Sewsation

I am finally finished making manuals for some machines that were missing theirs. Hooray! I also printed a threading chart for one of my Kenmore machines. Since I have been unable to locate a manual (or copy of one) for the JCPenney 6501, I made it a leaflet/booklet consisting of a threading chart, a safety sheet, and a troubleshooting guide.

I always try to find original manuals, but sometimes doing so is a challenge. Then there are the hard copies of originals available for sale which often have pages that read one direction, but flip a different one. No, thank you.

Of the all of the manuals I have put together recently, and others in the past, I only paid to copy one. Unfortunately, each page had the website address of the company from whom I purchased the printing access.

From my experience, the printable copies online range from poor to medium quality because of the following:

1) pages crooked in images (copied tilted)

2) images contorted (copied curved)

3) debris copied in images

4) missing pages

5) images of pages in two directions, different from original

6) print going off pages

7) handwriting on images

8) blurred images

9) manual website-address printed on every page

10) narrow margins every other page

The narrow margins have been very common in the online manuals I have copied. One side of a page is usually okay, and the other has one margin which is too narrow to allow for any sort of binding. To correct this, I make copies of all of those pages, then re-copy these with a margin spacer in place. Using those corrected pages, I print the remaining pages to the reverse sides one-page-at-a-time, in case of printing issues, etc.

Next, I make covers and backs, trim all of the pages with a paper cutter, punch holes with a triple puncher, and tie together each book. So, depending on the quality of the printable online images, making one of these can take several hours. It is worth it. It makes me feel good to reunite these machines with decent manuals and accessories!