I have inherited several sewing baskets from friends(great auntie's and cousin's left over sewing stuff no one wanted after homes were cleaned out. "she sews give to her") and all of them have feet from unknown sewmachines. NICE feet, hemmers, 1/4" feet, cording feet... They have the same bar accross the foot that looks like my Kenmore would accept. I know one was from a Viking I found bobbins in the same box. I am just too chicken to try and destroy my machine. I have never used another machines parts on my machine. Am I safe to try them?

There's a 22 page discussion of this on PatternReview.com: http://sewing.patternreview.com/Sewi...ns/topic/38328

try fitting one on your machine- then carefully (by hand) lower the needle and see if it is going to hit the foot or not- some are interchangeble - some are not- but the basic differences are some machines are low-shank- some are high shank===and some the needle will hit and break-some will work- you will only find out if you try them- but don't just put one on and try to sew---put one on and turn the wheel by hand to lower the needle & see if it works without hitting the foot- if it does you are good to go as long as they attach securely

Most are NOT interchangable.....call your local dealer and ask before trying.

If the feet are from the same manufacturer, I might try but I'd be too worried about busting something on my own machine.

I have bought generic feet before. I will do as ckcowl said. Just take it slow and see what happens.

most brother and babylock feet are interchangable.

Many feet are inter-changeable It depends mostly on the shank (high, low, slant) and how the feet attach--most of my machines take the snap on feet and are low shank--Elna, Singer & Euro-Pro. If the foot looks like it will work--I would do as ckcowl suggested and put it on and then manually turn the wheel to see if the needle hits or the feed dogs bind up on it. That is the only problem I have with swapping my feet among machines.

I've used my Brother walking foot on both Janome and vintage Singer. I've also used a Singer FM foot on all three and bunch of the other feet. Bernina and Vikings are usually not interchangable with other machines or each other.