Miriam, I love the idea of a hand crank. My friend found a very sad, beat up version of this machine for me about six months ago, and that's what I did with it, but the bolt holding the hand crank gets loose after about a minute of sewing. Do I need a new bolt? BTW - I can't convince my 80 year old mom that hand cranks are manageable. I try to tell her that there's not as much pulling as she thinks there would be since my theory says that powerful motors actually pull the fabric off center just because of their power.