miriam

Some of you may remember that I got 50+ junk machines a while back. So where do they go??? How do I determine if it will be repaired or parted out to rescue another machine??? Wilbur, Miss L and Miss M with the adult supervision of my sister and I looked over some bad looking machines a while back. The machines were not moving but that isn't anything we can't tackle with Kroil or Tri-flow and Evap-O-Rust and have mixed results. OK so the Fashion Mate Miss L and Miss M were working on with my sister decided to turn. Yippie - but where is the cord??? The cords were cut instead of pulled out??? I guess the Amish guy didn't think they needed electricity to work. Then they worked on a frozen up Brother with a few missing parts. (Wilbur was mad because the girls worked on the Brother - he thought it was a boy machine and he should work on it.) Since it is missing a few parts & it is an eyesore & they only got it to slightly move - I have pulled a few parts off it and saved a few machines that I would have had to buy parts on line - definitely a parts machine now and I'm ok with that.

For Wilbur, I pulled up an older Kenmore (158) to oil. He pointed at the Kenmore name and whispered, "Grandma, that isn't a Singer." He did read the name and was mad that it wasn't a Brother. Then he was more than a little freaked out when I had him liberally oil the machine because usually he gets told one drop. One drop - WILBUR! One. Drop. This time we put a lot of sewing machine oil on it. He was shocked. So I taught him the difference between rust and dried oil. They are after all about the same color. The dried oil is somewhat sticky if you touch it - with a solvent it will dissolve but Wilbur will have to wait until he is older for that treatment. Rust has a different texture and rust dissolves or what ever rust does in Evap-o-rust or your favorite rust treatment. Some times the sewing machine oil will make the rust more or less sort of run off or make it easier to clean off. For me, usually the offending parts just get removed and soaked over night by my kitchen sink so I don't forget they are soaking. Then the next day I rinse them off real good with soap and water and dry real good. Then if they need wire brush work I do that. BUT not with WILBUR around so we just oiled it and I'll clean it off later. Wilbur's Kenmore has paint flaking off the top front - yuck. It looks beat up like it fell off the wagon, too. Oh well - maybe it will sew. We oiled it. Well Wilbur REALLY oiled it. Low and behold it turns freely - he thought he worked magic!!! Great!!! So we started to try to turn the dials. OK stitch length and reverse works WOW! Zig zag dial turns but not all the way... OUCH... So for looking inside Wilbur was armed with a flash light - he loves my flash light. He found rusted up stamped metal keeping the dial from moving all the way. We oiled it and put it in time out. I doubt if oiling will do it - maybe I'll do some dremel work some time to get the parts to move - jury is still out on that one - those parts would be hard to get back together once pulled out. The tension and the bobbin area are ok - just the rusted zig zag thingy... Keep for later work.

The next day my sister and I peaked inside the garage at junk machines. Rust. Missing parts. MISSING or CUT CORDS. Broken gears. It was going to be a lot of work to get them working. So we parted two of them out. I have a hunch we will part more machines out in the future. The 'body' of one we parted out went in Mom's garden. I'm thinking I want the other one in my front yard... As long as the scrappers leave it alone I'll be happy with that.

So what makes a parts machine. I know there are people who dis-assemble a machine, clean it and put it back to work and I do that, too some times. When I see lots and lots of rust & missing or broken parts maybe it is better to keep some other machine alive. SO what parts do I save??? I used to save the whole machine. In some cases I still do - especially if it is common with others that I mess around with. BUT space is hard to find. I save obvious things like slide plates, tension, bobbin area bits, bobbin winders, spool pins if there are any, motor, foot control, working wires, needlebar, needle bar thumb screw, pressure bar spring, pressure bar, what ever I think has something in common with another machine. I've been saving screws but I'm not sure that will do any good... We put things in little zip bags and mostly label the bags... Some we got confused, gggrrrrr. That is the best reason for leaving the machine in tact and then just robbing the parts and really easy to find the parts you want. I suspect these were machines just for robbing parts when the guy bought them in the first place. OH and not one case was in tact. I learn a lot by dis-assembling a machine. I think poor Wilbur was thinking we were crazy. We aren't fixing them we are taking it apart. Blew his little mind. He is sssoooo not allowed to take things apart. That gets him in big trouble. Next time he comes I think we need to take a usable tension and put it on a machine that has a bad one and see what he thinks.

OK. What is NOT a parts machine? I guess it would be one that can be made to work with out terrible expense or one of sentimental value or simply how much I love that machine or want to mess around with it and learn from the experience. I have made some hideous looking machines work and they turned out to be wonderful machines. Thanks to Glenn I can get some sort of finish on them and at least improve the looks. I'm not as good as he is - mine don't look new again. Grant is another one who can make a machine look really nice. I would say the cosmetics are a small worry and can be improved at some point. Are the insides all there? Are there broken parts? Are the replacements for the broken parts easily found? Are the insides rusted or just covered in dried oil? Is this something I can do? If I fail at fixing one up am I going to beat myself up? What about wiring and controls? There is info on QB about wiring & controls. Just ask J Miller. So maybe it boils down to how much time and expense can be put in on a machine vs how much the same parts can rescue another machine - either way I'd rather part one out than trash it... Well every now and then there are sledgehammer days....

Another option I would love is to take the worst of the worst machines all to Ray White's class and see what can be done with them. There is so much to learn. I guess if they don't get repaired they can be parted.