Originally Posted by
mom-6
I have been working on refurbishing an old machine that was totally frozen up with rust.
Did you discover what part was rusted? I bought a Singer 66 (1924) that was rusted, and was just thinking that perhaps there's a common problem area (that is, maybe there's a part that rusts first). Took me about 30 minutes to find it: The needlebar was rusted on to the mounting (the bottom one).
I used WD40 on mine, after reading about it (can't recall where: May have been on Muv's youtube video). CSoak it, leave it, free it up, dry it off and follow up with oil (or tri-flow). Worked very very well. If I'd suspected the needlebar first of all, it would have saved about 20 minutes.