Finding vintage machine resources
 

This thread will provide a place to list sources for parts and information on repairing vintage machines, and how to search for information on the Internet.
Please note that this isn't somewhere to advertise or exchange parts or machines and this would be a breach of QB rules.

As a start, if you have a 201, model 15, 66 or 99 you should check out the tfsr (tools for self reliance) website for their repair manual series.

ISMACS is the sewing machine collectors society. They have a lot of information about sewing machines, mainly Singers. If you need to look up a serial number or a model number, it is a very useful resource.

People ask for that info nearly every day.

I find that in addition to those, for Research (grain of salt), I like Sewalot and Sewmuse

For older parts Helen Howes - (if this is too commercial/advertisement, let me know)

This forum is the biggest resource I know. Not necessarily for parts, but certainly the knowledge of where to find them.
I'll plug Sew-Classic.com for many of the more commonly needed replacement parts.
Singerco.com is good for free downloadable Singer manuals.
Don't overlook the manufacturers that are still around. Many are excellent resources for dating your machines. I'm surprised at how many still have their old records.
Rodney

Singer 206, 306, 319 resources
 

If you have a 319, here is a pull down and rebuild guide from Miriam. Very picture heavy.
Here's another thread started by Great White who had just acquired a 319.

If you have a 320, 319, 306 or 206, do not use ordinary domestic (15x1, 2020, 705) needles. They are too long and may strike the bobbin case when using heavier fabric. The latter three machines use different bobbin cases. The 306 and 319 look almost identical but they are different in many ways. The 319 and 320 use the same bobbin case.

Looking for a manual?
319K manual from Singer
306 manual from Singer
206 manual from Singer
206K25 manual from Singer

Singer is quite generous with manuals for their older machines and allows free downloads provided they have it as a pdf. These are printable yourself or they can send you one for a fee (type the model number into their search page).

There is also a repair manual:
http://parts.singerco.com/IPsvcManuals/306W25.pdf

Can this thread be given a sticky? I got a vintage singer a couple of months back and will finall have time next week to give her some attention. I know that I will have lots of questions as she's my first vintage machine and this thread looks like a thread that people like me will be looking for all the time. Seems "sticky"-material to me. :-) Whaddaya say everyone else and admins?

P.S. Until then I'll just bookmark it...but later visitors might not find it. Just a thought! :-)

It's going to be. Just waiting for the admin to do it.

There are a lot of stickies now - we may need a sticky for "The best of QB Antique and Vintage Sewing Machines" and have it set up for just moderators to post what gets nominated or voted in. Just a thought - there are a lot of really good threads on QB that need to be found again and again but too many stickies and it will get hard to see the threads. I believe the info for working on machines was suppose to be covered in that sticky we put up with the cleaning video a couple years ago. But then again maybe something like that could go into "The best of QB Antique and Vintage Sewing Machines" thread.

For Japanese machines, we also use
http://www.quiltingboard.com/picture...p-t164361.html
and
http://www.quiltingboard.com/vintage...s-t207880.html
and
http://www.quiltingboard.com/vintage...s-t207880.html

This is old but it comes up on occasion:
http://www.quiltingboard.com/vintage...t-t174236.html - I'm sure there could be 40 more links tagged on to that one if someone wanted to take the time.

This comes up and I think there are an assortment of other threads on the same topic - I'm not sure where they all are: http://www.quiltingboard.com/main-f1...s-t160607.html

Arctic has a lot of real nice trouble shooting and repair info on her blog. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzFX...AyBQ2l-Mzkw7ew video on re-assembling a tension

Muv has a lot of info on the long bobbin on her blog page. There are links to that on the sticky with her cleaning info.

There is a whole lot more info on here that is harder to find. The search comes up with way too much selection to narrow down what a person needs some times.

The information Glenn has posted about caring for the finish on the old machines should be on the sticky as well:
http://www.quiltingboard.com/vintage...ts-t97670.html
http://www.quiltingboard.com/vintage...s-t193635.html
http://www.quiltingboard.com/vintage...r-t235747.html
http://www.quiltingboard.com/tutoria...s-t109859.html

A lot of times you can search google to find just about as much information/videos as your pea brain can hold on to. It is not difficult to search and find good information.

Other things that comes up almost daily are how do I find a manual for XXX machine? How old is my machine? What is my machine worth? Is this too much to pay for XXX machine? A lot of time is spent by QB members answering those questions daily. A lot of space is taken up by those same questions almost daily. For information, Google is your friend... I almost think if there is a new sticky about anything nobody will read it anyway.

More good threads:
http://www.quiltingboard.com/vintage...y-t236275.html
and
http://www.quiltingboard.com/vintage...s-t243276.html

I don't think I could begin to come up with all of the really good threads on my own in one sitting.

woohoo! thanks!

