ArchaicArcane

She's home. I "bargained" to $80, and she came home with me.
I looked at the machine "in the dark". Her front hallway light had burned out this morning. I made sure that there was a shuttle and a bobbin. There's a needle too, but I need to find out what type it takes.

At first the needle went up and down a little, but then stopped. The handwheel turned reluctantly, but turned. Then I found the little metal piece that engaged the "clutch" and the needle went up and down. Whew! She needs a heck of a good cleaning, and possibly a date with a hairdryer to loosen some of the old oil up to get it moving.


Here's her "just got home, hasn't been cleaned up" photo:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]351885[/ATTACH]

I also found out there may be a chance that there's a treadle base that goes with this.

Here's the story. Her mom used it til she got an electric machine. She has a treadle base in the garage, she's not sure what it goes to, but it doesn't have a machine in it. I sent her an email when I got home and spotted the 2 drilled holes hidden in the wooden base.

w7sue

I hope your good fortune rubs off on me ... I saw a Morse at an estate sale today and didn't buy it ... I emailed them and asked if they still had it ... I haven't heard from them yet ... I may have to go back over there tomorrow to see if it's still there ... the sale is less than 10 miles away and if it's there it will be mine and it will have been worth the trip. Wish me luck!

ArchaicArcane

Good luck!! I hope you do, and of course, pics will be appreciated.

In other news, yes, I'm still up, I decided to oil the machine, and see if that freed it up a bit. It did. It hasn't been cleaned yet, because it threw a curve ball at me. (That's what I get for looking at it in the dark)

I was moving the hand wheel as I was oiling it, and realised "Hey! Those dogs aren't moving!"
The DH was encouraging as ever - "I'm sure it's just something disengaged, it will be something simple"

LOL! Then he went to bed. Well, I'm a little compulsive. I had to know if I'd gotten a dudder.
Investigating further, I figured out that the horizontal shaft was turning (hence the needle going up and down), but the vertical wasn't. Uh oh. New territory for me, and not even on a Singer, so little to no reference materials.

I tried to take the hand wheel off, that was a no go. I pulled the inspection plate on the front, above the logo plate, and found that there were set screws under it, but they didn't line up with the holes.

I have a confession to make. I sat there thinking, how the heck do you get in here,... scratching my head. Probably a good 10 mins I spent that way. Then I put my hand on the back of the pillar in just the right way, and realised there was a screw there. Turned it around, and found 2 screws, and the whole back comes off! (missing -that- is a sign you need to go to sleep and tackle it in the morning. )

You'll never guess what I found....

I'll post the pic in the morning.

nitza

Not fair! I hate cliff hangers (LOL)

Caroline S

Yeah, me too! I see Archaic was up at 2:44am. She is likely sleeping in this morning.

Tartan

Get back in there and tell us what you found! We're hanging by our fingernails!

ArchaicArcane

Yes, that was brattish of me,.. sorry.

Well, I finally stopped at 5am, when I figured out I needed to time the machine, and my brain wasn't functioning well enough to figure out how to do it anymore.

This is what was hiding behind the back plate (that's only old nasty grease on the shaft and top of the gear.):

[ATTACH=CONFIG]351956[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]351957[/ATTACH]

I'm reasonably sure that if we'd realised that the feed dogs weren't moving, we would have taken it anyway. I was just glad to see that I could fix it.

Awake now, with my 6 hours sleep, I think this is why my timing is off. I didn't try to mesh the gear in a particular place I just slid it to the left. It's either that or the "pendulum" piece under the face plate that fell off in my hands when I removed the plate to oil under it.