Leather Patcher, Politype No 1
 

My Wife recently acquired her Grandfather's leather sewing machine, a Politype No 1. I stumbled on this forum because one of your members (SteveH ?) is currently restoring one of these machines. Over the past few years I have been restoring old woodworking equipement that I use in my hobby shop.

Now I'm tackling the restoration of this Politype. (all pictures before I worked on it)

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The machine has been sitting in several different barns over the years, also moving from state to state. However, it seem fairly complete with no broken parts.

I have already finished the cast base. Note the treadle says "Politype" and so does the middle support of the base.

The guard over the hand crank says "Politype No. 1" and at the bottom of the guard says "James New York".

I have also freed up the mechanism, lots of PB Blaster and some WD40.

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Taking this completely apart to clean it up will be a challenge.

It is missing the drive belt and a needle. That's where I could use some guidance. I really don't know whether it takes a square belt or round, 1/4 inch or 5/16 inch. I do know it needs to be around 56 inches.

I would appreciate comments and suggestions as I really know very little about sewing machines,

Don

I know very little about these. I wish I knew more. There was some kind of restored patcher on Craig's List in Indianapolis last week for about $3000 more or less. That one had a manual. The guy has a phone number - try calling.

replied to in PM. Amazing fortunate that it is a family machine!!!

here are a couple of immediate things i see that are different...

Bobbin winder on mine in the UP position
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Down
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The Stitch Length adjustment handle
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Why it is in that orientation
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round, either thickness will work, mine is 1/4 - note the photocopy of original manual on the lower bed...

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Welcome aboard Don! Very nice machine and it's nice to see it's stayed in your family all these years.
Rodney

SteveH,

The stitch length adjusting lever on mine should be in the down position, so I changed it. The little stitch length pointer on mine is broken off. I suspect I can make a replacement.

I'll check out the bobbin winder and see what's up with mine.

BTW - A U.S. patent was issued to E. James for the Politype on May 3rd, 1887. The patent was issued for "automatic tension" and "automatic bobbin winder".

Thanks for the comments,

I finished the base for my machine. Here are a couple of pics.

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The treadle on my Politype is a bit different from the one that SteveH has. Here is a pic of that.

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Mine does NOT have the U.S. distributor cast in (Emily James of New York). The area where that would be is just blank.

The little drawer that came with my machine is certainly NOT original. In fact, looking inside the drawer there is printing where it's obvious someone made the drawer from wood that came from a vegetable crate.

OK - that was the easy part, now onto the sewing machine restoration. But first, I'm going to order the belt kit.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]519124[/ATTACH]I'm new to this message board and am trying to revive this thread (pun intended) to get some info. I recently found this beauty on craigslist. You are seeing the refurbished version. Unfortunately I can't find what type of needle system this uses despite my best efforts. The machine is otherwise complete, I've had it completely apart and is smoothly running.
BTW are there any bobbins that will fit this? Has anyone tried bobbins for a singer 29 or one of those Chinese modern knockoffs? This is the first machine I've refurbished and would love to get it sewing. Any advice is much appreciated! Next I'll fix up the treadle base if I can get this sewing