ThayerRags

I parted out a couple of parts machines in the past couple of days. A National Graybar Reversew Rex and a Free Westinghouse Model CE. Parts of one went to Oregon and parts of the other went to Minnesota. Hopefully those parts will arrive safely and help the owners get their machines repaired and back into service.

CD in Oklahoma

oldsewnsew

yes CD and thanks so much! Anyone who hasn't already done so, should check out his eonderful website! A great museum of pics and IDs of vintage machines

wilburness

have a machine from a co-worker. singer 290C. that doesn't want to run smoothly. It was given to her with a good luck. I found a manual online. took off the top and it looks good. dry dry dry, needs a good oiling. question. it has plastic stacking cams inside with plastic gears below. I need to get the old grease off and put on some new. in the first pic you can see the stacking cams with the grease underneath. the second is the top of the cam. can I take off the C clamp.... and then the cam will come off. or do I need to take off the C clamp and the screws. I'm too much of a newbie to this and I do not need something going BOING and I can not get it back together.
any help will be appreciated!

ArchaicArcane

OK, take this with a grain of salt, because a 290C was my first machine. I got it new when I was 10, and we hated each other. (It didn't help that I asked for a bike for my birthday... I digress.) I also finally learned to sew (properly) on that machine, 25 years later.

It's a relatively solid machine, if a little persnickety about that wind-in place bobbin, but I was told by the OSingerSMG I used to use before they moved away to be a Singer Warranty repair facility "down east" that even if I worked on vintage machines that I shouldn't take this one apart, because even he might not be able to get it back together if I "tweaked" anything wrong.

Because of all the stuff that moves when you change modes, etc, I'd probably forgo removing the cam stack and clean the best you can around it. Without the service manual for it, it may be a challenge to time the cam stack, and that machine is a little finicky as it is about the various stitches, so I wouldn't tempt it.

I bet the "dry dry dry needs a good oiling" will help you out more than anything.

Mine never froze up. I had it serviced once as an adult about a year before I sold it, and it was regularly in for service while it was on warranty (back in 84ish), and I used it -maybe- once a year as an adult.

Sorry, I really hate to discourage people from fixing machines, but this is a close relative to a Touch and Swear.... and as much or more plastic than I've seen in a T&S. It has the bad features of the T&S machines, and few of the good. (There were good features of the T&S machines?? )

wilburness

Tammi, I went ahead and cleaned the gear and cams with a q-tip(s). now I see that there is a crack in the bottom gear. the crack is almost right in the middle of the pic on the bottom gear. do you think it is repairable? it was given to my co-worker with a good luck!
if not repairable. can I learn by pulling it apart?

wilburness

OH Tammi, I forgot to thank you for all the info. I am learning about these "Touch and Swear". lol

SteveH

Caveat: I know next to NOTHING about newer machines (made after 1901)

Most nylon gears cannot be "glued". More than likely that gear is a press to fit and if it cracked to the center there is no epoxy or superglue that I am aware of that could hold it together when installed.

Rodney

I'd leave the gear alone and clean and oil the machine to the best of my abilities. That may help enough that the gear may not actually be a major issue. If the gear is the source of the problem then I don't have a good answer. If the gear is even available, labor at a shop would probably cost more than the machine is worth. The problem seems to be common with all plastic geared machines. One of the reasons why a lot of the people here avoid them.
Touch & Sews aren't all bad. The daughter and I are having a lot of fun with ours.
Rodney

ArchaicArcane

I'm so glad you didn't go further before you found that. At this point, I'd say you could use it to learn from, but a lot of the "features" in that machine are more complex that they needed to be or would be in a lot of machines we would normally take on as "Vintage" machines. You may learn from it, but I find I learn more from getting a machine back together in working form than I do from taking it apart, if that makes any sense at all?

I would probably salvage for parts myself. The gear is likely not replaceable (discontinued) or if it is, it's a lot of work, even if you do the work yourself, and you'd want to have a service manual for it to time the cam after you replaced the gear. Honestly, the gear and the manual would be worth more than the machine, especially because if the one gear cracked, I'd be wondering how many others were thinking of cracking too. How many plastic gears are there below?

If you do want to take it on, I've attached the parts chart (freely available from Singer's site)

My pleasure

Rodney is right, sometimes the cam gear doesn't affect too much. I had a Brother Galaxie 221 that sewed just fine with its broken gear.

The machine may straight stitch just fine, but the other thing that happens when the gear splits is that the teeth are further apart at that spot and sometimes the other gear (that meshes with this one) will peel the gear right off the spindle. That's what the Bernina Record 730 I had here did. It looks like it's peeling an orange.

True, some of the very early T&S machines even had metal gears. That self winding bobbin and it's persnickity-ness (<- I think I just made that word up) is what makes me nuts. Nothing like the mess created when it winds under the bobbin and binds up the hook.

wilburness

I packed it back up and will take it back. The more I looked at all those plastic gears... I said no way. Thanks for all the insight on it. I did finish cleaning and oiling. it still runs sluggish and vibrates. something is out of wack.
Thank you for all suggestions.
Karen