Okay, found a picture that might give you an idea on the "head" part of brown Kenmore. You can see the 2 screws that I had to remove to take the entire part off.
Labeled as follows:
1. There is a "peg" from the tension dial that rolls along a flat spring (2) attached to the tensioner. This puts more or less pressure on the spring, in turn putting more or less tension on the disks in the tensioner. Yours probably works a little differently because it's a lever. I haven't pulled apart one like that before. :)
2. This is the flat spring attached to the tensioner. It kind of fits through a hole up into the machine.
3. Here you can see the back of the tensioner from the inside of the machine "head."

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Thanks! I got mine off, and the inside of mine is similar, but not the same-there's a lot more dirt and rust, for starters. :( I've got a gizmo connected to the needle bar, that also connects to a peg on the inside of the face. I've oiled the heck out of everything, and most of it is moving, so I hope that later tonight it'll be all moving and I can wipe the yuck off.

Tomorrow's project will be to free up the drive shaft, if I can. But I just realized that it has no foot. It's top-clamping, too. I already checked, and the feet from the Kenmore that started this don't fit-the clamp won't fit around the bar. Will White rotary feet fit, do you know?

Yes I found the bobbins thanks to a lady on the board who sent me to Sew Classic.
My friend has the manual and she will bring it to me to copy for you. Just pm me with your email address.
I will get it to you the first of the week when she comes to sew.

It looks like rotary feet and attachments will fit. I think the ones I have around here were all made by Greist. They just have a "fork" shape that screwed down with that cross-hatched piece on the presser bar. No side screw to lose! :)

Hi MrsBoats,

JC Penney marketed a version of the Polish 7057 back in the 1980s. My wife has one. It was her only machine between 1990 and 2006, and sewed everything around the house including the embroidered patches on our leather motorcycle vests. The fiber hook gears finally gave out in the Fall of 2006, and I replaced them with Singer gears for a Stylist Model 538. It’s still her “go to” machine when she needs a free arm, but she got a Singer 401A in the Spring of 2006, so the 7057 became “semi retired” at that time.

The 7057 is very similar to the Singer Stylist 538 that I have used almost daily at the shop since 2006 for mending jeans. I replaced a broken fiber feed gear in the 538 in 2010, but other than that, it’s been a good little workhorse for me. If you need parts for your 7057, check to see if Singer Stylist parts will fit.

CD in Oklahoma

I'll keep an eye out for a set of Greist attachments, then. I dug around in my boney pile and found a partial tin of White top-clamp attachments, and found a straight stitch foot that fits, so there's that at least. Some of the others might fit too, if the bar were cleaner. I don't care so much about things like the rufflers and tuckers (although I have some of each in top clamp) but I'd really like to find my favorite hemmer to fit! Besides the regular foot, that's the single most useful foot in this house. :)

Oh wow! Cool to find a 'sister' machine, with a rival's logo on it! And I thought it looked like a Singer when I first saw it. I had to read the label to see that it wasn't a Stylist. Nice to know it's a sturdy little machine! I hate to pass it on to someone and have it crap out on them.

Question: What/where is the "fiber feed gear"? That's not a term I'm familiar with.

Well, keep in mind that the gears in it may all be original, and therefore subject to deterioration like most of the machines of this type. Most of the gears in these machines are made of fiber, and gear breakage is common. Some folks call them “plastic gears” and others call them “Nylon Gears”. I’m not sure what material it is, but it’s not metal. It may get a broken gear tomorrow, so I’m certainly not saying that it won’t crap out the first time it’s used. I was just saying that replacement gears for your 7057 may be available from the Singer Stylist line of parts.


The feed gears drive the feed dogs. The feed gears in my Singer 538 and JC Penney 7057 are made of fiber.

CD in Oklahoma

Are old Kenmore machines worth buying?

As much as any other, I would think. The ones I've seen tend to be sturdy old machines. I don't know when, if ever, Sears quit selling sewing machines, so I don't know about more modern ones.