MrsBoats

I met the guy from CL today, to check out his grandmother's Featherweight. It's in really good shape, and after I pulled a pound of lint from her feed dogs and unwound the mess around her bobbin, she purrs nicely (especially with a big drink of oil!) and miraculously, the case smells of...nothing. Apparently it's been in Grandma's closet for the last 20 or 25 years. She died this past spring, and now they're breaking up her household. (The guy's house was chock *full* of gorgeous antiques from his grandmother!) I meant to ask what her name was, but will when I email him this evening.

It came with stuff-a zipper foot, the lint brush, three screw drivers, needles marked "Made in Belgium" and "Made in Japan", the manual, a couple of bobbins. Her serial number is AF882620, which makes her birthday April 1941 according to the chart I found.

I have some questions. I'd like to do most or all of the cleanup myself, but don't want to do damage. Is the tension on this something I can take off to polish and put back on myself, without cussing like a sailor and wishing I'd let someone else do it? Also, in the third picture down--after I cleaned her up gently--you can very clearly see the edge of something on the surface, in the center, and I can feel it. Is that the finish, and I should leave it alone, or is that more of the (I'm assuming) tar that was on the face plate, and I should work on getting it off?

Anybody got a good source for the feet that go on the base of the machine? One has been sat in something that completely ate the rubber. Also, I need a new handle for the case, if such a thing exits. The current one is being held on by about a mile of 30 year old masking tape, and I can see it fraying on the weight-bearing end.

On to the more important part-pictures!

eta: Dunno why their out of the order I posted them in, but they are. 1, 2, 6 &7 are befores; 3 is after her bath.