I purchased 3 vintage sewing machines for at grand total of $40 this weekend. So far sewing machine repair has become a little addicting.
I did my first attempt at servicing a sewing machine and it actually went really well. I took apart and cleaned and lubricated everything recommended in the British lady's video on how to service a Singer machine. I also polished all of the shiny metal parts on the machine and changed the belt with a Singer universal fit belt. I also lubricated the machine per the Spartan manual. I discovered that I needed a new tension spring and a new spring for the cover to the bobbin case. One trip to Singer Online and $15 later I have replacement parts plus 5 bobbins and a set of the recommended needles coming in the mail in a few days.
The Spartan is actually really easy to work on. I didn't have any metal polish but I improvised with silver polish for the shiny metal parts. I cleaned the painted surfaces with a little sewing machine oil on a rag.
Now to figure out how to replace the motor in the late 1960's model Kenmore that I was given yesterday
I have to be honest, I sewed a little on the 1960's Japanese model that I bought yesterday and it actually performs better than my $225 (on sale) Janome New Home 8050. It was a little bit of a learning curve figuring out how to use the bobbin winder and thread the machine without a manual but for my first experience with a vintage machine it went really well.
I told my husband that the freebie Kenmore was a heavy duty model and he is really excited for me to fix it so I can repair his favorite pair of Carhartt coveralls. I might be able to do it with the vintage Japanese model because it has a 1.3 amp motor but I need to run some test material through.
This all started with a random trip to a pawn shop on Saturday so my husband could look at guns and 48 hours later I have three vintage sewing machines from different sellers. I had talked about going to school for sewing machine repair after graduate school but it looks like I am doing most of my learning on my own through trial and error.