Originally Posted by
grant15clone
Manicmike, I have to say, that is a pretty machine.
Sorry for the absence, trying to catch up on threads here. A Yahoo update has screwed up everything.
I would like to mention something that came to my attention recently. A woman asked her local SMG if he would work on her vintage machines. A 66 and a 201-2. He said that they were too old, and declined to take them in for maintenance. She found me (I think from QB) and I did the necessary work for her. She couldn't find anyone local to work on them. She drove 1.5 hours each way to drop them off and pick them up so, six hours drive time total. I have to admit, I felt bad about the drive time she had.
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~G~
Still catching up from when I was out of town. I just have to point out that you should not feel bad about that drive time.
Guess how far it is for most people to the nearest warranty service place for new Singers! I will spare you the details about why I know this, but I'm one of the luckier owners in that regard, only an hour from me. There are 3 in Texas. One on the opposite side of Houston from me, on in Dallas (but, wouldn't you know, at least an hour from my son's house). The other is in El Paso, which is hundreds of miles from almost everywhere else in TX, though it may be convenient to parts of NM. Out of curiosity, I looked up the warranty centers in Illinois just now, and there are 3 - all in the northern part of the state. Most people, to get warranty service, have to box and ship their machines, which is not cheap, and who's willing to bet these delicate items will survive the trip home after they're repaired! Yes, of course, insurance - but what a hassle! Your repair customer probably is (or should be) thankful to have found you within driving distance.
We're like a fair size town on QB, where everyone has sewing machines, and half a century ago that was the way things were almost everywhere in the developed world. But these days, they're not nearly as common, and not nearly as many people are looking for someone to fix a sewing machine. There just aren't enough of us to sustain the number of repair businesses that there used to be, so they're few and far between. This is not to say that the demand will die out any time soon, just that the ratio in the general population is way, way down.