JoeJr

I picked this up this morning from a free craigslist ad, after having missed out on a free 66 red eye earlier this week; I guess this is my consolation prize.

I'm not sure what to think yet, but free is free, and it joins my other 2 crinkle finish Kenmores, a 117.552 and 117.812, although it looks nothing like them. I did find an older thread about crinkle finish machines and someone had a picture of one of these. If anyone knows when these were made I'd be interested to know, given the styling.

I will say that these Kenmore tables are tough, I actually had to give a good kick to wedge it into the back seat of my too small car. It was worse trying to get it out. The table looks the same but my car is worse. The table is actually tagged and numbered 117.3104. I will have to check the other Kenmore tables to see if they are also tagged.

juliasb

very nice looking machine! Have you tried it out yet? It looks like a nice consolation prize to me!

sewbizgirl

Awesome! What a tank!

JoeJr

No, it will be a few days before I can do that. The machine does not move easily with the drive wheel off the handwheel, so I need to give it a good cleaning first. The other 117s spin very freely with no drive wheel pressure, so I am assuming this ought to be close to those.

bkay

Janey posted this yesterday on a thread in the quilt section about the same question:

"Just some general info regarding dates and who manufactured Kenmore machines can be found at
http://www.searsarchives.com/history.../sewing_id.pdf
http://www.doubleveil.net/zssmp/resources.htm near the end of the page (includes some not shown at Sears Sewing Machine Manufacturer list addition )
Some manuals can be found at https://www.manualslib.com/brand/ken...g-machine.html

Janey - Neat people never make the exciting discoveries I do.
Not affiliated with off-site link(s)

ETA the searsarchives pdf is searchable (Ctrl+F) which is what I would suggest. For the most part it is in numerical order, but I have found some that are out of sequence."

bkay

JoeJr

Thanks for the links, these will keep me busy for a while, when I'm not hunched over the machine!

leonf

These have a nickname. Football Kenmores.I have one but have not tinkered with it yet.

JoeJr

I have the machine cleaned up, it spins freely, the motor spins freely when the drive wheel is not against the handwheel. The motor will move the machine most of the time, but sometimes it needs a little help to get it started.
Also, when removing the brush caps from the motor one broke and 1/2 of it was launched by the spring into unknown parts of the garage. I have a temporary fix, a cut down and threaded wire nut, but I don't think this will last.

Anyone have any ideas where to find a brush cap for one of these Kenmore motors?

JoeJr

And great links from bkay, especially the doubleveil.net. From the chart on one of the links the machine was only made in 1948. The table it came in definitely looks as though it's from the '40s.

Thanks again!

fattoo

What a tank of a machine! I picked up a kenmore 117.552 as a pandemic project, it's more faceted and is a beautiful slate blue (once I cleaned all the grime off). Does yours weigh, conservatively, Forty Pounds? because goodness my machine is heavy lol.