Originally Posted by
miriam
Some of those old Japanese machines turn better than the old Singers. Singer had a better reputation at the time. I think there was a lot of prejudice against Japan because of the war. Any you might look to see if any of your Singer machines were made in Japan.
Singer made a 223 in Japan. It is a very nice machine there are clones of it, too.
After working on several Japanese machines marked made in occupied Japan and after working on MANY made in Japan machines, I think I now know. The made in occupied Japan machines were well enough made but very poorly adjusted. There is one I just want to throw out a window since I doubt if a sledge hammer would faze it. The next was a Singer 66 clone. It works great now that I adjusted a few things. The one I worked on last week is a 15 clone and it, too needed more adjustment than usual and now works just fine. I wonder how much word of mouth went around that those machines were junk. They kind of were. I think it might have depended on if someone took time to check it over thoroughly. I can remember even in the 60s a prejudice against Japanese machines. if you compare many of these machines they are made better than a contemporary Singer. The European machines are well made but more complicated, harder to maintain and adjust. Then getting into plastics, I start to lose interest. I think some of the Japanese machines are overly gaudy and overly control happy but that IS a big part of their charm.