Originally Posted by miriam

My sister came up to visit a few days. This afternoon, we worked on an old Singer 411 I bought last fall. I had worked on her a little and gave up. The needle was hitting the foot - took off the foot and it hit behind the hole - took off the plate and it was hitting the shuttle. So we thought maybe the needle bar was bent. I have an old Singer 500 that is good only for parts - the parts do interchange. SO we did a needle bar transplant. We took the one off the 500 VERY carefully and then took the needle bar off the 411 - identical! We put the 500's needle bar on the 411. Then we stuck the bent one on the poor old tired 500. (NOTE: We could not see that it was bent until we had it out of the machine.) Then we had to time the machine. I have had to do it on a Consew walking foot every time the thread winds around the shaft so I tackled that with my sister observing every move I made. We did a high five when we got the thread to feed. Then the thread was hanging up on something so we started checking for burrs. We took the bobbin case out (again) and felt around the shuttle and sure enough there was a burr where the needle had been hitting because it was out of sync with the shuttle. Got it polished up and she runs!!! It took us about an hour and a half to get it all done. Imagine the bill from the shop??? We named her Gertrude - Gertie for short - I would ssssssoooooooo love to turn her into a treadle - some of those were made as treadles in Germany - Gertie would need a new balance wheel though. Her previous owner abused her - bent needle bar, broken cabinet where the hinges go, missing spool holders. Poor thing. In spite of all the abuse, Gertie's motor purrs & she makes a great stitch. She came with some parts that are suppose to make a chain stitch. I will have to try that out some time.