Fuzzykittenbutt! Your name makes me giggle. :-)

*giggle* *Snort* How did you know we got snow AGAIN today? ;)

I guessed since it is unseasonably cold here... you do have a good blog... snicker.

Packing a vintage machine
 

Was started by SteveH information on packing a machine to send it by post.

Google Search info...
 

30 second primer......


Google crawls the web reading and logging as much as it can about the various websites it finds. EVERY word.


When you do a search it compares that search to it's database of info. It is not actually "looking all over the web" when you search, it is just looking in it's database.


If I say search for sites with "all about me" (without the quotes) It will find the database records with the most "matches" to each individual word in the search. NOT in that order or even together. So the above search term would find the page in it's database with the highest count of the words "me" "about" and "all". a lot of people give computers more credit than they deserve. For example, in the above search, the computer has no "understanding" of the term "me". If i wanted to really do that search I would type the phrase (about "Steve Heeter") without the parentheses. the quotes tell the system to look for EXACTLY what is in between the quotes IN THAT ORDER AND CASE.


There is a LOT more that can be done to make searches "smarter" like putting a + in front of word that says this word is more important that the others and MUST be on the site for it to be shown, whereas without it is only gets as close a match as it can. You can use a - symbol to say find sites without this word... i.e. Sewing machine resources -Singer would give a reply that is less Singer oriented that without the -Singer part.


Definitely not as simple as some folks think.


Getting replies is the EASY part, weeding out the unwanted replies is the tricky part.


One last note. the first few replies are usually paid sponsored replies so look over the whole first page of results before clicking on the links

These are 2 of my favorites:
http://mysewingmachineobsession.blogspot.it/
http://vssmb.blogspot.ca/

Also worth noting is that Bing sometimes gets different results than Google does and sometimes they're relevant with less of the advertising stuff. The same rules that Steve posted should work on Bing as well.

For instance: Searching for Singer Factory St Jean sur Richelieu in each search engine:

http://www.bing.com/search?q=Singer+...ZI&form=MOZSBR
https://www.google.ca/search?q=Singe...+sur+Richelieu

Sorry Montreal is on the brain as it looks like I'm headed there at the end of the month for 3 days. I was hoping to pop by the site of the plant but it looks like there's no point. It's condos now. :(

Narrowing down your Google search to match a web site
 

You can tell Google to only show you results from a particular site or sites.

For example, here is how I showed my students this afternoon how to search for info on store cards and narrow it down to only include Australian web sites:

"store cards" site:.au

This means search for the string in that order and only with a space in between, the site: bit means only show results for web sites that end in .au

If you want to search using Google but only search QB, you'd add "site:www.quiltingboard.com". The possibilities extend to anything in between. For Aus Gov't sites "site:.gov.au" etc.

Told the students (VCAL numeracy) it was probably the most useful thing they would ever learn in my subject :thumbup:

Hey Mike! That's a good tip, I like that one (I always forget to use it though for some reason, so thanks for helping me rediscover it!) but it can be a little pollution high. If you search for a particular topic on a site, you may find hundreds of hits returned for what amounts to roughly a half dozen pages that have lots of tags. That said, it IS nice to have to wade through this kind of pollution rather than the completely irrelevant stuff. :)

ex. I think there are about 8 relevant posts on tension on my,... er... Arctic's blog...;)
if I search tension on the site:
https://www.google.ca/search?q=tensi...haicarcane.com
I get 170 hits.

There are 98 posts on the site in total.

ETA: OK, my search says that there are 37 posts with the word tension in them... apparently there's a little stress in my life? ;)

Hi arctic :p (Miriam has started something), I see why pages have been returned multiple times. A page with the word is listed with every other tag you've had on the page with it. E.g.
www.archaicarcane.com/tag/403a/, www.archaicarcane.com/tag/slantomatic/ and www.archaicarcane.com/tag/tips/
(not the only three times it comes up). So you don't get your statistics right, but you'll easily find the right articles :thumbup:

That's what I was mentioning about tags. Tags, categories all of it would "clutter" up the results, but at least they're relevant. :)

Tried your tip Mike to locate a resource for Domestic serial numbers. It worked great but no resources that I could see on the QB. Thanks for the tip though.


Does anyone have a resource for these serial numbers?

OK, computer geeks .... just teasing ..... I have been all over the files I have, Google, and I still need a source for parts such as bobbin hook parts, screws, and other small darn near impossible to find pieces.

Not doing so great as your "code lines" are like reading trigonometry to me. 1+1=2 is my speed, past that and I'm losted.

