Originally Posted by buslady
My featherweight box has a very musty smell, as well. How do you get rid of that smell?
Here are several things you can do:
1. Open the case up, remove the machine and give it a good wipe down with a disinfectant like lysol spray. Dry it out and let it sit for a few days before returning machine. In the meantime check to see if the machine has acquired the odor, if it has then you will need to change the inside felt oil drip pad to a new one (find these online easily).
2. If the above does not work, the next steps are to pack the case full of newspaper and place in a hot car trunk for about a week, I have often changed the paper inside every other day when the odor is bad. Since it is not summer, an alternative is hanging one of those work lights inside and letting the heat kill off the micro organisms, however the newspaper ng works well even with out the car trunk, just takes longer if it doesn't get hot.
3. To keep the odor from returning place a new box of opened safeguard (ONLY) soap in the box inside the case and close up the case with deodorized machine, and it will keep the case from getting that awful smell. There are other things to do, but these are the easiest and usually one or a combo of several will do the job. I have probably owned over a hundred featherweights over the years (I sell them)and about half of them had to be de-odorized. :)