oh sweet memories!!!!!---that looks just like the machine my mom made most of the clothes my sister and I wore with---even the cabinet looks the same---I remember her trying to teach to use it but I could not treadle right and the machine would go backwards and I was removed promptly---I now have a Feather Weight--a Pfaff 2046--a Brother serger and an old Brother cam machine from the early 60's

go ahead and take off teh face plate, nothing will get lost or fall out,, once you have that off,, you'll see what they talk about . I did find a site that gave a every detail on doing this , Buuut can't find that now... the needle bar, presser bar, the whole 9 yards will come off with that plate...

The first few times will be a bit tricky in putting it back on,, after that you'll do this without blinking an eye

The only thing that gave me any trouble when taking off the entire "face" part was the flat tensioner. It has a little arm that goes inside the "face" that is held in place by the tension dial, and the rest stays outside. It fell off (eekk moment) when I undid the tension dial and before I realized how it was put together, so I had to fiddle with it a bit to get it back on. Nothing too major if you like to pull things apart and put them back together! :) While I tend to favor my Singers, White had a pretty neat set up to get to the needle bar, presser bar, and tensioner.

To get it out of the cabinet, there should be a couple of hinges in the back, just like a Singer. However, there's also a button or small lever on the front of the machine bed in front of the pillar. This will disengage it from the cabinet so that you can push it up and back and look at the bottom of the machine. Then you can undo the set screws from the hinges on the bottom back of the machine. (If I remember correctly!) Hope this helps.

Also, notsureif is right in that the hand wheel wasn't made to come off and you'd need a gear puller. Never could figure out why I couldn't just pull it off until I saw the tutorial at Treadle On.

Found a pic of the "head" part taken off my embossed FR from a while back.

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The 2 large screws are what held it onto the machine. The green #3 points to the backside of the tensioner, but it is also very close to the "knob" part that connects to an "arm" on the machine side. It moves, but that's all you have to connect if you don't take any other parts off the "head" part. I have taken off more parts on the "head," like the presser spring, tensioner, so on, but it may not be necessary if they haven't been gunked to death. Like I said, pretty handy way to get to everything. (The #1 and #2 were showing how the tensioner and tension dial connected.)

Do you know of anyone who has the White Rotary with the crinkle finish? I have one that I got for free today and it is DIRTY...just wondering what it's supposed to look like under all the grime....

Barb

Barb, here is a pic of my crinkle finish WFR. The finish itself isn't great, and the wear on the bed ranges from crinkle to smooth black, to bare metal! Anyway, this is just after I cleaned it up. (Soap and water, a soft tooth brush--be careful, I did take off some rough "crinkle" in spots--and then some Liquid Gold to finish. Metal shiny parts were probably cleaned with Bar Keeper's Friend and then polished.) I don't know if this is the best way to clean a crinkle finish though, just the way I did it.

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