cfegles

Hello, I’ve joined hoping someone can help me gather information on a cool old antique sewing machine that my husband bought me. It’s in a “featherweight” type tan colored case. The machine inside has, (what I’ve discovered is called) a Brown Crinkle Finish. Name on front of machine is Eldredge it’s a Model D & other identifying info / National Sewing Machine Company Belvidere, ILL USA
II0V - 90 - AC or DC
with GREIST attachments . . . . . mostly I want to find out the year made, and of course any other details would be great to know too.
PS I’ve tried to attach a photo, but not having any luck

OurWorkbench

Welcome to Quilting Board.

Here is a link to some National rotary machines. A few are brown crinkle finish. http://www.needlebar.org/main/national/index2.html

By any chance, does it have a motor in front? I think this page may have some information about your machine. http://www.doubleveil.net/zssmp/national-d.htm

I'm fairly certain that your machine was made to use 20x1 sewing machines needles. Many have dropped a 15x1 needle down a bit. There is Sometimes you can find 20x1 needles on eBay. Many have used the modern needles on machines like this by dropping the needle a bit from the stop. Someone, on another forum (titled "15x1 rather than 20x1 needles"), used a sheet magnet cut to fit inside the needle bar in order to have the 15x1 needle stop at the proper position.

We like pictures. In order to post pictures on Quilting Board, you will probably need to reduce or compress the picture to a file size that is smaller than 2MB. How to post images can be found at https://www.quiltingboard.com/attach...020-01-17-.pdf
Don't forget to scroll over to the far right to find and click on the "Upload" button.

I have found that only the big red "Reply" button or "Quote" work to give me the paper clip icon to work for adding pictures.
https://www.quiltingboard.com/attach...p-location.jpg

Some additional info regarding reducing images at post #4 and images for the scroll and upload button can be found at #5 of quilt block ID?

Another way to post pictures can be found at 2021/2022, 2.5” Birthday Swap

Or simply - Make sure pictures are smaller than 2MB
Click on red "Reply" button
Click on the paper clip icon
Click browse - choose picture/s. (only 5 allowed per post)
Once they show up as being loaded, Scroll over to the right side and click on "Upload"
After the pictures show up as being attached, you can close that window and go back to the screen to finish posting your post.

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

cfegles

Janey, thanks so much for all the great help & with great tips too! The picture of the Eldredge that you sent looks to be the same as mine. I’m especially hoping to find out the date made and of course now that I’m thinking about it, a manual would be great too!! All the needle tips will come in handy! Now I’m going to try following your tips about adding photos. Again, thank you very much, chris in Oregon

OurWorkbench

There is a manual for that machine at the top of the page on http://www.doubleveil.net/zssmp/national-d.htm It looks like the green one is dated 1935 (from the Needlebar site), so my guess would be that yours is prior to that. Unfortunately, I believe that it will be difficult to actually date National machines. I know that some people have tried to collect data of various manufacturers based on paperwork that have come with the machines or advertisements found.

I would also suggest that you be careful when you try to sew with your machine. I worked on a machine that all sources I could find at the time said that it should take 20x1 needles, but I found a lot of broken needle tips while cleaning it. I found that I could use 15x1 needles. I have no idea if it was altered somehow in its lifetime to take the 15x1 or if all my sources were incorrect.

I sure hope you can get some pictures posted of this machine. If you read down through doubleveil's site he has only seen a very few of them.

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

cfegles

Here's the Eldredge machine that I was asking about. Boy did I had the hardest time adding this jpg. file and i'm not even certain this photo will appear by itself or if it will show up with the last couple of emails of this thread. Keeping my fingers crossed, chris

1.41

Possible that someone lowered the needle bar a bit. That's one way that people try to get these machines to use 15x1 needles. If that was done and then someone tried a 20x1, that might account for the broken needles.