Scraping the junk off worked out good for this machine. I was NOT worried about keeping decals. The finish was horrible from the start. It didn't take real long to scrape it off once I made that decision. I cleaned and French Polished the original shellac on the arm and pillar. I used something plastic to scrape old shellac and was careful not to gouge into the black stuff under the shellac. Next time I would do it over a garbage can out doors and stand with the wind blowing away from me. Wear protective eye cover. Cover the bobbin area and then use some air. After I scraped it I thought it didn't look very good. When I put some linseed oil on it it really looked a lot better. I went ahead and French Polished it. I may just simply do some more FP later on to give it more depth. There are a couple places that don't look great. Those may get touched up some time in warm weather. BUT the shellac is enough to protect the machine and I can now sew on it. While the Singer 99s are kind of cute this has a lot of visibility and would make a nice one to learn to sew on. I am betting it would make a very nice treadle or be a nice one for HC sewing. This IS a do it yourself type way to restore an older machine. Yes it is worth bother. Probably not ever a profitable venture though. I could have saved a ton of time by scraping the finish off from the start. You never know with FP how it will go. I've had some turn out really very nice. I guess there is something about painting these machines purple.... ew...
Last edited by miriam; 03-01-2015 at 04:48 PM.