I told my DH that I'd like a treadle for our 25th anniversary and we were wondering where it is possible to find replacement belts for them.

Any tips about buying such a machine except to make sure the bobbin mechanism is all there?

Ebay, sewing machine repair shops, vintage sewing machine shops... many places carry them and they are not expensive.

Most shops that sell or repair sewing machines can order you one if they don't already have them on hand.

I use a leather shoelace on one of mine and fishtank plastic tubing on the other. You can use panty hose as well. :)

What dunster said...also:

In a pinch, I've used a leather bootlace and paperclip! ;)

If you don't want to have to search for needles, stick with the machines from this list that take the 15x1 needles!

http://www.ismacs.net/needle_and_sha...eedle-list.pdf

Thank you all. I'm in Poland, so while I can find things, it is a bit harder than in the US. I also was wondering if we do have trouble finding a real belt, if we could use something else and you answered me, so thanks!

I am coming to the states in Sept, though, so I can stock up on anything I have trouble finding over here. I am glad to know there are options.

I never thought about the fact that they might take different needles.

Since parts maybe hard to come by and you want to use it I would stick with something that you can use modern parts and needles
Singers are a good option. I have both the singer 15 and 66 and that is all I use to make quilts with

Sounds good. Thanks for the advice. This is what I'm looking for since we can use allegro.pl and find quite a few antique sewing machines but on a lot of them people do not claim to know if they are working. (it's an auction site like ebay but it's big in Poland)