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Courtney continues

I can sit the Featherweight on the plywood base. I only need to disconnect the motor belt on the Featherweight; I do not need to remove the motor like I have seen on some other Featherweight hand crank modifications. The belt from the hand crank does have to be twisted to make the featherweight turn toward you (counterclockwise) when turning the hand crank clockwise. Since using a hand crank is not high speed it seems to work well. I used a neoprene belt and hooked it together with a W&G ferrule made from a Chicago nut. When done using the hand crank the featherweight can be removed, the Belt reattached, and it is ready to go again. No major modifications necessary.





The plywood base does not need to be quite as large as what I started with. It could be made much shorter. I think 11 ½ inches would be fine. The 8 inch width however is about the minimum and could be even a bit larger.
I was quite proud of how well things worked with the Featherweight, so I thought I would quickly try some other machines. A Singer 201 worked quite well with a twisted belt.



A Wheeler and Wilson worked out quite well. Since it turns clockwise, the belt does not need to be twisted. I will have to come up with some way to wind the bobbins, but that should not be too difficult. My W&W machine was “refurbished” with a Godzilla finish and an electric motor many years before I obtained the machine, and the bobbin winder wasn’t working as it was originally a Treadle machine. However, as I mentioned earlier one of the benefits of this hand crank is that the motor does not have to be removed as you can see in the pictures.



One quick note. I do like the neoprene belts. But for trying stuff out, I usually use inexpensive oxygen tubing held together with heavy duty staples. It is cheap and easy to quickly set up and try things out as shown in the pictures above of the 201 and W&W machine.

That’s it for this month!
Courtney Willis

PS The Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum is having their bi-annual men’s show through April 18th . It is a national juried show (international if you count one quilt from Ontario.) I am pleased to say my ‘After Picasso’ wall quilt was accepted!



In Closing

That is all for now. Hope that those hit with cold and snow are staying warm and dry. Spring will come, no matter what the prognosticators say.

Thank you Dianne and Courtney for your contributions.

Thank you for reading. See you next month.

OurWorkbench

Denver broke the record high for February 15th with a high of 68° February 24th Denver tied the high of 71° with 1981. Denver had 41 days at or above 60°F for the meteorological winter (December–February), Denver finished with its 2nd-warmest winter on record since 1933-1934. Denver had the second snowless February on record and first since 2009. February 2026 was also the third-hottest February on record in Denver.

A little late getting this out from usual. There is going to be an in person get-together on Saturday. We did get a couple of notes from members.

Leon
Leon, our member at large from Kansas, tells of a recent machine acquisition and giving hand crank demos.

Just checking in. Happened to be close to this Elna TSP last week. "doesn't work, needs electrical work". Cheap and came in a cabinet. We dragged it home and gave it some oil and cleaning. Light always works. Power randomly. I did get it to run for 15 minutes. Then nothing. I haven't taken the plug area apart yet. It may need a drop of solder. It is fun though. Oh our state museum finally opened up and we got to go do demos for our hand crank machines. Maybe 400 Kiddos tried them out. Greetings from Kansas. Stay safe. Leon and Iris.





Cheryl & Chris
Cheryl sent a note about Chris doing a rewire of a foot controller with notes on how he did it.

We had a little bit of sewing machine related activity lately. Chris noticed that the foot pedal on my 301 was looking sketchy so he did what he's done many many times before and rewired it. But this time he documented it. Here's a link with photos of the process and there are his comments with each photo describing what he did and why.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/ML2Mtp1hRNcNJ6Jw8

In Closing

As mentioned before we plan on meeting in person on Saturday so will probably have a part B next week.

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As mentioned last week some of us were able to get together in person. A few could not attend due to various reasons, such as car trouble, previous commitment and being out of state.

We met for lunch at Wrigley Chicago Bar and Grill that is not far from the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum. Courtney brought one of his Civil War Willcox & Gibbs machines, which according to https://ismacs.net/willcoxandgibbs/wg_dating.html dates it at 1863. He had another 3D printed hand wheel on it, this time in black.





We then went to the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum https://www.rmqm.org/ for the 2026 Men's Exhibit. There were 36 quilts in the Men's Exhibit. The Men's Exhibit is a biennial event. Courtney already has plans for the next one in two years.







In Closing

It sure was nice to be able to get together in person. Hopefully we will be able to have more in the future.

That's all for this month. Thank you for reading.

Farmhousesewer

I don't know anything about 3 D printing, but just joined Knox Makers, a membership group in which you can use all equipment of every kind, of course after training. 3D equipment included. Are there plans available to purchase or being shared in QB or in VSS? . Forgive me, I should have checked there first.

OurWorkbench

Sending a PM. I believe Courtney found the file for 3D printing online, but may have had a university student draft it.