Miriam and Cari... No offense taken here, in general I agree with you. Although in this scenario I felt it was indeed necessary to do a complete tear down. Yes, the front was clean except for the bight control, and the back seemed varnished with grime similar to the one shown in Miriam's posts, but on the underside and internally it was even filthier. Then under the grime I found rust and stripped pieces as if someone in the past had used a cleaning solution that ate through the chrome and paint, then bathed it in gunky oil for a year before leaving it to sit untouched thereafter. As stuck as the screws and piece parts were, I'm amazed it hand turned as well as it did before I started peeling it apart. The 22 page rebuild thread gave me the confidence to do so. I'm considering it the part 2 that Miriam mentioned was never gotten to. And yes, I took pictures along the way and stored pieces parts with their screws in separate zip lock bags so our cats wouldn't bat the parts around or get lost. There only a few small pieces that I'm NOT positive where they go since they fell out during the process. I will post pictures in a part 2 thread once I'm done. I took photos with my android phone which for some reason will not upload, so at the end I'll import them into Adobe Photoshop and export as .jpg format all at once.
Currently I've decided to leave the grease pot and hand wheel mount as is, they are the only two pieces I've not been able to separate from the head. My next step will be to use a wet aluminum foil technique to dissolve the last bits of stubborn rust and oil "varnish" on the piece parts before wax polishing for reassembly. Beyond that, since I've gone this far, I'm toying with the idea of repainting with Rust-oleum spray paint/primer because the bight control and under arm have bare metal spots, and there are pin pricks and scratches along the nose, arm base, and bed rim, as well as rough spots under the existing paint job around the hand wheel and power terminal mounting areas.
Yup I've committed myself to a long term project. I'll likely do it in tandem with my treadled White FR machine that I left dismantled for repainting, and which is another WIP at the same stage this Singer 319 is.