Mizkaki

[h=2]"Bea, a dainty old gal (Davis VF, early 1880's) "[/h]
OH my, what a beauty! And at a "stolen" price, too. You done did good!
What is her serial number? It is stamped on the rear of the front slide plate.

Cathy

Charlee

Whigrose, you'd already gotten the machine when I wrote back, so see? You don't need me!

Absolutely BEAUTIFUL machine, great decals, (Miz Johnny, the bed decals are fruit) and from what I can figure out on the Yahoo Davis list database, this old girl dates back to 1881 or 82...I'm sure our Jon will be along and will correct me if I'm wrong!

Now...I didn't know Miz D, that you picked up the Foley! Where are the pictures? Did I miss them??????

Charlee

Cathy, I'm not Deb, but asked her for the info yesterday, the machine is a Waterford, serial 216818...

vintagemotif

Deb, Your machine is a beauty! And you got it at a steal!
To get the plates to slide try letting sewing machine oil seep to grooves of plate, or better yet, Tri-Flo. It may take some days for stuff to loosen up.

Here is a link to the Davis VF info: http://www.kelsew.info/Domestic/DavisVFmodels.html

Interesting where the bobbin winder is located.

Enjoy!

vintagemotif

Deb,

Would you please post a picture of you new Davis lady right hand side that is all open? I would like to see that end with the handwheel and inner guts. Thanks!

Whigrose

Sure thing. The batteries are recharging right now but will do it in a bit. I understand the 'handwheel' but not the request about the 'inner guts'. Please explain so I can get what you want. :-)

best,
d

vintagemotif

Isn't that end open? Just want to see that end.

Bennett

Wonderful! I've been going back and forth over the pictures to pick out all the details.

Mizkaki

Monica,

The end is solid, not open.

Cathy

J Miller

My wife has had two of those stands for years. Never used them. She's got a 5 thread Singer 14UXXXX Quantum jam-a-matic serger that she doesn't use that often, and it's got it's own cone mounts.
She's been using the Coats and Gutermann machine quilting thread on her quilts that come on the cardboard tubes. Those tubes just flop around on the spool pins so I've been drilling out the 3/8" dowel rod pieces for those.

Works really good. Keeps the big hole spools nice and straight.

We've also got some of the smaller cones that have a big hole on the bottom and a smaller hole on top. The thread on those is perfect for the felt bags I make but that plastic cone flops around something awful. So I made some adapters for that using the dowel rod and cut off rims of larger spools.


I order a lot of my stuff from Sew-Classic and they have spool pins for the Singers that use the tap in pin with holes in them for use when use the large cones with the stands. Well, according to their text that helps keep the tension consistent by following the same path you'd use with the standard thread spools.
But - what if your machine has a good spool pin? Sure not going to yank it out just to put one in with a hole, so I was yacking with my wife and had an epiphany. I headed down to the basement and in 10 minutes had the little adapter built. Tried it out and it works great.
I've not tried the big cones with just the stand, it's kind of like the adapter came first then I hunted up the thread to try it.

As for worrying about the strength of the thread, not at all. I've tried it in two of my Singer 66s, one electric and one treadle and it's not broken once. I also tried it in my HOTHER and it flowed through the the mechanism slick as a greased door nob. The singers have the horizontal bobbin set up which is a bit harder on the thread and it's tension, I had to adjust them both. The HOTHER has the vertical bobbin set up and it didn't need anything.

Now my wife wants me to make another one so she can use some of the bigger spools on the 319K.

Joe