Friar_Tuck

Sometimes I just have to step back and wonder, "What is the story behind this?"
I enjoy the white 534 I picked up a while back so much that I had to pick up another. I got it set up and after a while working out the tensions, it ran like a champ, except for a random clatter up in the top part of the machine. I tore into it and got the whole bottom end cleaned and oiled, and looked around as well as I could in the top without really getting into major tear down mode, and couldn't see a thing. Then I noticed something loose up there when I rotated the machine. I finally ended up shaking it until a needle fell out. How in the world does someone get a needle up in the top of the machine? At least now it sounds so much better, and I can use it without worrying what was up there, and when it would migrate to a spot that would jam things up.
Jim

Cari-in-Oly

Kids and/or critters can usually take the blame for the random stuff that comes out of machines lol.

Cari

leonf

I once pulled three toys out of a multi-line commercial telephone.

tranum

We had trouble with a toilet in a rented house many years ago. Plumber fished out a kids toothbrush.

Battle Axe

An interesting story. I've always wanted an old Pfaff. So I see one on Facebook Marketplace (do check that out). I spend an hour on the road and that's asking a lot of an old lady who does not drive well anymore. Cop on my tail as I arrived.

It is a Pfaff 229 in a nice cabinet. So I asked how he came up with this. He said I probably shouldn't tell you, but I will. This belonged to a close neighbor and her husband. They were getting up close to their 90's and beginning with dementia. The kids were grown and gone. So the same thing as poor Pam Bono; the husband shot her and then himself.

The kids wanted nothing and auctioned it all off. When we turned it on the light bulb began to smoke, so I shut it off and it appears that it was trying to melt. This has sat somewhere unused since Feb. of this year. I took the machine and left it with a repair man.

Sadly, in the door of the cabinet was a little baggie of labels with her name.

KLKing

Hi! I am new here, and this is my first post!
Jim, I must share my own story. When I was 8 years old, in 1967, my parents bought me my first real sewing machine. It was a turquoise blue White straight stitch machine. Although I don't know the model number, It looked very much like some of the photos I have seen in these forum threads. I never could really get the tension right. It would work for a while, then jam up in a rat's nest under the feed dog. I'd fiddle with it and get it to work for a while. So ultimately I would use my Mother's Necchi- a wedding gift in 1955. She still owns that lovely zig-zag machine. To get me away from hers when she was trying to sew , was the reason they bought me the White.
The funny thing is this: My grandparents were there visiting when Dad brought it home. He said: "What a nice toy". Grandma replied, "That's not a toy, Irving!" So was the start of future sewing career!

cathyvv

My best guess was kids, too.

NZquilter

My Singer 201-2 has the name 'Pat' scratched into it in big wobbly letters. I wonder how much trouble the poor kid got into once his mom/grandma saw what he had done!