I found a couple things on the Smithsonian site about Weed. When I had searched before I found
http://www.sil.si.edu/DigitalCollect...20Machine%20Co. which doesn't list any html pages. Thanks to a fellow QB'er I found
http://www.sil.si.edu/DigitalCollect...hine%20Company
Not much but a couple of specific pages -
http://www.sil.si.edu/DigitalCollect...ges/image1.htm It says it can not be run backwards. I know I had read about a machine that did that and when I saw :
[ATTACH=CONFIG]536735[/ATTACH]
I figured that must be the device that would prevent the wheel from going the wrong direction. Should it have some sort of "tire" around that oblong piece, similar to a bobbin winder tire? While it is noisier going the wrong direction, it does not actually prevent it from going the wrong direction.
On the left side of
http://www.sil.si.edu/DigitalCollect...ges/image3.htm it tells of the things that would have come with the machine. Further down it also lists additional attachments that could be ordered. Something that caught my eye was the "needle setter" that would have come with the machine. That lead me to a couple of patents -- 34807 by Bartlett and 94667 by Hoadley assigned to Weed. Has anybody ever actually seen one? Probably they are all long gone. They probably would be handy to have and why they were supplied with the machine.
Janey - Neat people never make the exciting discoveries I do.