Anneg, thank you for your blog post. I will check out the Groz Beckert needles, that is helpful. I did put the singer 12 needle in and it works great, I just put it in all the way it would go so don't really know if it has a stop or not, didn't look. I know that area is very narrow where the needle goes, someone mentioned I could make that groove bigger if I needed to, something to think about. The manual did say the eye faced front so that was a good thing. I did not know that TS machines the needle faced the front. Thank you. They leave a lot of things out in those manuals, maybe they didn't really know all that much back then about machines.
Someone asked how old the machine is, I don't know, I thought perhaps 20-30's just by guess.
Also that is the bobbin winder that came with the machine because it is the same in the manual and it is a diff color in the manual as well, so I just assumed they were attached before leaving the factory. Maybe they had a ton of them made up or something and then just put them on machines. Who knows, just know it is this way in the manual. My machine also has the stitch regulator behind where the bobbin winder is and the bobbin winder is attached to the bed by a screw in that hole by the edge. A bit different than the other hand crank posted. The machine does have made in Germany stamped into it.
I am loving all the information, thank you all.
Originally Posted by
anneg
I'm the owner of 'this blog' mentioned in an earlier post. The needles I use in my Singer 12 are a Groz-Beckert size 80/12 DBx1 - note they do not fit all Singer 12 as they have a larger shank than the original 12 needle made by Singer. The Groz-Beckert I believe have a smaller shank than some other DBx1 needles.
Your machine looks lovely and very like the German Vesta TS machines I have. My German TS machines take the normal modern needle 15x1 so it would be worth a try - does your machine have a needle stop at all? If not you will need to adjust the height of the eye to just the right place to get a perfect stitch.
Also you need to remember with any round shank needle you need to orient the eye in the correct direction - for a TS machine it needs to face the front.