Originally Posted by Nanamoms
Originally Posted by BoJangles
Do you think it runs at all? I've never done a restoration! I'm a little afraid to tackle it. Love the decals!
The ONLY way to learn to do a restoration is to get an old cruddy machine and restore it. The first one I successfully restored was one I rescued from the garbage. I had NOTHING to lose. It took me over a year to get it right. I had oh so much to learn. Now I have this site, service manuals, places to go for parts. On occasion, my wonderful sister comes to visit - she doesn't know any more than I do but she has two hands to help, she reads the manual out loud to me as I go and gives a lot of encouragement. I always save some crazy project for when she is around - makes her feel good and she learns stuff and we have a lot of fun. I have two more really big projects to tackle. I would love to have another person around to help... One project is to combine two junk Elna machines and get one working. One machine is in real nice cosmetic shape - needs a gear under the shuttle. The other Elna has seen better days and someone storing it in a chicken coop or something didn't help it at all. The other project is to change out the stitch selector shaft on a Singer 401 with the Singer 500 donor machine and hope they are the same size.
WARNING: Don't fix a sewing machine around young boys... BTDT 20 years ago. I have an Elna that will never be the same - strictly for parts forever - expensive parts missing. NOTICE: at the top I said the words 'successfully restored' - my beloved Elna was a failure - 20 years ago. So I failed. I tried. I have most of the parts. There is so much info on here - if you try it and get stuck ASK!!!
I found real fine electricians screwdrivers and other thin and narrow screw drivers. I rigged up a screw driver tip and a very small box end wrench to get into the stuff at a tight angle. Big clunky tools don't fit the slots on sewing machine screws. I keep magnets and a muffin tin handy and put things in there in the order they come off. I photo copy the page from the repair manual so I can write and draw on it. When I am done I might make notes on the actual manual in case I do it again in 20 years.