Thursday the 19th was 93°F, June 20th Denver hit 99° F, which tied a record high from 2017. Saturday the official high was 96.1°F, but was hotter in other areas of the front range. It was a little cooler on Sunday 91.9°F Then on Wednesday, June 25th, Aurora was hit with a major hail storm where Aurora crews hauled away 170 tons of hail and there was still piles of hail piled up an one of the Parkways 24 hours later.
Enough of the Denver metro weather. We have a short read this month.
Courtney
Courtney has a
very good friend that helped him by making a very small Willcox & Gibbs missing screw.
Dear All,
Most of my sewing machine time this month has been devoted to working on a couple of Willcox and Gibbs machine. The first machine is a very early machine from 1863. It was rusty and frozen up when I got it. I got off the major dirt and rust and a bit of kerosene got it moving again. So the next challenge was to see if it would sew. The machine is a slight bit out of time and the needle taps the spinning looper at the very bottom of a stroke. Unfortunately the nut which holds the machine timing is still stuck. I think I will be able to get it unstuck with time, kerosene, and Liquid Wrench. I was impatient though. So I took my Dremel and removed about a 16th of an inch from the top of a needle. When I tried to make it sew I was successful. This is not a good solution but it will buy me some time to let the Liquid Wrench do its thing.
My second project was to get the W&G machine I have been using at History Fest for the 4th graders working properly again. It is a very pretty machine from 1917 with all of its decals still nice and shiny. I bought it from a second hand store in Las Vegas, NM about 10 years ago. When I purchased it it was frozen up but Kerosene and Liquid Wrench quickly got it working again. I like to use it on a small treadle table I built that is open and easy for kids to see how it actually works. The pretty little machine on top of the little treadle makes a great demonstration for the school kids. At history fest last fall, all of a sudden it stopped sewing and just made rat’s nests under the needle plate. I tried everything to get it working again but it all failed so I had to replace the machine on the treadle. Fearing similar problems this spring I simply used another machine. I finally decided to track down the problem with the pretty little machine so it will be ready to go for next History Fest. The problem was the very tiny (a bit smaller than a grain of rice) set screw that holds the looper in position had fallen out. A trip to Ace Hardware was unsuccessful as they had no set screws small enough to fit. I contacted an old friend Bill, who knows much more about working with metal than I do. Bill helped me repair my Bernina 930 that I talked about a few months ago. We finally determined that the missing set screw was 1/8 inch in diameter or a #5 screw (a very unusual size) with about 44 threads per inch. Bill took it as a challenge and said that he would try and make a screw for my sewing machine on his 75 year old metal lathe. Over the next couple of days I looked on line and finally found what I think are the correct screws but before I could tell Bill he had sent me some pictures. The first shows the final screw. It is resting on a small metal ruler 1 inch in length. The second shows him cutting the slot in the small screw. (the screw is in the center of the picture on the left hand side) Finally, the third picture shows the screw inserted into a W&G shaft. Now all I have to do is put properly align the looper, lock it in place with the new set screw, and set the timing of the machine. Hopefully, next month I can give a brief (successful, I hope) final report. The last picture shows the pretty little machine in the small treadle table I built for it. It also shows the bright green belt I use so the kids can easily see it as I treadle.
I had to spend some time this week getting ready for one of my Featherweight workshops on Thursday. Ready to go now.
‘till next month,
Courtney
In Closing
That is all we have for this month. We will post again next month.