You should be here now.... we have some fantastic white stuff we would love to share with the rest of the USA!!

I've got some work ahead of me. My new-to-me 15-91 came home today. Do you know, I had to show the shop owner how to drop the feed dogs on the thing, she didn't think it could! I knew better, 'cause of this thread! She was amazed. In turn, she was very careful to show ME that the oscallating bobbin was fussy about when you pulled thread.

Her tip for the 15's: always always bring the needle take up lever/needle to the highest position, and bring the pressure foot up to the highest position FIRST before attempting to remove the work, pull on the threads or anything. It's fussy. And it will jam if you don't do this.

Anyway... I wiped down the outside of the cabinet with Industro clean (I'm stripping it tomorrow)... the rag came away BROWN with tar/old varnish. There's water damage to the top, some slight cracking of veneer.

The machine itself is dull, coated with nasty tar stuff. I'm going to dismantle the thing using Billly's tute, just to clean all the surfaces and such.

That cabinet though... I can strip the varnish off the legs, sides, and all the surfaces of the tops.... but its raw wood on the inner box, the inner pull out drawer, and the bent wood machine modesty panel. NOT varnish. So the smoke has got to the raw wood on those areas. So hum... Can I brush stripper onto the raw wood surfaces to remove the old nicotine? Then maybe coat all the inner/raw wood areas with Zinnzer primer to seal it? Stain, varnish and poly the outsides like normal.

Anybody have any advice on this? Any refinishers on here/ Baking soda and water will take out surface smells, but not remove the smoke and tar. I wish I wasn't so allergic to the stuff.

Maybe I should just good will the cabinet, and find another one... ???

Ok. I must have gotten a number wrong or something... I used

http://www.singerco.com/support/serial_numbers.html

I slept 2 hours last nite.. I surely could have made a mistake! Sorry about that