Cams for 401a
 

To all of the knowledgeable friends on this board:


I have a 401a and also have a lot of cams for a 600, 602, 628 Touch and Sew. Are they interchangeable with my 401a?

Thanks in advance!

Lee,

The black top hat cams are interchangeable between the 401a and the other machines you listed. The white cams will not work in the 401a.
The 401 has most of the stitches built in that come on the cams. I think cam #s 1-5 came with the machine originally. Many of the others duplicate the built in cams.

Joe

Thank you, Joe!

I knew you would know. I have many sets but I am missing Cam #17 in all of the sets. I don't know why? Do you know?

Not sure why they're "hard to find" but there are several on ebay right now. I had one...sold it on the Stitchers Guild forum along with several other cams/accessories a while back. If there's an OSMG close by, you might try there. Mine retired a while back but when the shop was still open, he had huge boxes of Singer cams that he was selling for $1 each. That's probably where I got mine....

Thank You, path49, I will check with my OSMG.

The following is from one of the Yahoo groups. Like Joe, I assume(d) the cams are(were) specific. Has anyone experimented?

"All slant needle Singers except the 301 and 404 use “fashion discs” to produce decorative and utility stitches. The 403 and 503 could sew nothing but a straight stitch without the use of a cam, the other ma- chines had a stack of cams built in and used the drop-in cams for additional stitches. A new machine usually came with 4 or 5 cams and 15 more were available. Unless you are into decorative embroidery, you don't need them for sewing, except for the fun of having them. The black plastic discs are called “top hat” cams by collectors because of their color and shape. The disks vary the stitch width to form the decorative stitch. The black top hat cams from the 401, 403, 500, 503, 600 and later Touch & Sew models are all interchangeable. The later Touch & Sews also utilized a two-layer cam to produce addi- tional stitches. One layer of the cam controlled stitch width while the second layer controlled forward/ reverse motion. These cams are a lighter color, usually beige and cannot be used in the earlier slant nee- dle machines. You can pick up Touch & Sew discs cheap because Touch & Sews are not collectible, then throw away the box and pop them into your 401. No one will know the difference."

Thank you! Very interesting, & good information.

link: http://www.quiltingboard.com/main-f1...s-t160607.html

Love your quote at the bottom of your post screen. May I steal it and share it with my quilting group, Tehachapi Loose Threads?

Tehachap, Miriam does not frequent this site on a regular basis anymore. If she started the thread, she gets an automatic notice that there is a post and she replies. Since she didn't start this post, she doesn't get that notification.

PM her, she will reply, I'm sure.
bk