Joe

If you're looking for a "supplier", sewingpartsonline has a lot of stuff listed, more than Jenny does. Though be warned, their listing are not always correct, so use your judgement.

If you're looking for part numbers, as far as the Singer machines, the parts charts I sent you should manage a lot of it (for those who don't have the charts, here are the charts I sent to Joe and more: http://www.brewersewing.com/BQSS_Consumer/b2bsewing.asp)...

The rest comes down to developing your Google-Foo. No real other way around it unfortunately.

I've pretty much been able to find any part I've needed on ebay or Bonanza...even hard-to-find, obscure parts. If they're not listed today, it seems that they will be within a couple weeks.

Up until a couple years ago, there was a great old Singer shop near here. It had been in business for over 50 years & he repaired all brands.They had any part for any brand of machine that you could imagine....& a huge room full of parts machines. I'd bring tools & he'd just turn me loose in the place! He never charged over $1-$2 a part. Well, he retired & a lady nearby bought out the shop. Prices are WAY up & she didn't keep much that wasn't Singer.

for fun

Go to the EBay Germany site and use this search term "Antike Nähmaschine" (antique sewing machine)

WOW!!! The machines that are hiding over there.... Need a "boat trip" for all of the ones I'd want!!!

I don't have any tips at the moment, at least none that haven't already been mentioned...I'll have to think about this one. But, I really want to thank everyone for getting this sticky started. Great idea!

~ Cindy

I was trying to find tip and tricks but for people trying to polish rusted "chrome" parts this might help http://www.robertscycle.com/chrome-clean.html
I will be trying this on some feet I acquired.

Sewing machine manuals
 

Pointer to a useful thread on sewing machine manuals

This web site from Schmetz needles is all about needles and very informative.
http://www.schmetzneedles.com/all-ab....knWSeMD4.dpbs

Have you ever had an OLD sewing machine case that you cannot find the barrel key for? Like a German machine?

I have more than once now...

I got a great Pfaff TS convertable treadle/portable in the most beautiful case... with no key.... locked.

and then again when I got to the Kinetic Carnivale this last weekend and had a person close the lid on my Anker/Hengstenberg with the key sitting on the bed... (German cases frequently auto-lock when closed)

So, I made this "key". The trick is to get it vertically past the mid divider and under the pin that should go in a real key. When that is done you can turn the key clockwise and it will lever against the mid divider and push on the striker release. click...

This has worked on the two above machines and on my Frister & Rossman that I got in trade from Cathy(Mizkaki) but with no key..

[ATTACH=CONFIG]487404[/ATTACH]

The wire is not special, i just had it laying around, it is NOT spring or hard steel.
Just Orchard Supply Hardware 12ga wire

I think Houdini used a key like that for his escapes.

I don't believe super members can have folks banned at will. I don't believe super members can do anything that a regular member with a single post can do.

really????

I think what Mike was trying to tell you is that this particular thread(conversation spot) was started for people to post resources, not for general convos or asking questions. If you start a new thread by clicking the big blue button that says"start new thread"( or something like that) and asking your questions, you're sure to get whatever info someone has.

Cari

You know why you were banned before and it wasn't for asking a question, as I told you, so please stop crying and lying to everyone. You said one thing in public and were threatening and extremely insulting in private.
Now I'm going to have to quote you so everyone has all the facts:

"manicmike take a breath and shut up keep your rude comments to yourself."

"I will not put up with you trying to be bossy with me you are a nobody..cause oldman I will tell you to go f*** yourself"

I expect you to be banned again because you broke the rules again in starting another account after you were banned for breaking the rules on antisocial behaviour.
You never accepted that you did the wrong thing or expressed any remorse.
Lastly, you sent me another nasty PM where you signed it with your first alter ego.

I expect also that your flooding this useful thread with your poison should be removed: You are also preventing others from finding vintage resources. Do you not consider the consequences of what you do on other people?
I was never, ever rude. I asked you to please not ask questions on a specific machine a sticky thread. It's obvious even with a cursory read of the posts how this thing works, and I was forced to explain the obvious to you. You responded with a rant about how rude I am and what you're going to do if I don't shut up. Honestly, as they say in my country of origin "catch yourself on" (reflect on your behaviour).

Cams for vintage machines
 

Link to Rodney's cam thread. Got a cam you want to share?

Wow, looks like I missed something here.
As far as Christopher's question about super members goes. You get to be one by talking a lot. It comes with the benefits of talking a lot and not much more. We're not granted super powers with the title. ;)

I talk a lot but am nowhere near being an expert on any of these machines. I just enjoy being here where I can share and learn. Forums like this are only as good as the people on them. Fortunately there are a lot of good people here.

Thanks for the link Mike. I'm hoping that thread will grow into something useful for us all.
Rodney