Hi Janey, et al,
OK I switched here but had no idea this thread was here.
I saw an ebay listing for a type H instead of a type J. The person claimed H was heavy duty. I don't know about that.
Type J is unknown to me. These are not Japanese made clones or knockoffs of Singers.
The finish comes in crinkle green and crinkle brown. Now, that's called wrinkle finish paint and is vintage WWII military finish when black in the military or scienctific instruments of the 1950's.
I bought another green machine yesterday. It looks like the paint was 'sunburned' and the green skin is peeling off. I bought it for parts and it is a mess.
I can't get that later rubber pulley off yet and it could take five days of liquid wrench for that. My first one came off and there were TWO holes drilled into the motor shaft. You can move the entire pulley further out, use that other set screw location just fine, and get onto smooth rubber that was never used. The flat spots are from not using the bobbin swing arm when stored over long periods. You can get half the flat area depth to release but it's never like new. Just move the pulley over. New ones have no bobbin winder extension like the originals.
Does anyone know if you can take anew one and remove the rubber and transfer it to the old shaft and bobbin winder extension? Anyone done that with a new Janome pulley?
Why would you buy a treadle type bobbin in 1952-1953? I have a hard time with the date code for that period but the paint shouts 1940's to 1950s. The paint on that bar above the bobbin winder make appears to be factory original crinkle brown finish. It looks to me like a motor engagement lever when viewed from the side.
My manual links were not prefect but she needs to start somewhere and that was my point there.
I still would like to know what the cast iron base plate says underneath in the casting. If it says "LLB 201-2" then it is from about 1953, IMHO, and with my limited knowledge of two machines and surfing for Free Westinghouse, New Home, Elgin, Eldredge and 10 other names; and buying parts off a black 1937 Elgin Rotary.
If you look at the starting serial numbers in the Janome database, you see the same starting serial numbers for different lettered machines. The message is, "We didn't keep track of the various name plates pinned on the front arm location." My one machine is outside the starting date for a LLC! So, they were running one brand name one day and another the next but the serial numbers were consecutive and nothing was recorded as to the actual name plate brand. My two green LLCs are close in LLC serial numbers but with New Home on one and Free Westinghouse on the other. That's just my opinion looking at the database numbers and name plates.
In another post I said my new green flaking machine could not sew in reverse. Incorrect, I think. It moves the feed dog in reverse but there is no way for me to try sewing on this ..... trashed green LLC machine. The gears are trashed I think and it was never greased on the worm gears like my first LLC.
HTH,
Stefan